Behringer BDI21 V-Tone Bass Driver DI Pedal

It's well-built with good-quality plastic. The button feels a bit fragile, but you just need to be careful.It's incredible how much this little box improves your sound for what you pay. It's the best deal I've seen online. Don't think twice, buy it!

I purchased it to use as a pre-amp for my bass guitar, as the guitar itself didn't seem to put out enough signal to be adequate for my amplifier. Not only did it provide the extra boost I wanted, it has a couple of settings for more or less bass and a few other simple adjustments. I purchased the bass version (this one) and also the regular model. Both work well. They do use batteries, and I am trying to find cables so I can hook them to the power out on my amplifier...

I tried this inexpensive pedal not expecting much because of the price but it delivered the goods. It claims to have amp modeling but I didn't see that. The drive is good but you have to crank it up past 3 o'clock to really notice a difference. The Direct In feature worked well.Well worth the price of admission. While the other bass distortion pedals might sound better, they also have a price tag that's four times this one.

I’m going to start of saying I’m a huge tone chaser so this pedal being super affordable made me buy it on a whim (I’m very impulsive about musical purchases) however I didn’t expect much out of it but I couldn’t have been more wrong the added power it put into my sound was unlike anything I’ve ever heard and the tube amp sound I can get is amazing (as I’m too poor to buy a tube bass amp) and I already had a bunch of 9volt power supply cables around my house so that was pretty easy to handle as well as the fact that like a man I tossed the instructions so ease of use was a big thing I mean I’m a teen in high school and I was able to figure out what everything does on it and another great thing is that it is the same size as my music man case pouch so the size is perfect if you don’t have a pedal board and you’re traveling amazing build quality too I was surprised when I picked it up that it had some weight to it I was expecting it to be made of plastic or cheap metal but it really feels like it was built with the musician in mind and it’s so versatile too I was able to get punk sounds out of it I was able to get funk,jazz,pop,etc everything the versatility is incredible especially for such a small pedal I will say i will definitely be purchasing from behringer again.

IMPORTANT: The Blend knob only works with the DI (XLR) output going into a PA or interface. If you plug this pedal from the 1/4" output directly into an amp and turn up the Blend, you will get a lot of noise because it creates an impedance mismatch. If you plug directly into an amp you have to keep the Blend all the way down. If you're new to DI boxes you may not know this. The user manual doesn't mention it. Your pedal is not defective if this happens.This is a great pedal because you can adjust your tone, it's an active DI box with ground lift, and the price is great. Even when it's in bypass mode the DI is active. There is no on/off switch.

I was setting up a rig to practice with my son in the basement. Usually for regular gigs I just go straight into the board with my Warwick Corvette bass and the sound man is usually able to tweak the EQ and get a good sound. It helps to have quality bass.For this particular application I was needing to run my bass through a standard powered speaker that has limited EQ adjustments. I plug into this and able to get a much better sound even with my Dean practice bass. For my needs it works great, though it may not be professional grade. For $30 bucks I can definitely recommend!

Maybe it is just my unit but it stopped working and the battery operation never did work. It seems rather cheap now that I’ve owned it awhile

I will preface what I am about to type by saying that although I have been playing bass for 17 years, I am realtively new to audio engineering and digital recording, so please forgive any techncial innacuracies.Just got the BDI 21,and have learned that does quite a lot for small box at minimal cost.The amp emulation capabilities are subtle, but you can get just enough tube compression to take the edge off and get a fairly tight, smooth, and controlled sound (with just enough growl when needed). Nothing amazing here, but it does the trick.What the description does not mention is that the BDI21 also works as a signal splitter. There are two outputs (balanced XLR and unbalanced 1/4" line out), and they can work simultaneously with no noticable signal loss (even in bypass mode). I use it to send a nice clean signal to the audio interface/mixer using the balanced XLR output, and another signal to a dedicated bass amp using the 1/4" (to be used as a personal monitor). I can add whatever effect pedals I want to the monitor line and still send a clean signal to the DAW. It would be worth the $30 if this was its only function, but the BDI21 does a lot more.The BDI21 does work as preamp, but it is not an especially powerful preamp unless you crank the drive knob. This is actually a good thing, as most XLR inputs on mixers and audio interfaces have a built in preamp. If BDI21 preamp were very powerful, you would get a lot of extraneous noise by doubling up on preamps. The BDI21 XLR output going into a mixer or audio interface XLR input with built-in preamp generates no noticable extra noise, and is ideal for recording. The signal is crystal clear. I get a much cleaner signal this way than going 1/4" direct from the passive p-bass into the preamped 1/4" instrument input on the audio interface (true in both amp modeling and bypass mode). Any extra noise generated by going through 2 preamps is way more than compensated by the balanced XLR.I'm not saying the BDI21 does not work as a preamp at all. It does boost the signal just enough to use the 1/4" line level inputs on a mixer/audio interface. When you use the 1/4" out of the BDI21 into the line-level inputs on the mixer/audio interface, the signal level is relatively low, and there is tons of overhead (it is almost clip-proof; also ideal for recording). You get a litte more noise in this configuration, but much less chance of clipping when you are whaling on the low E, so it is a fair trade. If you are going to slap and pop or play very volume-dynamic music, this is a good way to go. You can always boost the signal in the DAW when mixing the recording (or crank the gain on the PA when playing live).All in all, a very cool little box. The amp modulation is nothing to write home about, but it is pretty good, and all the other amazing features more than compensate for any shortcomings in that department. For $32, there is no reason not to have this little guy in your bag of tricks.