I did'nt expect the Hartke to sound so good. The Specradrive drive sounded too dirty for my taste but it probably can be adjusted via Toneprint. Anyway, by what it's shown here, Hartke wins for me.
I got the SpectraDrive, the distortion is really good and doesn't lose any low end and the compressor on this preamp does an amazing job. Also when I use my headphones with it without any amp the sound is amazing. 10/10 would recommend it.
I have the Spectadrive and I can assure that you can make not that muddy, using the same eq config. You have the toneprint option that you can config via your phone or pc. For real, in my opinion, in this video, the Spectadrive is not well demonstrated . Edit: The Hartke sound is really good too! When I was looking for a preamp pedal with DI, those were my two options. I choose the TC one beacuse the toneprint option, comprension and I found a second hand one with really good price + the Hartke was really hard to find in European stores. Hartke is a really good bass amp brand. I used to play one of their amps and has a beautifull clean tone
I have the Hartke BassAttack 2 for some months now, and I am truly satisfied with its tone shaping capabilities. I bought it on Ebay, as at that time, it wasn´t available on Sweetwater, GC or other “big” online music stores. Saw a review video on youtube (you can barely find them, sadly) for the Hartke DI, and was instantly sold. I have a Franken P bass and a Jazz bass and I switch between the Hartke Bass Attack 2 and my Eden WTDI. Love them both, but love the mid frequency shaping on the Hartke. It is truly an overseen gem and a great piece of equipment, IMHO. It should be selling so much more, sadly it isn´t. Actually, I was considering the TC Spectra Drive at some point, but given the current economic situation, I Will have to put in on hold, at least for now. I was considering it mainly because it has low mid and high mid controls, but really, I just love the way my Bass Attack sounds. Another neat feature would be the aux in, as well as the headphones out. But, I just love my Hartke, so I am pretty satisfied with it and this video confirms that! So, my vote is for the Hartke!!
The Spectradrive has some nice features, and sounds really good. The Hartke sounds smoother, and more pleasing to me. Based on this video alone, my money would go to Hartke.
I don't care about overdrive all that much, but it should be noted that the Spectradrive at 9/12/3 had the tubedrive on at 3pm so was always going to be dirtier. The gain stage on the spectradrive is an input trim, which the Hartke doesn't have.
So many reports about tc electronics tone print but no one reports about the small but significant drawback. The strong differences in volume. This is a blocker for live applications. My practical experience has been with several products. Bass amps BH500, BG250-210, BG250-115 first generation, BH250 and pedals Spectracomp, Sub'n'up, Helix phaser as well as the Spectradrive pedal which is similar in se8nem construction to the amps. The one-button solution is simple but limited. If I set the desired amount of compression, I cannot compensate for the level increase; if I set the volume of the distorted Spectradrive sound, I have no influence on the amount of distortion. This is not noticeable with Sub'n'Up and Helix, which have more than one knob. Don't get me wrong. The idea behind TonePrint is clever, the Customer Presets are exciting, the application is simple, the possibilities via App on the PC near inexhaustible. - - But only for the studio. Live it does not work. I have discovered great sounds with the Pectracomp. But as soon as I turn off the pedal, the volume is too low. So the pedal has to stay on all the time. But what to do if I want different compressor settings for individual songs? Does not work, end off, bad luck. For live use better invest in many pedals or a digital multi-effect. For the latter, I'm thrilled with Zoom. Since the B1 over B3 to my current B5n. Robust, useful sounds (unlike Boss) and affordable.
My vote for TC, not based on this test but in the real life (this is my 5th pre amp and I think is the definitive one), Hartke is surprisingly good, if I didn't knew TC capabilitys I'd favor it in many of the comparisons. In most of the settings you left the spectracomp pointing noon, wich means this three band compressor is affecting all the other parameters, this is an awesome compressor but at this setting is starting to squash it all. For a more fair comparison, you should have let it off in most of the settings, IMHO
SpectraDrive sounds better, more versatile and more "open". I never tested a hartke bass Attack to be fair but it seems huge and fragile, I've tried the SpectraDrive and it is nice. The SpectraDrive is great build quality and the sounds of the EQ are really good and not too aggressive. About the drive - toneprint thing, is not great but you can find something to sound descent for any kind of music. + the Spectracomp + the Bonafide Buffer inside I think is the easy winner here.
Very hard to say...! I'm going to choose SpectraDrive on this one because you can actually tweak the sound of it on your PC to match the Hartke one. Something the other one can't do. So SpectraDrive for its versatility.
Please use the "Palmer Pocket Amp Bass" in one of your comparisons. I don't know how good it sounds but, it's specs are very interesting! Greetings from Portugal! Edit: I have the Spectra Drive and I'm not very impressed with the drive sounds it delivers... The rest of the features are very good.
Honestly, I can't say I liked either one, but if for some odd reason I had to play a gig with one of them I think I would choose the Hartke. For one it is simpler and two I liked the just slightly over driven tone from the Hartke towards the end of the video. Seems to me like the SpectraDrive went from clean to various degrees of obnoxiousness with nothing in between, or maybe that was just how it was demonstrated, but there really wasn't one single sound I heard on that SpectraDrive in this video that I liked.
Hartke's features seems to be better executed since you got what you got with the drive sound. Spectradrive's toneprint is like having abundance of pedals at once, thus being more flexible as a standalone unit, so my vote goes to specrtadrive...although battle, due to toneprint capabilites which are really hard to compete with, seem to be bit unfair
This one is tough. clean tone the HArtke is best. Overdrive the TC electric. I'm going to give the Win to the SpectraDrive only because it includes a compressor. but it is very clear these pedals cator to two different types of players.
I play Hartke!!! But all my pedals are TC, so im conflicted. There is the tone print option for TC. Gives you a multitude of tones to pick from. I dont think TC was well represented.
This is strange for me because the hartke sounds better here, however I owned the attack 2 and now the spectradrive. I'm much happier with the spectradrive. I think 90% of the tone prints are garbage to my ears, but the more natural tones are awesome. Theres also no blend or mix knob, which should've been the tube drive knob. The eq sounds better in person than here. The compressor is awesome. It has auxiliary in and headphones in, so it's perfect for private practicing. Overall, the hartke attack2 sounds great, but doesn't have all these features. I believe the spectradrive actually sounds better than what this video showed.
SD won, More you can adjust, the more tones you can achieve. With the tone print it's endless. Because you can make your own tone prints. Dont get me wrong Hartke is my amp company. Love them. Great pedal. but i personally like the SD more.
every other demo ive seen on the Hartke had me down on it, but it sounded useful here. loved the what seemed to be an eq switch on the hartke. the drive on the tc was WAY too much for me. im going with hartke on this..
TLDR , TC for clean , Hartke for distorted . it's a draw I guess. I have the TC. I would say that it has some good features , such as the spectra comp , a good transformer DI, AUX in headphone out , good tone shaping with the EQ etc. However, the drive section is quite bad. I reckon they tried to cover a lot of space and ended up below expectation. Most of the toneprints seem rather over the top and unusable, perhaps with the exception of a 2 or 3 which just boost your signal. \even with a cab seem on a lot of those drive toneprints seem harsh and brittle. On the other hand the Hartke has a better / more natural sounding distortion despite having less features.
Yes it's been to long. I started to think you bailed on these. SO glad you didn't. I love the Hartke stuff, but not there builds. Does it feel cheap or like it's going to fall apart internally? Because I love the tone. The TC looks fun, I do like their options. Good stuff. I think I like the Hartke better. But great stuff. 2 completely different boxes. Cheers! Thank you so much for not scrapping this battle. Can't wait for more
I was surprised by the build quality of the Hartke...in a bad way. It doesn’t feel as sturdy as most pedals. Like I said before, the next episode will be in July, then it’s all smooth sailing from there.
The Bass Channel thanks for the response. I'm so bummed that Hartke uses such cheap components. I have a Hartke 7000, against my brothers suggestion, I just loved the sound, features and the power, but he was right... It feels like it's falling apart whenever I turn it on. I would love to find someone that could upgrade all the components. I don't know how Billy Sheehan toured with them. Anyway, thank you for being awesome.
I don't like overdrive on bass. And don't you lose it in the mix anyway? I have the spectradrive. The eq mids section is useful, and the compressor feels good. Check out the Toneprint options with your phone. I use it as a recording Di at home.
![TEEDEE TADA - DIAMOND NARAKORN X LEGO LYKN [Special Dance Performance]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QgtZedFeumA/mqdefault.jpg)
Where did the rest of this series go? I was really looking forward to checking out a bunch of preamps in an easy side-by-side comparison!
I did'nt expect the Hartke to sound so good. The Specradrive drive sounded too dirty for my taste but it probably can be adjusted via Toneprint. Anyway, by what it's shown here, Hartke wins for me.
I got the SpectraDrive, the distortion is really good and doesn't lose any low end and the compressor on this preamp does an amazing job.
Also when I use my headphones with it without any amp the sound is amazing.
10/10 would recommend it.
I have the Spectadrive and I can assure that you can make not that muddy, using the same eq config. You have the toneprint option that you can config via your phone or pc. For real, in my opinion, in this video, the Spectadrive is not well demonstrated
.
Edit: The Hartke sound is really good too! When I was looking for a preamp pedal with DI, those were my two options. I choose the TC one beacuse the toneprint option, comprension and I found a second hand one with really good price + the Hartke was really hard to find in European stores. Hartke is a really good bass amp brand. I used to play one of their amps and has a beautifull clean tone
Hartke for its analog tone
I'm going with Hartke on this one.
Great review! The built in headphone amp on the spectradrive is also a nice feature.
Awesome clip.\m/ I personally like the hartke bass attack 2 the most. The overdrive channel sounds cool. And the eq controls sounded nice too.
I swear by TC electronics but from what you guys have showed me I like the hartke better especially when it came to the drive features
I have the Hartke BassAttack 2 for some months now, and I am truly satisfied with its tone shaping
capabilities. I bought it on Ebay, as at that time, it wasn´t available on Sweetwater, GC or other “big” online music stores. Saw a review video on youtube (you can barely find them, sadly) for the Hartke DI, and was instantly sold. I have a Franken P bass and a Jazz bass and I switch between the Hartke Bass Attack 2 and my Eden WTDI. Love them both, but love the mid frequency shaping on the Hartke.
It is truly an overseen gem and a great piece of equipment, IMHO. It should be selling so much more, sadly
it isn´t. Actually, I was considering the TC Spectra Drive at some point, but given the current economic situation, I Will have to put in on hold, at least for now. I was considering it mainly because it has low mid and high mid controls, but really, I just love the way my Bass Attack sounds. Another neat feature would be the aux in, as well as the headphones out. But, I just love my Hartke, so I am pretty satisfied with it and this video confirms that!
So, my vote is for the Hartke!!
Does it have compression
It’s a shame this series got cancelled. I was looking forward to discovering the winner!
Gotta go with the Hartke. Better all around functionality. Seamless parameters when adjusting.
Can't wait to hear the winner for 2021
BASS player here, if i'd need one, i'd go for HARTKE. Remember the aluminium speaker??
The spectradrive Is really cool and the toneprint Is fantastic.
Spectradrive all day. With the options the toneprints provide you can find the exact tone you want. You get what you get with other pedals.
The Spectradrive has some nice features, and sounds really good. The Hartke sounds smoother, and more pleasing to me. Based on this video alone, my money would go to Hartke.
The Fedora had a crap load of string buzz. Nice slapping going on here in this vid. Thanks dude!!!
Hartke totally won this one. Sounded way more organic than any of the tone prints.
Surprisingly Hartke won for me. More natural smooth drive.
I don't care about overdrive all that much, but it should be noted that the Spectradrive at 9/12/3 had the tubedrive on at 3pm so was always going to be dirtier. The gain stage on the spectradrive is an input trim, which the Hartke doesn't have.
So many reports about tc electronics tone print but no one reports about the small but significant drawback. The strong differences in volume. This is a blocker for live applications. My practical experience has been with several products. Bass amps BH500, BG250-210, BG250-115 first generation, BH250 and pedals Spectracomp, Sub'n'up, Helix phaser as well as the Spectradrive pedal which is similar in se8nem construction to the amps. The one-button solution is simple but limited. If I set the desired amount of compression, I cannot compensate for the level increase; if I set the volume of the distorted Spectradrive sound, I have no influence on the amount of distortion. This is not noticeable with Sub'n'Up and Helix, which have more than one knob. Don't get me wrong. The idea behind TonePrint is clever, the Customer Presets are exciting, the application is simple, the possibilities via App on the PC near inexhaustible. - - But only for the studio. Live it does not work. I have discovered great sounds with the Pectracomp. But as soon as I turn off the pedal, the volume is too low. So the pedal has to stay on all the time. But what to do if I want different compressor settings for individual songs? Does not work, end off, bad luck. For live use better invest in many pedals or a digital multi-effect. For the latter, I'm thrilled with Zoom. Since the B1 over B3 to my current B5n. Robust, useful sounds (unlike Boss) and affordable.
My vote for TC, not based on this test but in the real life (this is my 5th pre amp and I think is the definitive one), Hartke is surprisingly good, if I didn't knew TC capabilitys I'd favor it in many of the comparisons. In most of the settings you left the spectracomp pointing noon, wich means this three band compressor is affecting all the other parameters, this is an awesome compressor but at this setting is starting to squash it all. For a more fair comparison, you should have let it off in most of the settings, IMHO
SpectraDrive sounds better, more versatile and more "open".
I never tested a hartke bass Attack to be fair but it seems huge and fragile, I've tried the SpectraDrive and it is nice.
The SpectraDrive is great build quality and the sounds of the EQ are really good and not too aggressive.
About the drive - toneprint thing, is not great but you can find something to sound descent for any kind of music. + the Spectracomp + the Bonafide Buffer inside I think is the easy winner here.
Very hard to say...! I'm going to choose SpectraDrive on this one because you can actually tweak the sound of it on your PC to match the Hartke one. Something the other one can't do. So SpectraDrive for its versatility.
Please use the "Palmer Pocket Amp Bass" in one of your comparisons. I don't know how good it sounds but, it's specs are very interesting!
Greetings from Portugal!
Edit: I have the Spectra Drive and I'm not very impressed with the drive sounds it delivers... The rest of the features are very good.
I had the bass attack 2 and i was really disappointed with it, the bass attack v1 sounds way better, ended up selling the v2 and my v1 is a keeper
I'm surprised, didn't expect liking the Hartke (way) more.
Hartke won for me because of the drive and the range knob
The Hartke absolutely shits all over the Tc.
Honestly, I can't say I liked either one, but if for some odd reason I had to play a gig with one of them I think I would choose the Hartke. For one it is simpler and two I liked the just slightly over driven tone from the Hartke towards the end of the video. Seems to me like the SpectraDrive went from clean to various degrees of obnoxiousness with nothing in between, or maybe that was just how it was demonstrated, but there really wasn't one single sound I heard on that SpectraDrive in this video that I liked.
Hartke's features seems to be better executed since you got what you got with the drive sound. Spectradrive's toneprint is like having abundance of pedals at once, thus being more flexible as a standalone unit, so my vote goes to specrtadrive...although battle, due to toneprint capabilites which are really hard to compete with, seem to be bit unfair
This one is tough. clean tone the HArtke is best. Overdrive the TC electric. I'm going to give the Win to the SpectraDrive only because it includes a compressor. but it is very clear these pedals cator to two different types of players.
Man that hartke pre sounds great! Their previous version is kinda ok, but this definitely sounds better.
for me hartke wins, for being more natural and having control of the medium frequencies, the spectradrive has a very digital drive and I don't like it
I play Hartke!!! But all my pedals are TC, so im conflicted. There is the tone print option for TC. Gives you a multitude of tones to pick from. I dont think TC was well represented.
This is strange for me because the hartke sounds better here, however I owned the attack 2 and now the spectradrive. I'm much happier with the spectradrive.
I think 90% of the tone prints are garbage to my ears, but the more natural tones are awesome. Theres also no blend or mix knob, which should've been the tube drive knob.
The eq sounds better in person than here. The compressor is awesome. It has auxiliary in and headphones in, so it's perfect for private practicing.
Overall, the hartke attack2 sounds great, but doesn't have all these features. I believe the spectradrive actually sounds better than what this video showed.
Hartke FTW in this shoot out.
I feel like doing a shootout w the radial tone bone would've been a better shootout comparison wise. always solid videos though guys
I think Harke sounds better on clean but Spectra seems more powerful! Luv that Precision T-shirt !
Hartke for me!
SD won, More you can adjust, the more tones you can achieve. With the tone print it's endless. Because you can make your own tone prints. Dont get me wrong Hartke is my amp company. Love them. Great pedal. but i personally like the SD more.
every other demo ive seen on the Hartke had me down on it, but it sounded useful here. loved the what seemed to be an eq switch on the hartke. the drive on the tc was WAY too much for me. im going with hartke on this..
For sheer versatility... Spectradrive.
Hartke. The TC sounds more focused, but I am missing depth of tone the Hartke has.
TLDR , TC for clean , Hartke for distorted . it's a draw I guess.
I have the TC. I would say that it has some good features , such as the spectra comp , a good transformer DI, AUX in headphone out , good tone shaping with the EQ etc.
However, the drive section is quite bad. I reckon they tried to cover a lot of space and ended up below expectation. Most of the toneprints seem rather over the top and unusable, perhaps with the exception of a 2 or 3 which just boost your signal. \even with a cab seem on a lot of those drive toneprints seem harsh and brittle.
On the other hand the Hartke has a better / more natural sounding distortion despite having less features.
Hartke hands down for me.
The Hartke was way more musical, has more real-world tone shaping choices and overall sounded better.
Yes it's been to long. I started to think you bailed on these. SO glad you didn't. I love the Hartke stuff, but not there builds. Does it feel cheap or like it's going to fall apart internally? Because I love the tone. The TC looks fun, I do like their options. Good stuff. I think I like the Hartke better. But great stuff. 2 completely different boxes. Cheers! Thank you so much for not scrapping this battle. Can't wait for more
I was surprised by the build quality of the Hartke...in a bad way. It doesn’t feel as sturdy as most pedals. Like I said before, the next episode will be in July, then it’s all smooth sailing from there.
The Bass Channel thanks for the response. I'm so bummed that Hartke uses such cheap components. I have a Hartke 7000, against my brothers suggestion, I just loved the sound, features and the power, but he was right... It feels like it's falling apart whenever I turn it on. I would love to find someone that could upgrade all the components. I don't know how Billy Sheehan toured with them. Anyway, thank you for being awesome.
The hartke is blowing tc out the water. The dirty sound is so superior its crazy.
love this pedal! :D cool review
hartke! :D
I don't like overdrive on bass. And don't you lose it in the mix anyway? I have the spectradrive. The eq mids section is useful, and the compressor feels good. Check out the Toneprint options with your phone. I use it as a recording Di at home.
OD on bass helps the tone to cut through the mix (a lot) better :) Especially if your drummer is hard hitting
are you going to re-do all the DarkGlass Ultra pedals without BOTH SIDES engaged ?
No, because turning the blend control all the way to the left is the same as turning the other switch off and we showcased those tones as well.
@@TheBassChannel guess mine just has a great clean EQ. 🤷♂️
Hartke sorprendentemente
Thanks a lot!
Spectradrive won!
Bass Attack 2 wins.
Hartke is winner IMHO!
Tc spectra drive for me.
Hartke all day bby
Hartke won this one for me
Hartke!
That Harkte sounds amazing!
The Spectra Drive just has so many possibilities. No can defend against.
Hey gang...lets look at another distortion device!
Hartke!!!!
Sansamp bass tech 21 😁👍
Spectra have more versatility and Comp knob.
Hartke
Tc won!!
SpectraDrive by a mile for low-end colonoscopy applications. The Hartke sounded nice, But I love my SD.
Spectradrive
hartke
If you have ears, Tc sounds like sh...
Ugly, but the Hartke takes it for the distortion sound. In my opinion.
When did looks count when it comes to pedal performance?
@@trance9158 It doesn't which is why I still give my vote to it even though I don't like the look of it.
tc fart drive.....
hartke