I don’t love dealing with bass amps in the studio, and often prefer to run the bass guitar direct. However, many engineers and artists disagree with that approach and prefer to mic up an amp. To that end, we have a vintage Ampeg SVT head at Panoramic Studios for folks who want to use an amp for bass. But the beast seems to need repair every 18 months or so, and it weighs a ton. It died again recently, and I think I’m gonna just sell it now that we have this new Useful Arts BF-700 bass amp, preamp, and DI that is purpose-designed for the studio. Both the tone and functionality of this amp have me not missing the Ampeg at all. And, while I can barely lift the SVT with both arms (while risking injury to myself), thanks to the little handles on the front of the BF-700 I can actually pick it up with one finger! Sure, I love vintage gear to a point, but there is so much current gear that builds on some of the best technology of the past combined with the advantages of newer technology; that’s exactly where the BF-700 lands.
Let’s start with functionality. The BF-700’s front panel has a 1/4-inch instrument Input and Thru, plus an EFX Send and Return. Five rotary knobs control Volume, Color, Bass, Treble, and EFX level. Eight small switches enable things like Hi-Gain mode, a HPF (high-pass filter), the EQ, Color, EFX, and a ground lift. One switch is worth mentioning separately: The standby (STBY): This allows you to practice a track with the band in the room, then switch to standby mode (which turns off the speaker outputs), put on your headphones, and track with no bleed, feeding your recorder from the balanced DI output on the back of the BF-700. There are also jacks for power amp input and four speaker outputs on the back of the unit (two 1/4-inch and two Speakon connectors). We did an album over the summer with the Brooklyn band, Slow Fiction, and this feature came in handy as they tracked direct and then re-amped all the bass tracks near the end of the session with almost no re-patching! The key point here is that the BF-700 can be used as an amp, a high end DI, or both, covering almost any scenario very easily.
The BF-700 is a tube driven circuit with two ECC82s (12AU7s) and one EF86. The EF86 is for the Color control, while the other tubes handle impedance conversion, EQ, and drive for the internal Cinemag transformer. The front end is very similar to Useful Arts BF-S PRO DI [Tape Op #141], but with the added Color circuit, which I found really pleasing. Like that review, I’m very impressed with the tone of the BF-700. I initially used the amp at home as a DI with my Fender Jazz Bass. I was very happy with the sound of the BF-700 circuit and would compare it favorably to my four favorite tube DIs: The Tonecraft Audio 363 [#103], Eclair Engineering’s Evil Twin Model 90 [#24], plus the Summit Audio MPC-100A [#21] and ECS-410 [#73]. The EQ and Color circuit on the BF-700 really set the Useful Arts apart, though. Both features add a lot of depth and girth to the bass, and I pretty much left them on all the time with the Color at about 50 percent and the Bass EQ boosted between 40 to 50 percent. Between the Bass EQ boost and the Color, I felt like I could really dial in the bottom end of the bass. I did not use the Treble EQ boost at all, but if you’re going for a brighter tone you would likely find it helpful. The BF-700 is super quiet in all modes, no random noise or crackles here, just nice tube tones that will record well and be easy to capture, whether using the preamp/DI or using the amp circuit. The other nice thing about the BF-700 is that even though it has a powerful 700-watt power amp, its tube preamp/DI is ideal for recording. In other words, it sounds good in the studio without having to turn it up so loud that the windows are shaking and the snares won’t stop rattling, but you can also take it to your gig after the session is done! I don’t think we’ve needed the Hi Gain mode yet, but it’s there if extra volume is needed.
I’m stoked on BF-700, and I feel like it adds a lot of flexibility to our studio. We’ve had several visiting engineers and players use it both as a bass amp and a DI over the last few months; the feedback has been universally positive, and I’ve been converted by this amp. Whereas I used to somewhat discourage musicians from using our old Ampeg head, I now leave the Useful Arts head out in the studio and point it out to new clients. If you’re looking for an excellent-sounding, versatile bass amp for studio usage, I highly recommend the BF-700.