I plug straight in. No external preamp, except whatever is provided in the Fishman Loudbox artist (like Glenn pointed out). With Stickup. Sounds great to me.

I wouldn't mind experimenting with a Step-A-Bout someday, should I stumble upon a good deal, preferably in Canada (tall order, I know).

But to answer the question of your post title...Answer: no

Given that it’s a fishman, I would guess the input stage has a pretty high impedance capability , so no pressing need for a pre amp.


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Hmmmmm. Not sure I agree with that. I think we need to make sure we define "preamp".

People happily running their Sticks into combo amps will frequently listen to discussions of items like the StepAbout and start wondering "hmmm ... maybe I need a preamp". Like I said before though, if you're running into a guitar and/or bass and/or keyboard combo amp, you already have one. If you run through a StepAbout and then run from there into (for example) a Fishman Loudbox, you will be preamping twice which doesn't necessarily hurt anything but is unnecessary and likely means that your new favorite tone isn't the tone of the StepAbout but is, instead, the tone of the StepAbout and Fishman combined.

So the notion of not using a preamp at all would generally mean that you're plugging your Stick directly into a powered speaker or power amp directly. Can you do that? Yes but it probably doesn't sound ideal and provides no additional tone shaping for you at all.

I think the real question is ... do you need a dedicated preamp like a StepAbout and to that question the answer is no.

Fair enough. Perhaps an answer to an altered version of the question:

(Separate) Preamp: absolutely required?
Answer: Yes...unless you use a combo amp (with built-in preamp) and you like it.

The discussion needs to also address those using or intending to use an amp modeler, like an Eleven Rack or a HX Stomp. My conclusion in reading several of these discussions seems to be that as with a combo amp, no pre-amp should be necessary with an amp modeler. I could still be incorrect in that, but it would seem from my experience that an amp modeler-cum-powered cab is functionally similar to a combo amp alone.

Again, that's my understanding and may be incorrect.

No you are correct. I was trying not to muddy the waters too much by mixing a hardware and software setup. But yes ... an amp modeler is a preamp. It's just software. That goes for DAW amp modelers as well as the old Boss multi-effects units, the Line6 units, and other units of their ilk.

As I mentioned before, my setup goes Stick -> outboard preamp -> DAW but could easily just go Stick -> DAW. I just happen to prefer the overall tone I get with my outboard preamp units and so I keep all the amp modeling on my computer turned off (most of the time but that's for another discussion).

Bottom line. There's always a preamp in the mix somewhere.