Well I've had her for a few days now, here are my initial impressions.

My plan was to eliminate both my preamps and just use the SA in order to decrease the size/weight of my rig.

I injured my left elbow rakeing last fall "tendonitis" has set in and won't go away. I don’t feel it when i'm playing stick (til i'm done) but i cant play upright at all and the pain is always with me.

Let me also say that I have an INCREDIBLE sound with my current rig which is basically sp13/swr through bag end cabs, unreal sound.

so the first thing i did was A/B the sounds of my pres versus the stepabout. The sound was close but there was a lot more power using my old pres. the rane and swr are just louder. the tone was equal on both, really just a taste thing I prefer presence of the swr on the bass side, that was until I tried using the stepabout as a frontend pre going into my other pres.

OH MY WORD. I THOUGHT MY SOUND WAS GREAT, BUT IT IS NOW MUCH BETTER!!!!

WOW, The Stepabout really adds beef and depth as well as crispness and warmth while I can retain the swr mid tones. I find that I can set my swr where i like it and really use the box to get some GREAT tone alterations.

So here is the bottomline for me. I feel that my rig has improved A LOT, AND now I have a box which I can bring with me to any studio or jam where My sound will be great through almost anything.

As a last aside in April I am humbly beginning a collaboration with a well known grammy nominated major label artist (I'll give more details if things work out). He has his own studio and we will be working from there most of the time. I don't know if the collaboration will work out, but I do know that the StepABout will be the one piece of gear I will bring to our first get together.

So thanks Greg, for now I will keep my rig as is ( i have divided it up int 2 smaller parts) and use the stepabout as my front-end. I will use it on my first gig this Friday I'll let you all know how it goes

Brett

Congratulations Brett !
Hear what you say about the tonal possibilities... (also evident on Greg's vid - almost like a parametric eq... )
Man, I have got to get one of these things - (still working on it) - would love to see some photos of your whole rig if you get time to post any...

Derek

I recently made the jump to the StepAbout as well. I was using a setup similar to what Brett described although a while back I shelved the SP 13 and had been using the acoustic amp sim in my VF-1 to preamp the melody side. I've had the StepAbout for around 3-4 weeks now and it is my only source of preamp. So the amp sims in the VF-1 are turned off and I am bypassing the the preamp of my SWR head.

So far I've been really really pleased with the overall sound. I also didn't think that I would use any of the routing options so my original intent was to set it up on top of my rig. But I quickly began to find uses for the switches so it has moved up and under my feet. Personally I find it very similar sounding to the SWR preamp but allows me to preamp both sides. I finally gigged with it the other night to and it worked out really well. Lastly ... both my Grand Stick and my Alto are Stickup equipped and they both sound equally wonderful through the current setup.

I updated my "rig" page a week or so ago with new picks and updated cabling diagrams. You can check it out at http://www.detroitstick.com/gear/rig

Wow. just wow.

The StepABout is certainly impressive, but I'm rather shocked that the pricetag is pretty much glossed over in all these threads.

$775.

For a preamp.

Seriously?

That must be some sound.

I mean, for $300 you can get the rather excellent RE PZ-Pre which, arguably, is just as versatile - though a 2nd post EQ output would require an XLR.

If you have to, get 2 and you're still less expensive than the StepABout.

No one else is shocked at this pricetag?

lol

Actually, it really is "some sound". And I don't blame you for being skeptical, since you haven't heard how different it really is, but the people who are writing about the tone of the StepABout have been trying their instruments through other kinds of gear for years. So they know.

Ever since I started playing the Stick I've looked for better and better preamps. Because I'm not trying to duplicate an electric guitar and bass sound, but rather create a more expansive full-range sound, the choices of what to plug into become more important. If you want to create a sound that is more like an electric guitar or bass, then use guitar amps and modellers to get that sound, they are readily available.

But for a big, fat, dynamic full-range sound with clear articulated highs and no hiss, here are the things that make the difference.

1. Input impedance.
For a full-range passive pickup, like the Stickup, the input impedance makes a big difference. Normal instrument level inputs are usually 1 MegOhm, which is too low, so the pickups highs don't come through without boosting. The input impedance in the RE PZ-Pre is very high (10 MegOhms) which would make for a sound that was too "crispy, crunchy". This was why for the Rane SP-13 the input impedance was lowered from a comparably high level on the AP13 (similar to what the RE PZ-Pre has, and which is more appropriate for piezo transducers found in acoustic pickups).

2. EQ points.
EQ bands on the StepABout are different from the standard BassXX preamp frequencies. The treble eq functions like no other eq I've ever seen, boosting with a peak instead of a shelf, but cutting with a shelf. This is great for bringing out the articulation of the strings tapping to the frets without adding a lot of harsh treble frequencies above that point.

3. Dynamic range
The StepAbout has a very low noise floor and very high dynamic range. I'm sure the RE PZ-Pre is a great preamp, but I've never heard any preamp or eq that was as quiet, not even the Rane, excpet in much more expensive rackmount units.

$775 isn't cheap, but the unit doesn't sound cheap either. You could put together any two eq pedals with three ABY switches and have the same "function" as the StepABout, but would it sound as good? no. and it would definitely be noisier to boot.

So for $775 you get two great preamps and a unique routing matrix. I paid more than that 10 years ago for my Focusrite Green preamp/EQ and that was only one channel, and the StepABout sounds better for the Stickup.

If you don't need pre-amps that are this good, then you should definitely not bother spending the money.

If you have an instrument with active pickups, like the NS/Stick or the ACTV-2, then you also already have mono capability, so maybe you wouldn't benefit that much from these preamps or the routing matrix. I really had the Stickup in mind when I had this unit made, and with that pickup, the sound really is that good.

How's that for hard sell

And if you haven't checked out the demo video on the SE site, the sound is much better with the Quicktime video than on YouTube:

http://www.stick.com/accessories/stepabout/

Thanks for the healthy skepticism. It's okay by me.

Hey Greg,

My SG12 will have the PASV4 pickup. Would this module benefit from the StepAbout at all? It sounds like the P4 has a very high output level on its own. This will be my first experience with the P4, so I just wanted to know what your thoughts are on this.

Tnx Greg. Very hard sell; but very informative as usual. Just trying to properly separate actual audio high quality claim from fanboy raving, lol.

Hmm. I'm getting the ACTV-2s anyway, so perhaps that's where my doubt comes from, lol.

But if you're into passives + uber clean/no effects playing than this seems like the way to go.

Hi Matt,

The PASV-4 has such a variety of tones onboard, and it already has a mono switch, so, while the StepABout works well with it (I use it on my PASV-4 equipped SG12) it's impact wouldn't be as great on your overall sound.

I think you will be amazed by the PASV-4. It's fantastic. The combination of the various pickup selections with the interactive filtering is really inspiring.

If you were seriously thinking about the StepAbout, the eq points work well for the SG12. The bass band is high enough in frequency that it can provide a nice floor under the lowest melody and accompaniment strings, and the treble band can add or cut the fret attack nicely.

But like I said, there's already a lot of tone shaping with the filtering on the PASV-4, so it might be "overkill."

The perfect pickup for the StepAbout is definitely the Stickup.

I think i read in this thread that if you have a ACTV-2 pickup.. the stepabout would not really help.

why is that.. should i not get the stepabout if i have that pickup.. is there something better for that pick up..


ITM

You're right about the theorical un-necessity to preamp a signal coming from an active pickup. BUT I still have a Stick with the ACTV-2 and when I played it (it was before receinving my brand new one w/ Stickup), I plugged it everytime into the StepABout to mod the sound of the pickup, add more basses and mids and cut a bit the highs. Sure the StepABout is a preamp, but it's also an EQ and a router, don't forget it (I was not a heavy user of the routing section, but I'm playing more and more with that feature for a few weeks, and it's oustanding what you can do with that and some effects boxes on the floor).