Sans Amp Rocks lah
Hey there!
I used the Sans Amp for most of my live shows and club work. Used properly it can change the sound of your bass (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your preferences).
Its not difficult to use. Level is, well, level (duh) ... but there's a world of difference in sound if u crank up the level to max and have minimum Drive, and if you cut down on Level and up the drive. typically distortion results because of excessive drive - that's what its there for, but seriously the sansamp is not a fuzz pedal, so its a matter of dialing in the taste.
the blend is simply whether you want more of your natural bass tone or the sansamp tone - sometimes u don't want to colour your tone too much, other times you want to. Do note that even if u set it to 'flat' (i.e. 12 o'clock) there is already some colouration compared to going direct.
the EQ section will give u a mid scoop set at different frequencies depending on the treble and bass blend - works like a parametric, in that sense. with both treb and bass at 12 o'clock u get more or less flat EQ, i.e. whatever your bass itself is sending. remember this - your bass sends a signal, which u could then colour with the sansamp EQ, which is then further coloured by your amp EQ and the house EQ. so lots of places for u to tweak to get things right (or wrong).
don't forget outputs also - there's a 1/4" output with sansamp tone, and one running parallel and unaffected by the sansamp settings (of course the XLR is affected by sansamp tone lah).
my goal is always to have a clear tone in mind, run my bass (and FX) thru the DI and out to house via XLR, and to amp via affected 1/4", then try and match my amp tone to the house tone. of course doing that also requires the cooperation of the sound engineer, but that's a topic for another day.
it's always a good idea to know all your equipment - so you should know what your RBX is capable of, what you need to do in terms of volume, tone, technique to get the tone you want, then find out how the sansamp changes that tone, and tweak to your liking. but I've never used the sansamp as an efx - simply as a unit that sends the tone I want to the house - with the ability to make little adjustments to accommodate the different amps and house set ups I've had to play with.
