Top Italian session bassist Paolo Costa (Alejandro Sanz, Sergio Mendes, Laura Pausini) teamed up with Markbass to design the Studio Pre, a high-quality bass preamp ideal for both studio and live applications. It's an excellent studio tool for recording bassists, combining two channels: CLEAN and AMP. CLEAN is a pristine direct channel which features a pure parametric filter EQ for fine-tuning your sound to perfection. The AMP channel provides three types of distortion (two tube-driven and one solid state) to mix in with the clean channel. To better personalize your sound, there are two more EQ controls, Variable Pre-shape Filter (VPF) and high-pass filter (so you can apply distortion to only the high end), and push-pull knobs give you the ability to store your distortion settings. The professional compressor on the amp channel helps you tame the edges. The preamp's back-end offers three balanced XLR outputs so you can record each channel separately or together. The Studio Pre is an indispensable addition to any recording bassist's gear arsenal.