Aguilar AG Preamp

The Aguilar AG Preamp is a bass preamp and direct box pedal from Aguilar, released on July 17, 2023 at a MAP price of $299.99 through authorized Aguilar Amplification dealers¹. It puts the company's AG preamp sound, which Aguilar describes as having a "tight, fast response and wide tonal flexibility," into a compact pedal format². The core of the pedal is a 4-band EQ, joined by footswitchable Deep and Bright boosts, a headphone output with an aux input, and a balanced XLR DI output for going straight to a desk¹³.

Aguilar positions it as a tool for both stage and studio. The company says the pedal "is the ideal solution for live performances and studio or at-home recording sessions"⁴, and that its 18-volt operation "ensures generous headroom and pristine signal integrity"¹.

What it does to your sound

Because it carries a DI with pre/post and ground lift controls, the pedal can serve two jobs at once: feeding your amp through the 1/4" output while sending a balanced signal to the front of house. The headphone output and aux input also make it usable as a silent practice rig, with a mix control for balancing your bass against whatever you play through the aux in³.

The controls

The front panel follows the layout of a full preamp rather than a simple boost pedal. Here is what each control does, per Aguilar's product page³:

The EQ bands are Bass, Treble, Low Mid and Hi Mid⁴. The Bass and Treble bands are the ones with published frequency and range figures: 17 dB of cut or boost at 40 Hz on the bottom end, and 14 dB at 4 kHz on top³. That is a wide sweep at both extremes of a bass's range, while the two mid bands handle the middle of the spectrum where most of a bass's character sits.

Deep and Bright

Deep and Bright are broadband boosts rather than parametric EQ moves. The single Bright/Deep footswitch cycles through three states: Deep alone, Bright alone, or both together, with a blue LED showing when something is engaged³. Aguilar describes these controls as ones that "further enhance the bass sound, providing added depth and presence"¹. In practice they work as quick, footswitchable tone shifts: Deep for more low-end weight, Bright for more top-end definition, and both together when you want the whole picture opened up.

Power and connections

The AG Preamp runs on an 18v power supply³. Aguilar says this 18-volt operation is what allows for "clean and transparent tone"⁶ and generous headroom¹.

The connection set covers live, studio and silent-practice use in one box³:

• Inputs: one 1/4" jack for your bass, one Aux In
• Outputs: one 1/4" jack to your amp, one balanced XLR DI (nominal output 14 dBu), and a headphone out
• DI controls: pre/post and ground lift¹

The DI's pre/post switch chooses whether the XLR signal is taken before or after the pedal's EQ and level controls, and the ground lift helps break ground-loop hum when the pedal is connected to both an amp and a mixing desk⁷¹⁶.

The Breast Cancer Awareness Edition

Aguilar ties the edition to a charity commitment: the company makes an annual donation to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to prevention and finding a cure for breast cancer⁴.

How it fits with other Aguilar pedals

The AG Preamp sits in Aguilar's bass pedal line as the clean preamp and DI option, distinct from the company's drive pedals like the AGRO and Fuzzistor, and from the Tone Hammer preamp, which takes a different approach to bass preamplification. Players building a full Aguilar board can pair it with the TLC compressor, the Filter Twin envelope filter, or the Octamizer octave pedal, with the AG Preamp handling EQ, DI and silent practice duties. More broadly, it belongs to the preamp pedals family covered elsewhere on this site³⁵¹.

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