Trivia I learned on bass last year

[uOpt]

Strings really matter for bass. I seem to dislike nickel on frets, and have a lesser preference for round cores.

Pickup position matters, a lot. Too bad Music Man had to "misplace" the Bongo HH bridge pickup.

Active and passive is a very audible difference. Maybe it the specific preamps that the bass companies use.

The Seymour Duncan company really knows how to make a middle of the road well sounding pickup. SPB-1 for the win.

As with guitars, once you go boutique pickups, which Alnico is used is misleading. The Ant1 is brighter than the SPB-1.

Fender's AVRI line is very nice. Some Warwicks, too.

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Active and passive is a very audible difference. Maybe it the specific preamps that the bass companies use.

Amen to that. I picked up a Fender J at GC a few days ago that had a passive active switch and there's a HUGE difference, and not just in volume.

If I had the $$$$$$$$$$ I'd get one of theses, I love me dat passive/active switch:

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Amen to that. I picked up a Fender J at GC a few days ago that had a passive active switch and there's a HUGE difference, and not just in volume.

If I had the $$$$$$$$$$ I'd get one of theses, I love me dat passive/active switch:

That'sthe Wooten Fodera right? Class.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Holy **** man, that is a killer bass.

What is it?

 

[uOpt]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

I'm gonna measure the frequency curve of some common bass preamps now. If the/some of these things make a difference while frequency passing is linear that would be a nice puzzle.

Oh do I have time for that? Oops.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Holy **** man, that is a killer bass.

What is it?

The Fodera Monarch. Victor Wooten's main bass.

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

The Fodera Monarch. Victor Wooten's main bass.

Yup. If you've got a spare $11K it seems like an incredible instrument.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

I think I've seen them before but the half-black color setup is just so much better than their regular ones.

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Amen to that. I picked up a Fender J at GC a few days ago that had a passive active switch and there's a HUGE difference, and not just in volume.

If I had the $$$$$$$$$$ I'd get one of theses, I love me dat passive/active switch:

It's not gonna give you the exact sane sound, but if you're looking for a P/J bass with an active/ passive switch, the Fender makes the Troy Sanders Signature Jaguar bass. Probably a lot more affordable than the Fodera.

http://www.fender.com/basses/jaguar/troy-sanders-jaguar-bass-rosewood-fingerboard-silverburst/

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

It's not gonna give you the exact sane sound, but if you're looking for a P/J bass with an active/ passive switch, the Fender makes the Troy Sanders Signature Jaguar bass. Probably a lot more affordable than the Fodera.

http://www.fender.com/basses/jaguar/troy-sanders-jaguar-bass-rosewood-fingerboard-silverburst/

The new Fender American Deluxe Jazz Bass has both passive and active circuits as well. I just played one at GC a week or two ago and I was extremely impressed. $1800-ish isn't bad considering how good it looks/plays/sounds. I'm also a huge sucker for fenders with bound necks and block inlays.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Amen to that. I picked up a Fender J at GC a few days ago that had a passive active switch and there's a HUGE difference, and not just in volume.

If I had the $$$$$$$$$$ I'd get one of theses, I love me dat passive/active switch:

If money is the concern, and you want that sort of setup, just get a used G&L L-2000. They have a passive/active switch and two pickups. They are the best bang for the buck bass you can get. You're talking Fender Custom Shop quality (or better) for $600 to $800 on the used market. If you go to the Tribute line (which is probably 80% as good as the American line), you'll pay half that or even less.

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

The new Fender American Deluxe Jazz Bass has both passive and active circuits as well. I just played one at GC a week or two ago and I was extremely impressed. $1800-ish isn't bad considering how good it looks/plays/sounds. I'm also a huge sucker for fenders with bound necks and block inlays.

Ok. I haven't checked them out lately. I'm a big fan of Fender's basses. I might check them out the next time I go to GC.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

My pretty Warwick has an active/passive switch, too.

 

[jtougas]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Don't like, half of the Carvins have that option?


Sent from my iPad using a bunch of electrons, copper, and probably some fiber optical cable

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

My pretty Warwick has an active/passive switch, too.

That is oh so beautiful.

Where's the switch? Is it a push pull?

What are the controls on that instrument? I'm guessing volume, passive tone, blend, active treble and bass? But that would mean that the switch is on the blend, and AFAIK nobody makes a push/pull blend control...

I am confuse.

 

[One Bad Monkey]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

That is oh so beautiful.

Where's the switch? Is it a push pull?

What are the controls on that instrument? I'm guessing volume, passive tone, blend, active treble and bass? But that would mean that the switch is on the blend, and AFAIK nobody makes a push/pull blend control...

I am confuse.

I'm guessing it's like the Infinity layout, which has vol/blend (with a p/p), mid, treble/bass (with a p/p for splitting the bridge pickup).

Most of Warwick's active/passive switches are really nothing more than preamp bypass switches, so it becomes passive only because the pickups are bypassing the active preamp; there's no passive tone control. They do the same thing with their basses with active pickups, so you just bypass the tone controls and have the pickups full-on.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

I'm guessing it's like the Infinity layout, which has vol/blend (with a p/p), mid, treble/bass (with a p/p for splitting the bridge pickup).

Most of Warwick's active/passive switches are really nothing more than preamp bypass switches, so it becomes passive only because the pickups are bypassing the active preamp; there's no passive tone control. They do the same thing with their basses with active pickups, so you just bypass the tone controls and have the pickups full-on.

Yeah. One push-pull for active/passive, one for splitting the bridge humbucker. Volume, blend and EQ.

The problem is that nobody sells concentric pots that stack a 250 and a 25K slider, so you can't have one knob that works in both active and passive.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Couldn't you resistorfy one down to 25K? That'd be a huge resistor though.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

Couldn't you resistorfy one down to 25K? That'd be a huge resistor though.

The resistor trick will only work for pot full open, you can't fix it in a way that would work properly for turning down the pot.

You can always make a resistor and capacitor network doing the same thing as full open pots, so that passive mode sounds proper and doesn't run full open/no pots.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Trivia I learned on bass last year

How about a push pull, then? Pull up to engage the resistors, or whichever you prefer.

You could check with Bourns to see if they can do one. Surely they can.

Thinking aloud, it'd be nice to have a modular concentric pot system that had Lego-style housings (so they snap together) and a protruding shaft nib from the main module that interlocked with whichever base module you attached, be it 25k, 250k, etc etc.

Hmmmm....