rmorris

Nice explanations there. If people ask me I usually go along the lines of: If an 'Active Bass' has Hi-Z Pickups then it has a powered buffer or a more featured preamp with active tone controls and whatever. It's basically putting some or all of the functionality of your preamp section into your bass. Advantages: Your pickups are not directly loaded by the capacitance of the cable to the amplifier. The output signal has a lower impedance. This good because lower impedance signals are less susceptible to interference. Additionally low-Z signals are not as troubled by cable 'handling noise' as Hi-Z signals. You may not need 'Low Noise' instrument cable that has the semiconducting layer in it to reduce this noise. * See note on impedance below If you prefer to have EQ etc controls on your bass then there you go. Disadvantages: The circuitry is generally battery powered - one or two PP3 batteries. So if your batteries run out of steam then you have a problem (although there's sometimes an option to switch to passive operation to get out of trouble). And in most cases accidentally leaving the bass plugged in will run down the battery. Players love to have a long battery life for obvious reasons. But this doesn't always go hand in hand with the highest audio performance so there can be a trade off compared to your mains powered preamp. Also if you then plug your active bass into your preamp then you are sort of duplicating functionality and increasing noise by going through more amplifier stages. *Impedance - worth noting that 'Active' basses might have a lower output impedance than passive basses. But often it is not really 'Low Impedance' in pro-audio terms as it's just the unbuffered output directly from a potentiometer wiper. The output impedance will vary with the wiper position. (This is similar to the case with many fx pedals). Don't be fooled by the use of an XLR socket - they are often (though not always) used for security of connection but the signal is not necessarily a proper 'DI' signal in terms of level / balance / impedance. re: A hi-Z output drives a fuzz/OD/dist effect in a different way than its lo-Z counterpart. I'll just note that applies to "Fuzz Face" type circuits which basically depend on the signal source having a highish impedance for their operation. Other OD/Dist/Clipping fx work fine with lo-Z signals - they often have a buffer so that the pickup doesn't see the bits that produce the effect directly.

What is your technique for doing that ? Do you fill the existing holes before drilling ? or clamp to a supporting piece and use that to align/centre the drill ? Or...

What songofthewind said. If anyone is going to have the tools/technique to do this then it should be Status. Otherwise I can see it all going wrong !

Yes.

So True !

If you are referring to a constant highish frequencies hiss (ssss...white/pink noise) then that isn't interference It's inherent noise bring amplified. The noise comes from the pickup itself, the preamp/amp and interaction between the two. Normal passive pickups are High Impedance and regarded as a noisy source in electronic terms. Actual noise level will depend a bit on the preamp/amp it is plugged into. Try low pass filtering / treble cut to reduce audible noise. How much you can do much depends on your desired tone. But bear in mind that there's little signal from a bass above a few kHz.

Potting doesn't affect interference noise. Wax has no RFI shielding properties. It can help to minimise microphonic effects where the pickup magnets/coils move in relation to each other.

That's a bit different - to stop you making skin contact with exposed pole pieces and causing noise. Depends on playing technique whether it's an issue. Any colour will do the job ! Although real solution is to have pickups with non-exposed pole pieces / rails. I was meaning that the pickups themselves are usually not themselves shielded by design.

Nice. It would have been easier to check the bridge continuity with a multimeter rather than remove/refit. Bear in mind that you can't totally eliminate noise pickup as some will 'get in' via the pickups themselves.

Also be aware that the D5 comes in flushable / non-flush versions. As it happens I recently picked up a Marshall Guitar Combo. All pots were crackly or unusable. A first round of D5 sprayed into the 'hole' on the pot casing and a good exercise of the pots made a huge improvement with only two pots showing some crackling these were the 'Driver' channel treble and contour potrs so maybe greater audible sensitivity. A bit more twisting of the pots next day and crackling almost, but not quite gone. second round of D5 and all good since.

Still seems to me that they were ungenerous with their offer to take it back but at your packing/postage cost.

Mmmm..looks like metallic Alu screening on the control plate with conductive paint to interface to that - but not clear if that has continuity to 'Ground'. And lots of cavity looks to be unscreened. I see you might be in / near Brighton ? As am I. Will PM but tomorrow as getting late here now.

Having Tone Control Open or boosting treble (in the bass guitar sense) usually emphasises buzz. It's not unusual to get a transient when you go from not being in contact with the grounded metalwork to being in contact. The machine heads may have a surface finish that doesn't give a great connection when touched and the partial intermittency can give a problem. I have a similar thing on a bass where I have some coated strings and the contact is variable and results in transients / crackles. The problem does imply that there may be a screening issue where you are acting as an antennae for noise and the bass isn't adequately screened. What screening is there in the control / pickup cavities ?

Yes - mojo indeed. It shouldn't affect the intonation setting on the bridge assuming the strings run properly from bridge saddles to nut.

What did you do to fix the crack ? A good wood glue/filler, properly applied, should be stronger than the wood itself.

Nice. And just describe it as "Genuinely Relic'd" 🙃 The bridge intonation looks a bit odd but maybe that's down to the strings ???

+1 for the black pro eneloops. Also Fujitsu 'black' pro type but can't see them available atm. For charge and test the BL7000 charger in the link below has facilities to charge / test / refresh . May be successful in bringing some 'worn out' cells back to being more useable. https://www.batterylogic.co.uk/nimh-aa-rechargeable-battery.asp

Yes - but the absence of movement can be a problem where there is not a gas tight connection (as will be the case here). Surface contamination / oxidisation may occur. But that's a different issue to the loss of 'springiness' of the conductor in a jack plug.

Thanks for the clarification. On the 'detective' front we've narrowed it down to London then 🙃 (no real idea if that is an appropriate emoticon !) I do hope you get it resolved.

Since this thread seems to have veered towards discussing Drum Plug Ins etc. It's probably relevant to ask the OP if that is particularly important to them ?

Well we all want to know the builder in question now of course ! Southern England based ? Understand if you can't give any clues. But as an observation on this, a problem that appears after five years or so is imo unlikely to be resolved by legal means unless there were explicit undertakings originally. BUT, if subsequent repair / maintenance work has been paid for and was not of reasonable quality / competence in the first place then there may be a legal / TSO route to resolve.

It won't cause a noise / interference problem. "High-Rel" electronic connector systems usually have more than one contact point even if it's not obvious.

Can't argue with the basis of a good performance being 'in the fingers'. But bear in mind that most bass playing heard through a Mixer/PA with a Sound Engineer running that is subject to dynamics processing for technical or subjective reasons.

I'll look at the advice again when I have time. I was just interested to run the demo. The Windows installation isn't the problem so I wouldn't look to wipe clean / re-install the OS with all the associated hassle and pitfalls. I guess it'll be going to Windows 11 before too long.

But all other things being equal (though they never are) you are reducing probability of signal loss. Same principle is applied to high quality (eg Penny & Giles) faders in mixing desks where 'multi finger' wipers are used. Lose contact on one "finger" - no issue - the difference in impedance wrt circuit / track impedance is negligible and there's no glitch in the signal.