shoulderpet

Try and play one sitting down, that will soon kill the GAS, I had an Epiphone flying V a while ago and it looked great, sounded great but I ended up getting rid of it because trying to play it sitting down was just horrendous

Hi Am looking at replacing the preamp in my Mezzo bass in the near future as quite frankly the stock one is not great, the tone from the stock one is very processed and unless you use very midrange heavy pickups (which I am now doing, using an SPB2) it has a sizeable scoop in the low mids so I looking at my options , one of which is to replace the preamp but I have mostly had passive basses so dont really know a lot about preamps so basically I am after a 2 band preamp that is transparent sounding and is not scooped , any recommendations ? thank you

This is a good video that compares the SPB-2 to the Emg Geezer, gives a really good indication of its tone [YouTube]

SPB-2 will give you a tonne of mids, the tone is love it or hate it though as they are pretty dark sounding

Yeah I kind of wish I had gone with the Rotosound pressure wounds now

Having been a Rotosound user for a long time I thought I would try something different, the idea of a little bit less treble sounded good and the nickel wrap would presumably mean more mids. Took the strings out of the pack and noticed that the half round smoothing appeared to stop between the bridge and the bridge pickup, strange but I figured I don't play right by the bridge so no real issue Began fitting the strings and immediately was struck by how dead the E string sounded, literally sounded like a flatwound, I thought maybe it was a faulty E string but all the others sounded just as dead, lots of thump but no definition, I expected some nice mids and maybe something approaching a broken in nickel roundwound but no, just dead thump, then I checked the action on my bass and it had raised a half mm so they obviously have a fair amount of tension All in all half rounds are a real disappointment, if you are looking for something in between a round and a flat you are much better served looking at pressure wounds I think

Thanks for that, that link looks like interesting reading. So what about a bass with passive pickups and an onboard active preamp ?

Have pretty much always been a passive bass kind of person and was wondering, the passive basses I have played generally have a bit of a mid scoop with both pickups on, do active basses have the same mid scoop with both pickups on full? Thanks

And got the bass back, the scoop is definitely in the preamp, with the SPB-2 in this bass there is a tonne of midrange, more than enough available but there is a little less than when I had this pickup up in my Jaguar bass and the treble response is brighter than when I had this pickup in my Jaguar bass. Overall I am really happy with the new pickup, it is nice to have my midrange back and the bass is sounding noticeably fatter, I may at some point in the future have an active/passive switch fitted for some more tonal variety. The stock Ibanez pickups are the usual glued on ceramic magnets that you tend to see on cheaper basses, I will be trying them on my Jaguar bass before I sell them on just to see how they sound without the preamp.

I have a Mezzo that I brought because I wanted a medium scale bass, I initially wanted a medium scale Squier CV jaguar bass but after returning 2 of them due to QC issues I didn't feel like playing a lottery on whether or not I would get a dodgy one. I have to say though the Mezzo body shape despite being a bit more pointy than the typical Fender body shape is surprisingly ergonomic.

Have just taken my Mezzo to have a Seymour Duncan SPB-2 Hot pickup fitted,I find the stock pickup a bit limp sounding and a bit scooped in the mids so am looking forward to having a hefty dose of low mids although I anticipate the bridge pickup will be much quieter than the P pickup after the swap, with the stock preamp being pretty hot it should be pretty loud.

I would say this is generally true but there are some exceptions, the Seymour Duncan Spb-1 is scooped in the mids and there tone chart (B5 M4 T5)

They will be fine, don't be worried about wrapping them round the post

They were great strings, shame they discontinued them

Someone on another bass forum sold a set of the Ibanez Dynamix p/j pickups which is what is used on the Talman, Mikro and Mezzo basses and he measured the DC resistance and they measured around 6.5k for the P pickup and just under 5k for the J pickup so they are underwound compared to pretty much every p/j set out there which may be why they sound tinny, I am swapping out the pickups on my Mezzo when I get the chance as they are not the fullest sounding pickups

Funny to hear all the love for Prosteels, I tried them and couldn't get them off fast enough, I love Roto steels though

you would have to be insane to pay that, they regularly go for £800-900 but really in terms of quality they are a £250 instrument at best

I had a 79 musicmaster and it was dreadful, weighed a tonne, sounded awful with a tone control that was pretty much just there for decorative purposes and that dreadful bridge that these basses have, it makes me laugh when I see these going for £800-900 on Ebay

The newer ones are likely to be better than the old ones as the old ones were released as Fenders inexpensive 'student' bass

How is the difference in tone? I'm finding my Mezzo a little brittle in the high end and am considering putting a darker mud heavy P pickup in it like an SPB-2 so that the treble boost/cut is actually useful

Yep, I've always gone by the rule of if it is bugging me enough to mention it then it will probably always bug me and I should probably return it

Yeah Newtones are good strings, the only downside is the 2 week wait, I tried Prosteels once instead of waiting and they were dreadful

I can't be much help on this other than to say that Jack Bruce and Andy Fraser pretty much used the bridge pickup on theirs exclusively so have a listen to Cream and Free and that will give you some idea of the bridge pickup tone, the neck pickup will be pretty much all boom all of the time unless you roll off some low end

Yeah I can understand that, at least with a Fender truss rod you know that you loosen it is the buzz is on the first few frets and tighten if it is in the last few frets, nice and simple

I love the tone of new strings(at least with roundwounds) so the brightness was not an issue, it was more the massive mid scoop, it's like half the tone spectrum is missing with prosteels