cycrowave Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 just gave my recently j-retro'd fender jazz a whirl at band practice. the bass sounds fantastic now, but my distortion is responding horribly to it. i'v read some stuff before about people having this problem, just wondering if you guys could suggest some workarounds. or am i just gonna have to rock out with a passive bass? perhaps there are specific distortion pedals that work better with active basses? cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topo morto Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 (edited) you'll have tried just turning the output level down, I guess..? there are also issues with the output impedance - an active bass will probably have a lower (I think) output impedance so it will be 'seen' differently by whatever's next in the chain. Adjusting the impedance is one of the raison's d'etre of this thing (GLZ): [url="http://www.bargeconcepts.com/glzbv.html"]http://www.bargeconcepts.com/glzbv.html[/url] What pedals are you having problems with? Would make it easier to suggest alternatives... EDIT: Try putting something that's 'not bothered' immediately after the bass and see if it can swing the impedance back the way you want. many pedals will have specs for output impedance which should help you work out what's going on... Edited May 15, 2011 by topo morto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Your amps both have valve pre-amp sections. Now that your bass is generating a much hotter signal, you may simply be over-loading the valves. Have you experimented with placing the distortion in an FX Send/Return? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EskimoBassist Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Basically what you need is some kind of buffer before your overdrive to make it behave properly. Either a Variable Impedence Buffer (there's a pinned thread at the top of the Effects forum about this) or just a pedal with a buffer in it, like any Boss pedal, would most likely do the job. A recent thread came up about this, I'll see if I can dig it up. This is quite a common problem and others have managed to solve it so I shouldn't think it will be too hard for you to do the same! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cycrowave Posted May 15, 2011 Author Share Posted May 15, 2011 my current chain is bass - electro harmonix black finger (compressor) - digitech whammy - t-rex bass juice (distortion) ill try turning the volume down though, stupidly didnt think of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cycrowave Posted May 15, 2011 Author Share Posted May 15, 2011 [quote name='Happy Jack' post='1232352' date='May 15 2011, 07:32 PM']Your amps both have valve pre-amp sections. Now that your bass is generating a much hotter signal, you may simply be over-loading the valves. Have you experimented with placing the distortion in an FX Send/Return?[/quote] haha very observant! im actually using a peavey firebass rig now which is all solid state Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EskimoBassist Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=131807&hl=variable+impedance+buffer"]Yo! Have a read of this [/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cycrowave Posted May 15, 2011 Author Share Posted May 15, 2011 cheers. time to go lower the neighbours impedence by testing this sh*t out. luckily there is a wall buffer in the way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth Hughes Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 If you fancy giving the Barge Concepts idea a go, I have this boyo for sale: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=52509"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=52509[/url] Yes, a blatant plug that was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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