Aria SWB Lite electronics

[bremen]

Just got a new Aria SWB Lite Bis.

It plays beautifully and sounds a lot better than my Stagg apart from one thing - the electronics are noisy. Really noisy. Unusably noisy, much worse than the Stagg. I just about got away with it live but it's certainly not good enough to record (and pretty unpleasant practising on headphones).

Not only is there a constant white noise that doesn't completely disappear with the volume controls down, but there's high frequency oscillation depending on the positions of the tone controls. Of course, the treble can't be turned above half way without increasing the noise to seriously unbearable levels.

Has anyone here owned or tried an SWB? Have I got a faulty instrument or is it a design problem?

If I hadn't bought it on the web and waited 2 weeks for delivery it'd be back in the shop by now. Serves me right for not supporting my local music shop I guess.

[ash]

I had one and had no issue with either the piezo or the mag. There were small adjusters on mine (like recessed plastic grub screws) which could be used for adjusting individual gain and tonal response on each pickup, may be worth having a play around with.
Good luck it's a lovely EUB

[bremen]

[quote name='ash' timestamp='1349896292' post='1832016']
I had one and had no issue with either the piezo or the mag. There were small adjusters on mine (like recessed plastic grub screws) which could be used for adjusting individual gain and tonal response on each pickup, may be worth having a play around with.
Good luck it's a lovely EUB
[/quote]

Cheers, that's encouraging. Hopefully it's a faulty unit rather than poor design.

I don't like the mag sound as much as the piezo, and yes the mags do need adjusting for an even response.

What strings did you use?

[ash]

They were Thomastik Spiros I think.

[bremen]

Happy ending.

There are a bunch of trimpots on the preamp. Turning two of these up brought the piezo level up without increasing the noise.

I can only assume they were set at such a low level in an attempt to balance the piezo and the mag (which is now somewhat weaker than the piezo but that's ok because I dislike it anyway and will probably remove it).

It's not perfect, but it's no worse than most active bass guitars. I might have a go at designing a low noise pre, but for now I'm much relieved.

[franzbassist]

Same experience here, but a quick play with the pots sorted it.

I put Innovation Silver Slaps on the one I had, which meant I had to use piezo only, but the lower tension and improvement in tone made for a much more satisfying EUB experience!

[bremen]

I've just realised that Ash was referring to these pots, I thought he meant the mag pickup height adjusters. D'oh!

I have Presto Jazzicatos on mine. The softness and flexibility of them is quite delicious compared to the steels it came with.

[ash]

[quote name='bremen' timestamp='1349967935' post='1832880']
I've just realised that Ash was referring to these pots, I thought he meant the mag pickup height adjusters. D'oh!

I have Presto Jazzicatos on mine. The softness and flexibility of them is quite delicious compared to the steels it came with.
[/quote]

Ha! Yes I was referring to those but couldn't remember what they were called, glad it turned out OK!