Passive bass to an active.

[red rooster]

Please excuse another silly question , my squire bass 60 classic precision with flatstrings gives me a sound I really like. But last night I was messing around with a traben active bass that my daughter has clamed for herself and holy cow that thing can growl seems to produce a multitude of different sounds when you adjust the nobs so I'm wondering if maybe there's a peddle switch or something I could run my squire through to produce similar sounds. Any thoughts no I'm not buying another bass. I can use the traben any time I like but I tend to take my squire out with me to work in the car etc. got a little amp and headphones at work and a vox for messing in the car.

[steve-bbb]

Boss LMB3 adds a nice boost and colour to the tone

Sansamp boxes are v good too

[Drax]

I love that you play bass in your car. I've been debating a travel bass for the train..

[xgsjx]

2 options spring to mind.
The easy option is like Steve said, get a booster or pre amp pedal. There's the Boss that he mentions, or you could go for something like a Sansamp or similar.
The other option is a little harder & that's to fit an active pre to your bass. You'd remove the passive circuitry from your bass to do so, but it would mean you don't have to carry a pedal about to get more sounds from your bass.

[LukeFRC]

i'm not sure a 60s style P with flats will ever sound like an active Traben - and the Traben will never nail the P bass thing either.
What you have just discovered, in time for christmas, is a reason to get another bass.... or two.

[edpirie]

I was wondering a similar thing recently. Have a Roadworn Jazz and wanted to be able to pump it up to a more active vibe for the odd track. I bought the Sadowsky pre-amp/DI despite the guy at Bass Gallery telling me that it wouldn't do what I wanted, and it didn't. There was no magic transformation of my lovely vintage passive Jazz into a modern super-J. So I sold on the pre-amp and am buying back my Yamaha TRB which is a proper pumped-up active bass through-and-through. As to putting a pre-amp into a passive, I'd personally be very wary of doing that if I liked my passive in the first place, even with an active-off switch. I've yet to play an active bass that has as good a passive sound as a straight passive P or J.

[Merton]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1417420690' post='2620052']
i'm not sure a 60s style P with flats will ever sound like an active Traben - and the Traben will never nail the P bass thing either.
What you have just discovered, in time for christmas, is a reason to get another bass.... or two.
[/quote]


Sensible, and accurate, advice

[tonyquipment]

Get a booster pedal

Cheap and useful if you want to amplify the signal to make it more rawr.

The LMB3 I use. A passive bass just sounds crap without it IMO

[jezzaboy]

Get a Beringher BD 121. It will give you another range of sounds, is cheap as chips and is a really useful piece of kit. But a passive Jazz is what it is and most people get one to get the sound it makes.