Chiliwailer Posted July 16, 2020 Author Share Posted July 16, 2020 20 minutes ago, Quilly said: In your opinion is an outboard eq/pre-amp just as effective? I think it’s the same thing to be honest, (pre amp) just with added options usually - though not as convenient in your hands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexpea Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 I got one of these second hand in the end. Really happy with it Seems to do a great job of focusing the sound of my jazz bass. More so than any preamp pedal I’ve used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 5 hours ago, Quilly said: In your opinion is an outboard eq/pre-amp just as effective? Onboard feels like part of the instrument as opposed to part of the amp. I prefer it hugely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted July 16, 2020 Author Share Posted July 16, 2020 (edited) 29 minutes ago, alexpea said: I got one of these second hand in the end. Really happy with it Seems to do a great job of focusing the sound of my jazz bass. More so than any preamp pedal I’ve used. Very true from my experience, it’d be my 1st choice Edited July 16, 2020 by Chiliwailer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamtheelvy Posted August 30, 2020 Share Posted August 30, 2020 Have been pondering one of these for my old Jazz. Been delayed as they’re not in stock anywhere. In the meantime, was looking at the J-Retro too... Strikes me that the J-Retro preamp is far more flexible, but the passive mode is pretty much just a backup, whereas the J-Tone is very usable in both modes. I would like the extra options, but don’t really want to compromise my ability to play in passive... Has anyone used both circuits to compare? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamtheelvy Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 Decided to give the J-Tone a go (too many bells and whistles on the J-Retro for me...). Just a question about wiring - I’m pairing up with some Aguilar 4J-HC pickups which have 3 wires each - white, grey and black, and yellow, grey and black. Am I right in assuming white/yellow is the hot signal, grey the cold and black needs to go to ground? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted September 8, 2020 Author Share Posted September 8, 2020 2 hours ago, iamtheelvy said: Decided to give the J-Tone a go (too many bells and whistles on the J-Retro for me...). Just a question about wiring - I’m pairing up with some Aguilar 4J-HC pickups which have 3 wires each - white, grey and black, and yellow, grey and black. Am I right in assuming white/yellow is the hot signal, grey the cold and black needs to go to ground? I found a wiring diagram - shows two earths and one for signal. Hope that helps. Also, just to say I had a J-Tone with some Fralin HC pickups, unfortunately the J-Tone couldn’t handle the output and was clipping. I spoke to John East, he was baffled too. I had to sell it. Hopefully it’ll be better with the Aguilars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamtheelvy Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 39 minutes ago, Chiliwailer said: I found a wiring diagram - shows two earths and one for signal. Hope that helps. Also, just to say I had a J-Tone with some Fralin HC pickups, unfortunately the J-Tone couldn’t handle the output and was clipping. I spoke to John East, he was baffled too. I had to sell it. Hopefully it’ll be better with the Aguilars. Yeah, that’s the diagram that came with the pickups. Fine for a usual wiring setup, but doesn’t quite match the East wiring diagram for the J-Tone... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted September 8, 2020 Author Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) 15 minutes ago, iamtheelvy said: Yeah, that’s the diagram that came with the pickups. Fine for a usual wiring setup, but doesn’t quite match the East wiring diagram for the J-Tone... But isn’t the East just one connection for earth, and one for the signal? I’d put the earths together and off you go. (For each separate pickup). Edited September 8, 2020 by Chiliwailer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted September 8, 2020 Author Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) The ground, btw, is not from the pickups (I mean the ground input labelled on the East). Edited September 8, 2020 by Chiliwailer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamtheelvy Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 http://www.east-uk.com/pdf/jtone01.pdf The east diagram has a Ground connection and a Cold/Ground connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted September 9, 2020 Author Share Posted September 9, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, iamtheelvy said: http://www.east-uk.com/pdf/jtone01.pdf The east diagram has a Ground connection and a Cold/Ground connection. I’ll go into more detail - the East diagram isn’t for a 3 wire HC pickup. So when I wired mine, I put the hot wire for each pickup into the designated terminal, and joined the other two wires to go into the other terminal, for each pickup. Then, the single ground terminal on the east (at the other end of the control plate) had the wire from the bridge and an extra one my control cavity had attached to a screw, for extra grounding (a vintage bass might have a control cavity plate, or some basses just the bridge wire). The key thing about that East diagram you linked is that the two terminals for the pickups, specifically state from pickups. So all pickup wires go there. Because the East terminals are really made for just one wire, you may want to join the two wires to a new single wire, and put that into the East terminal. At a push you can join the two and squeeze it in - though t’s a bit tight and may create stress on the terminal. Good luck, if I recall correctly it’s more simple than it seems 👍 Edited September 9, 2020 by Chiliwailer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamtheelvy Posted September 9, 2020 Share Posted September 9, 2020 Ok, Cool. Sounds good to me. 2 hours ago, Chiliwailer said: I’ll go into more detail - the East diagram isn’t for a 3 wire HC pickup. So when I wired mine, I put the hot wire for each pickup into the designated terminal, and joined the other two wires to go into the other terminal, for each pickup. Then, the single ground terminal on the east (at the other end of the control plate) had the wire from the bridge and an extra one my control cavity had attached to a screw, for extra grounding (a vintage bass might have a control cavity plate, or some basses just the bridge wire). The key thing about that East diagram you linked is that the two terminals for the pickups, specifically state from pickups. So all pickup wires go there. Because the East terminals are really made for just one wire, you may want to join the two wires to a new single wire, and put that into the East terminal. At a push you can join the two and squeeze it in - though t’s a bit tight and may create stress on the terminal. Good luck, if I recall correctly it’s more simple than it seems 👍 http://www.east-uk.com/pdf/jtone01.pdf The east diagram has a Ground connection and a Cold/Ground connection. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamtheelvy Posted September 25, 2020 Share Posted September 25, 2020 Well, update on this - Managed to get hold of one of these and install it the other day. The preamp sounds great but is a fiddly fit. Very tight in the cavity of my bass, so be aware of that. I played round with it for a few days but decided that the passive route was the way to go for this bass, so have gone back to the simple set up. Would definitely consider this if i was building from scratch, or if a bass had a pre-routed battery compartment. Pretty much brand new J-tone is now up in the marketplace! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgoodbass Posted September 19, 2023 Share Posted September 19, 2023 Does anyone know if the j-tone will fit in a Fender American Professional Jazz bass V-string? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted September 22, 2023 Author Share Posted September 22, 2023 On 19/09/2023 at 22:23, mrgoodbass said: Does anyone know if the j-tone will fit in a Fender American Professional Jazz bass V-string? They are designed to retrofit a Fender, so would be surprised if it didn’t. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.jpg.7e18f76540598a8efc0e6ca9be453059.jpg)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.