BASS PRE AMP PEDAL VS ACTIVE PICK UPS

[thundachopz]

Hey everyone 

Bought a Spector Performer 4 deluxe today.

Its a great bass but obv its doesnt have the edge or tone I get from My Legend 5 Classic.

I had myself wondering....what about a preamp instead of basically spend twice as much as the bass to install active pick ups?

It a was great price and good bass for the money its just it could do with a little more ommph to match its bigger brother!

Thanks

 

[itu]

Magnetic things change a lot within very short distances, so I would suggest adjusting pickup height. If the adjustments do not give decent change, new pickups, or a preamp, or both may be the right solution.

Signal chain of the bass is like this:

pickups - blend - vol - tone - output

(blend - vol can be vol - vol, too)

You can have

1) hi-Z (high impedance, so called passive) system or

2) lo-Z (low impedance, so called active) system

The first one is easy. All parts (pots, pickups) of the signal chain are hi-Z. No battery needed.

The second is somewhat trickier, as any part of the chain may be lo-Z (battery operated). If just one part is lo-Z, the whole chain becomes lo-Z. Very common way is to have some hi-Z pickups and add a tone capsule after the passive blend and vol pots. This way the tone capsule can be bypassed with a simple DPDT switch (can be in a pot or a separate switch).

If you want to have a top quality hi- and lo-Z system that has bypass and hi-Z tone, too, consider John East. His creations are different.

If the partially hi-Z signal chain is not an issue, you may try any tone capsule from £20 Artec to £300 Sadowsky. These do not have lo-Z vol nor blend.

[moth/rust]

I concur - wind out the pickups!

[Cuzzie]

Being slightly pedantic, for the most part, pick ups are not active, they work active or passive, it’s the pre-amp that is active/passive 

[itu]

As long as they are magnetic, you may say that the pickup itself is passive. But there are active pickups, like Lightwave.

[Cuzzie]

5 minutes ago, itu said:

As long as they are magnetic, you may say that the pickup itself is passive. But there are active pickups, like Lightwave.

Not disagreeing, which is why I said for most part, and hence keeps all pick ups open as an option to pair with a pre amp of choice, it’s just that some people (not all) think that pick ups in an active bass are active pick ups and that may not be the case

[EliasMooseblaster]

The most obvious upside to having the external pre-amp is that you can use it with multiple basses.

Obviously you can always unsolder the onboard preamp and pop it into a different bass, but that does rather interrupt the flow of a live show...

[dannybuoy]

If you upgrade the electronics in the bass, you've wasted quite a bit of hard work if you don't like the result. A preamp pedal you can just send back and try another. Most preamps designed to go in basses are little more than EQ, but many pedals have a bit of drive and/or compression available, which might be just what you want if you're after 'edge' or 'oomph'!