Baloney Balderdash Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 (edited) I have struggled for quite a while with my tone changing from time to time I plugged my bass in, sometimes while it was plugged in as well, and sometimes quite radically, and after having tried to source down the problem, changing instrument and patch cables, leaving out effects one by one to determine if they were the source to the problem. I am at a loss. No idea what causes the issues with the tone of bass changing randomly with random intervals. Sometimes it will stay good for a longer period, and I can turn my setup on and off and come back to it and it will still sound good, other times it will change several time while I practice, but usually the change happens after turning my setup off and coming back to it later. Sometimes there is way too much bass and subdued highs, other times it has piercing high end without much bass, sometimes it is just perfect, snappy and punchy, but well balanced, and other times it is thin and dull. A huge mystery to me what could possibly cause this, especially since I think I've been through all the usual suspects, as said, cables, pedals, as said even changed the barrel jack input socket on my bass for a new one and completely re-soldered the pickups, heck I even experimented with how I power my pedals, but to no avail. What really puzzles me though is that it will randomly change between several different kind of tones, and that sometimes it will sound awesome or only require minor EQ re-adjustments to do so, while other times it will sound absolutely horrible, and just about everything in between those two extremes. Anyone got any ideas what could possibly cause this? Edited December 5, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acebassmusic Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 What's the bass and onboard electronics? Checked for any dry joints on pre-amp boards etc? Any photos of the electrics for us to peruse? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted December 5, 2020 Author Share Posted December 5, 2020 (edited) @Acebassmusic It's a DiMarzio Model P P pickup wired directly to the output jack socket, not much that could go wrong, especially not when I have already completely re-soldered it once in an attempt to fix the issue, as I wrote in my OP. As I also wrote I even installed a new barrel input jack socket, but to no avail either. I also have tried wiggling the cable jack at the bass output socket, pulling it in and out, tapping the pickups hard, and shaking and punching my bass, to see if I could trigger a tone change, but with no effect. It really seems to happen totally at random, and as said pretty radical changes, not just loss of tone, but seemingly boosting and cutting of random frequencies. I realize this points at my digital Zoom effect that I use exclusively as an equalizer unit, but as said I have already ruled that out, the changes happens anyway (though naturally sounding slightly different), and it being 5 bands just boosted 1 to 2 dB at max you wouldn't think it made that radically a change anyway, and beside the changes started to happen even before I started to use that Zoom effect in my setup. Edited December 5, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acebassmusic Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 Yeah I read you'd done the rewiring of the pickups and barrel jack which is one of the first things I would check as well. Usually there's more wiring to go wrong between the pick-ups and jack and I just assumed it would include the standard vol, balance, tone pots or preamp in the system. As you have an uncommon set up of direct to jack there's not a lot thats left either to go wrong or to check. 🤔 I see you have also tried the wiggle test to the jack. have you done the same to the wiring between the jack & pickup, ground wires etc. If there was any dodgy connections I would have assumed you would have experienced signal / no signal and not the changes in tone you talk about. Reading back through your mail you mention changing cables, pedals etc but nothing about your amp apart from eluding to it in your comment "usually the change happens after turning my setup off and coming back to it later ". Have you tried another amp? Have you tried a different bass with this amp? Is your cab a single speaker or mutiples / tweeter etc. If the cab wiring is a bit dodgy then that might cause the differences in tone with speakers cutting in and out? Just throwing a few other ideas out there to try help. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted December 5, 2020 Author Share Posted December 5, 2020 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Acebassmusic said: Yeah I read you'd done the rewiring of the pickups and barrel jack which is one of the first things I would check as well. Usually there's more wiring to go wrong between the pick-ups and jack and I just assumed it would include the standard vol, balance, tone pots or preamp in the system. As you have an uncommon set up of direct to jack there's not a lot thats left either to go wrong or to check. 🤔 I see you have also tried the wiggle test to the jack. have you done the same to the wiring between the jack & pickup, ground wires etc. If there was any dodgy connections I would have assumed you would have experienced signal / no signal and not the changes in tone you talk about. Reading back through your mail you mention changing cables, pedals etc but nothing about your amp apart from eluding to it in your comment "usually the change happens after turning my setup off and coming back to it later ". Have you tried another amp? Have you tried a different bass with this amp? Is your cab a single speaker or mutiples / tweeter etc. If the cab wiring is a bit dodgy then that might cause the differences in tone with speakers cutting in and out? Just throwing a few other ideas out there to try help. I am playing with headphones, and I have used both a microphone preamp and a mixer, and changes cables from a jack cable to an xlr cable between the two from my bass preamp, the random tone changes happens in every of those combinations, The headphones and headphone preamp seems to work flawlessly when not used with my bass and bass setup and the tone changes started to happen back when I was using another bass preamp as well. Edited December 5, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acebassmusic Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 Mmmm....I can see why you are frustrated and confused 🤔 You seem to have gone through everything trying to isolate the guilty party. At this point the only thing I would do myself is start back with the minimal audio chain (bass > cable > headphone amp > cable > headphones) and use it for a few days to see if anything happens. If not add one item into the system (pedal or zoom etc) and again use it for a few days. Then swap one pedal out at a time for another and again use for a few days. It might be a pain doing this but its the only way I can see to really isolate which bit of the system is not playing nicely 🙂 Good luck with finding the problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted December 6, 2020 Author Share Posted December 6, 2020 (edited) 17 hours ago, Acebassmusic said: Mmmm....I can see why you are frustrated and confused 🤔 You seem to have gone through everything trying to isolate the guilty party. At this point the only thing I would do myself is start back with the minimal audio chain (bass > cable > headphone amp > cable > headphones) and use it for a few days to see if anything happens. If not add one item into the system (pedal or zoom etc) and again use it for a few days. Then swap one pedal out at a time for another and again use for a few days. It might be a pain doing this but its the only way I can see to really isolate which bit of the system is not playing nicely 🙂 Good luck with finding the problem. Thank you for that suggestion, will try it. Really hope it will lead to a conclusion of this mystery, cause, as you said, it's extremely frustrating. Kind of pondering if it could possibly be either my Zoom G1Xon, that I use for reverb effects, as I seem to recall the problems only started to occur after I added that to my setup, or perhaps some weird interaction from having most of my pedals daisy chained (even if all my digital pedals are either powered by separate power supplies or in a separate daisy chain). Edited December 6, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 On 05/12/2020 at 16:32, Acebassmusic said: Mmmm....I can see why you are frustrated and confused 🤔 You seem to have gone through everything trying to isolate the guilty party. At this point the only thing I would do myself is start back with the minimal audio chain (bass > cable > headphone amp > cable > headphones) and use it for a few days to see if anything happens. If not add one item into the system (pedal or zoom etc) and again use it for a few days. Then swap one pedal out at a time for another and again use for a few days. It might be a pain doing this but its the only way I can see to really isolate which bit of the system is not playing nicely 🙂 Good luck with finding the problem. Intermittent faults are the worst This above is what you have to do. You also have to clear your head of preconceptions. In this situation you just can't trust anything including all the checks you have already done and the idea that this is a single fault. There may well be more than one component faulty and they may be interacting with each other, or not. I can't tell you how many times I've gone through this to find it was something I checked right at the beginning or a brand new component I'd replaced and just assumed was good. It's probably worthwhile keeping a note of the combinations you try and what happens. Just one other thought the zoom G1 has a headphone output. if you put it in the middle of your chain you could check whether the fault was before or after the G1. good luck 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoonBassAlpha Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 @Baloney Balderdash Out of interest, what headphones are you using? I've come across issues with earbud phones that have a mic connection as not all sockets make the ground connection nicely with the extra ring on the plug, especially when using 1/4" to 1/8" adaptors. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoonBassAlpha Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 Any news @Baloney Balderdash on this problem? I'm intrigued to find out what it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted December 29, 2020 Author Share Posted December 29, 2020 On 27/12/2020 at 01:47, MoonBassAlpha said: Any news @Baloney Balderdash on this problem? I'm intrigued to find out what it was. Seems like it was likely the Dimarzio Model P pickup i had installed as the only pickup in my Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro bass, cause the tone seems to be consistent with my new 6 string Ibanez SR306EB bass. I also tried resoldering the P pickup in my Mikro with no results, so seems like it really is the actual pickup that's somehow faulty and not just bad soldering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoonBassAlpha Posted December 29, 2020 Share Posted December 29, 2020 Might be worth getting it re wound. Shouldn't cost too much, and they are great sounding pickups! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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.