NBD (Aluminium content)

[bloke_zero]

Well, not today, more like a month ago, but who's counting?

 

For your consideration a Kramer DMZ4001A kindly sold to me by @roger (excellent chap by the way!). 

 I just got it back from a quick electrical service as the preamp was playing up a little bit, well a lot - a capacitor went (well after Roger sent it to me - it played fine at first!), and I thought it would be interesting to play through the settings.

 

They are:

• series/parallel
• flat/tone 1/tone 2

 

And the way they interact is pretty mad:

 

You're looking at the same line 6 times, straight into a UAD interface: parallel flat, parallel tone 1, parallel tone 2, series flat, series tone 1, series tone 2.

 

By the time you get to the last you can see something is going on (excuse my playing!):

 

Here is the same thing but normalised so they are all the same volume:

 

 

Playing into an amp you'd get radically different effect across the settings. I really like parallel flat and parallel tone 1.

 

It plays really well. It keeps it's tuning really really well and compared to my 74/76 P-bass it has a much stronger fundamental tone, I assume because of the neck and how it's attached to the body. And I love the pickups - it has that P growl with extra body.

 

Anyway! Who cares what it sounds like!? Here is what he looks like (I've named it The Winstone after Ray Winstone, because, let's face it - it's a sexy beast!):

 

(that big grey cap is the one that went) - this is the only schematic I can find: http://www.vintagekramer.com/Electric/wiring-dmz4000preamp.jpeg - apparently not that trustworthy!