Onboard electronics? Any other non-believers here?

[chardbass]

I have to agree with the OP.

Twice I have had pre problems with the bass in my avatar- loose wires etc.

Both times I bypassed the pre and compensated with some tone shaping and gain altering on my amp- I [i]really[/i] enjoyed the tone.

The thought process is, I guess- I paid for it so I must use it. Daft really.

I'm not far away from changing my approach depending on the style of music.

The pre, as I use it, makes the bass sound huge- almost 'synth bass'-like in the lower regions. If I fancy a more organic sound I may start to bypass the pre more.

[Wil]

Having put my new ATK though it's paces last night, I have to say I'm a total convert to active basses without doubt. It's lovely being able to dial in earth shaking lows without moving from your seat, or switch to a slap tone, or whatever. Lovely

[alexclaber]

[quote name='Wil' post='647382' date='Nov 6 2009, 04:48 PM']Having put my new ATK though it's paces last night, I have to say I'm a total convert to active basses without doubt. It's lovely being able to dial in earth shaking lows without moving from your seat, or switch to a slap tone, or whatever. Lovely [/quote]

Onboard preamps, crack for bass players!

Alex

[Lfalex v1.1]

[quote name='henry norton' post='646219' date='Nov 5 2009, 01:43 PM']There do seem to be active and a passive players on the forum. I like both but do think that most players would benefit from playing a single pickup, passive instrument regularly to improve their technique and tone.[/quote]

That's a really good point.

In fact, to expand further, many players would benefit from trying somethig [i]different[/i] occasionally.
Whether that would be your suggestions, playing through headphones, fretless, an unforgiving instrument (try all-graphite with a phenolic 'board!!), going passive, you name it.
In a way, I can see where the OP is coming from. After a profusion of actives (some better than others), I find a passive to be more "direct" sounding, with less in the way. I can only assume that a (relatively) direct coupling, minus Volume and tone controls further improves matters.
You'll have us soldering our leads directly to the amp input at one end and pick-ups at the other next!!
That'd be really cool !

[JTUK]

it's an enhancement, that is all... if it doesn't work, then try something different.

I find that a bit of cut or boost on the bass, and I have + or - 15bd with a variable mid sweep, means once the amp is set -up I can do everything..and probably too much on the bass.

Invariably, I only need to adjust one slider on my amp..and that is only down to the cab config I might use on that particular day..
the rest I can do on the bass, on the hoof.

I can change sounds mid song to get a sole slap tone, finger-funk and everything I need.

I agree you can over complicate the EQ thing,..but what sounds good, sounds good, which ever way you achieve it..

Generally, IMV, people who are forever chasing this or that sound...need to sit down and work through their kit and signal chain to find out what is available

The last thing you want to have to do...is constantly be twiddling with the sounds.. especially on a gig..

[JTUK]

Another thing... is the basic combination of woods and how they interact on your bass is very important for getting a good basic tone.

If you haven't got this... then you will be chasing and compensating with electronics...which is a bad position to start from, IMV..

[alexclaber]

[quote name='JTUK' post='647904' date='Nov 7 2009, 10:16 AM']Another thing... is the basic combination of woods and how they interact on your bass is very important for getting a good basic tone.[/quote]

Exactly! Get the acoustic tone right first, then worry about the electronics. You can't polish a turd (though, as Jimmy Carr pointed out last night, you can cover it with glitter - which I suppose is like sticking an awful sounding bass through a heavy fuzz pedal and ending up with a righteous monster tone).

Alex

[ped]

Am I the only one who finds the sound of their bass on 'Active' with the controls set in the centre exactly the same as their passive tone? I play passive most of the time but if I need some extra bite or something I can kick in the EQ - otherwise it causes no issues whatsoever.

[Rikkers]

[quote name='JTUK' post='647904' date='Nov 7 2009, 11:16 AM']Another thing... is the basic combination of woods and how they interact on your bass is very important for getting a good basic tone.

If you haven't got this... then you will be chasing and compensating with electronics...which is a bad position to start from, IMV..[/quote]

I would say:

Another thing... is the basic combination of woods and how they interact on your bass is very important for getting a good basic tone.

If you have got this... then build in an active circuit to get the tone to a higher level...which is a good position to start from, IMV..

I'll explain.

I got an Ibanez JB from '76. Great bass! When I did put in a J-Retro this bass became my main bass. The mid sweep control let me get the control over the organic tone.

Being said that I must say that there is a big difference between the good sh*t (Audere, Noll, J-Retro etc.........) and the rest.

[molan]

My old Esh had quite a complex set of active & piezo switching options but if you put everything in one particular setting then they were all bypassed, including volume, for a 'studio' tone.

Not sure if it was a true bypass or not but it was actually my favourite setting!

[thisnameistaken]

I use the pickup mix control and the position of my picking hand more than the tone knobs on my active bass, but I do sometimes wish there was more treble cut available on it when I've got new roundwounds on there.

I definitely wouldn't want to wire straight to the output though.

[Fraktal]

When an analog signal enters a chip something is lost, no matter how good that circuit is. This is the reason several quality effect units are designed with a true bypass. Without a true bypass, your signal will go through an integrated circuit that will suck up your tone even if the effect is turned off, and this can be dramatically perceived if you run your signal through several effect units.

You cant bypass the EQ section on most amplifiers, so since your signal is already being shaped (and harmed) by your amp equalizer, why not to rely on that one and remove every other?

It makes sense to me to keep the signal path as clean and simple as possible. Most of my basses have been/are passive and for a good reason: They frequently sound better to my ears, even years before I knew the electronical explanation.

So yes, I am also a non believer xD

[umph]

[quote name='Fraktal' post='649763' date='Nov 9 2009, 03:43 PM']When an analog signal enters a chip something is lost, no matter how good that circuit is. This is the reason several quality effect units are designed with a true bypass. Without a true bypass, your signal will go through an integrated circuit that will suck up your tone even if the effect is turned off, and this can be dramatically perceived if you run your signal through several effect units.

You cant bypass the EQ section on most amplifiers, so since your signal is already being shaped (and harmed) by your amp equalizer, why not to rely on that one and remove every other?

It makes sense to me to keep the signal path as clean and simple as possible. Most of my basses have been/are passive and for a good reason: They frequently sound better to my ears, even years before I knew the electronical explanation.

So yes, I am also a non believer xD[/quote]
maybe 30 years ago. If you can tell the difference between a well designed buffered signal(or even a not so great one) and a completly passive one i'll give you a fiver ;o

it's all mojo i tell thee

[waynepunkdude]

[quote name='RichB' post='646677' date='Nov 5 2009, 08:44 PM']You also seem to have got rid of your D string.

Possibly going for a Seasick Steve of the bass world?

Or a drop D tuning?[/quote]


I used to play that bass E gap A gap but it now has a fretless neck with black nylon tapewounds tune standard.

[Johnzy]

Anthony Jackson is the best know endorsement for this style of thinking.
his fodera has no controls, just pickup straight to output jack.
Direct into a power amp (no eq at all!!!) signal sent to a pair of high quality PA speakers, Full range!!!!
he uses a volume pedal (sometimes!!!)
hes fearless!!!!

[thumperbob 2002]

I use my amps flat with just a little EQ on my Warwick- I do agree actives can be too powerful so you need to know what you are doing- it takes years really. Played mainly passives for years and no doubt these will improve the tone of your fingers- using actives EQ to compensate does not work.

Dont forget all basses are different and like Marcus Miller says- you have lots of options open to you with 4 strings and two pickups- I play a 5

Bob

[umph]

[quote name='Johnzy' post='650431' date='Nov 10 2009, 10:18 AM']Anthony Jackson is the best know endorsement for this style of thinking.
his fodera has no controls, just pickup straight to output jack.
Direct into a power amp (no eq at all!!!) signal sent to a pair of high quality PA speakers, Full range!!!!
he uses a volume pedal (sometimes!!!)
hes fearless!!!![/quote]
pick ups, power amps and speakers all still colour your tone.

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='Johnzy' post='650431' date='Nov 10 2009, 10:18 AM']Anthony Jackson is the best know endorsement for this style of thinking.
his fodera has no controls, just pickup straight to output jack.[/quote]

I bet they still charged him 9 squillion dollars for it.

[mrcrow]

[quote name='Moos3h' post='646136' date='Nov 5 2009, 11:56 AM']I meant to post this a while ago, but I recently bypassed all the electronics in my main bass and just run from the pickup straight to the jack. It's a P-Bass copy with a GFS pickup and it sounds absolutely HUGE as a result.

I came to the realisation that almost always, I NEVER touch any of the controls on my passive basses and leave everything on maximum - this is partly why I've never got on with active preamps etc as I have fiddled, but always found myself back at the centre position. (Edited for clarity!)

The flipside to having no tonal control on your bass is it forces your to do it with your fingers - I've got more adept at going from wooly thud to biting attack just with the part of my striking fingers I use, or by changing pick type. I then approach EQ on the amp as EQ'ing for the room and not the instrument.

Any other players here with this approach? I'm not saying we should all ditch our expensive onboard EQ's etc but try it sometime, it's quite refreshing! It's like having nowhere to hide!

Cheers,
James[/quote]

true
when up to the waist in alligators...its hard to remember you only wanted to drain the swamp

1 pup
1 vol
no tone

let the pre-amp do the walking

Edited November 11, 2009 by mrcrow

[GreeneKing]

This has gone around before and I have said this before.

A string vibrates above a coil and induces a small voltage. In order for that voltage to drive a speaker coil it needs to be amplified. Do it on the bass, in a pedal, or in the amp (or all 3) it still needs amplifying. Passive has to go to active somewhere and to say that this or that works better is I believe folly.

Personally I like a high quality pre-amplifier onboard so that a boosted and frequency biased signal goes out through the lead to the amp and therefore suffers less losses in the cable. I also get a real buzz out of setting up my bass to produce my tone regardless of the amp, within reason.

As far as the speaker coil is concerned there is no such thing as a passive bass.

Peter

[silverfoxnik]

There is always a danger of over-using e.q. IMO. If your amp has a good e.q. facility and so does your bass, then there's potential to overdo it..

From my experience of working in recording studios at various times over the years, the art of getting a good sound from any instrument is in capturing the real sound of the instrument and then enhancing it if you need to with e.q. and/or effects.. I think that is also true in a live situation, though there are more complex factors at work, such as the acoustics in a room etc, etc.

There are exceptions of course; where you might be using e.q. to radically alter the sound you get from a bass for example.. But in most cases I can recall, too much e.q. actually makes things sound 'smaller' and 'thinner' in a mix (for want of any better adjectives), not bigger.

[Mottlefeeder]

Something that has not been mentioned in this thread is that pick-ups are basically coils of wire that have their own resonant frequency, and are designed to work with a specified resistance in order to damp down that resonance. Removing an on-board preamp, or a pot on a passive, can result in a higher amplifier input impedance giving you a more resonant honky sound, or a sound that will vary more if you plug it into a number of different amps.

Some of the up-market preamp upgrades have a switchable input impedance so you can adjust it to find the tone you like

David

[Kev]

i can't think of many genuine reasons why somebody [i]wouldn't[/i] want tone control options on their bass? I currently only own 1 passive bass, and i miss actives sorely. Out of interest, do you passive bassists run your amps eq flat as well? If not, then i ask what is the difference between altering eq on the amp and on the bass, apart from the obvious conveniance of being able to change your eq on the fly?

[Fraktal]

[quote name='Kev' post='652099' date='Nov 12 2009, 12:06 AM']i can't think of many genuine reasons why somebody [i]wouldn't[/i] want tone control options on their bass? I currently only own 1 passive bass, and i miss actives sorely. Out of interest, do you passive bassists run your amps eq flat as well? If not, then i ask what is the difference between altering eq on the amp and on the bass, apart from the obvious conveniance of being able to change your eq on the fly?[/quote]

No, I dont run my amp EQ flat. There isnt much difference, but since you cant bypass the EQ section on most amplifiers, why not use that one and get rid of your bass preamp? Everytime your signal goes through a microchip your signal loses a little something and gains some hiss, harmonic distortion, phase issues and general crap. Thats why we prefer passive basses: Less crap in the signal path, cleaner sound.

[GreeneKing]

[quote name='Fraktal' post='652153' date='Nov 12 2009, 12:20 AM']No, I dont run my amp EQ flat. There isnt much difference, but since you cant bypass the EQ section on most amplifiers, why not use that one and get rid of your bass preamp? Everytime your signal goes through a microchip your signal loses a little something and gains some hiss, harmonic distortion, phase issues and general crap. Thats why we prefer passive basses: Less crap in the signal path, cleaner sound.[/quote]

High quality signal processing doesn't have to be crap. Poor signal processing, even if there's less, is still crap.