Purple Dye Quilt Top Dusty Hill (ish) Tribute

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

It can be a tricky proposition.  One of the drawbacks of the onboard preamp is that it can't give the soundman a flat signal to work with.  If you like the sound, and the soundman likes the sound, win win.  When I do play the EBMM, I cut the treble and mid just south of the center detent and leave the bass flat.  Even then, it's not truly flat because of the flavor of that preamp but it still gives the FOH guy something to boost or cut.  Anything else I'd do for stage EQ is on the amp which is close to flat anyway.  The reason I say all that, a band I sub for, their regular guy has an HH Stingray 5, he turns the bass all the way up, cuts the mids and treble all the way off and uses both humbuckers full on, never touches anything.  That's his one sound.  He complains he can never hear anything and FOH guy has nothing to work with.  He (FOH guy) can't boost the mids or treble because they never got to him.  Whereas all passive, send pre EQ flat signal to sound guy, let your amp make your ears happy and trust the soundman makes you sound good.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

It can be a tricky proposition.  One of the drawbacks of the onboard preamp is that it can't give the soundman a flat signal to work with.  If you like the sound, and the soundman likes the sound, win win.  When I do play the EBMM, I cut the treble and mid just south of the center detent and leave the bass flat.  Even then, it's not truly flat because of the flavor of that preamp but it still gives the FOH guy something to boost or cut.  Anything else I'd do for stage EQ is on the amp which is close to flat anyway.  The reason I say all that, a band I sub for, their regular guy has an HH Stingray 5, he turns the bass all the way up, cuts the mids and treble all the way off and uses both humbuckers full on, never touches anything.  That's his one sound.  He complains he can never hear anything and FOH guy has nothing to work with.  He (FOH guy) can't boost the mids or treble because they never got to him.  Whereas all passive, send pre EQ flat signal to sound guy, let your amp make your ears happy and trust the soundman makes you sound good.

Agreed.  Whenever I run sound, I always ask bass players, and acoustic guitar players to leave the volume knob up during sound check and set the eq's flat.  9 out of 10 times, they're pleased with what I give them back.

That's why I like the Timothy B. Schmidt method.  Both pickups wired parallel to a volume pot, and the truth.  I think you actually get the best results with 2 J-Bass pickups, but a MM in the bridge and a Jazz in the neck works equally well.  The latter is the John Myung method, he only uses the volume knob and has the other guts tucked in the cavity taped at neutral.

 

[swarfrat]

Just to be fair... it's not the active preamp that can't give the sound guy a flat sound. It's the player who can't resist knob twiddling.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Just to be fair... it's not the active preamp that can't give the sound guy a flat sound. It's the player who can't resist knob twiddling.

Absolutely.  If they'll just leave it flat, then there's room for FOH to make necessary adjustments.  They can only give back what you give them.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Just to be fair... it's not the active preamp that can't give the sound guy a flat sound. It's the player who can't resist knob twiddling.

I know.  I'm saying when the bass instead of amp does most of the EQ'ing, using any extreme drastically limits the FOH flexibility.

 

[photoguy]

I cut the treble and mid just south of the center detent and leave the bass flat.

Hey STDC,
That is exactly the settings I play onstage with. I can hear what need in my in-ears and the sound guy gets a consistent signal from me. The way we run our basses (everyone plays bass at some point in the night) there is no amp to fiddle with. All the bass guitars go directly into the snake. That is split between monitor mixer and FOH. All I got is my volume knob on my bass. Unless that knob breaks, and then I go to the next one, as previously stated! :doh:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

(everyone plays bass at some point in the night)

Heh.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I looked at the EQ portion a little on the Seymour Duncan site.  I love how there is enough slack in the harness to give you options on locations.  I also love the fact they have a version without stacked pots (like yours).  I have a few questions about it.  1.) Do they have center detents on the pots, 2.) Active EQs even with center detents usually still color the tone by design - is it fairly transparent with everything flat, .3.) Those pots look fairly substantial and unique, any leads on finding a replacement should one go bad?

I've looked at the Aguilar preamp as well.  Most places offer a prewired configuration, but it can be ordered separately and customer wired.  I prefer the latter.  However, it has some strange pot values; 10k and 50k.  Those are out of the realm of most parts suppliers that offer up the usual 25k, 250k, 500k, 1 meg stuff.  Compound that with the fact I need long shaft and center detent, it becomes impossible.  Most namebrand pots, and electronics, are Chinese made.  There is a mom and pop Chinese surplus near my house where I could find odds and ends like that, but due to the cold war feel of the stuff, I just assume it already doesn't work.

So to you and anyone else reading this, how/where does one go about installing or repairing the strange parts these things require if not wanting to go the pre-fab route??