can i improve upon my precision bass guts?

  • Thread starter Thread starter _brian_
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_brian_

_brian_

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i had a strange distorted crackle when ever I played a note on my usa p bass, the pots were annoyingly crackley and I needed the bass to record with in my amature studio. i completely removed the tone & volume controls as had no spares (after drawing up a circuit diagram :p) and this fixed the problem. to my surprise the bass sounds a lot better :eek:, i can use my trace elliot amp for adjusting tone & the bass is not used for gigging so this works really well.

i will want to replace the guts sometime, but instead of just replacing component like for like i thought i'd ask you lot if perhaps there are better tone & volume circuits i can replace the precision bass original circuit with. i don't want to lose the precision bass tone (as that's the reason i bought the instrument ;)) but perhaps you lot know of some tweeks & mods that can enhance the instument.

over to you :cool:
 
Well You could go for an active set up..... It would contain a preamp and an active tone controll (how many bands is up to you) ...It would provide a much higher output signal and a lower output impedance....

I put a simular unit in my Bass Players Yahama 5 string (minus the active tone controll , just used a Passive one in his bass) and it really helped bring the Bass forward in the Mix and has so much more sustain and punch ....

There are a few consumer active electronics kit out there that can be pretty easilly installed in a bass with a little bit of soldering experience.... The one I installed in my buddies bass was designed and built by me so I can"t get you a link to it as mine aren"t ready for production yet....


Cheers
 
Minion said:
Well You could go for an active set up..... It would contain a preamp and an active tone controll (how many bands is up to you) ...It would provide a much higher output signal and a lower output impedance....

I put a simular unit in my Bass Players Yahama 5 string (minus the active tone controll , just used a Passive one in his bass) and it really helped bring the Bass forward in the Mix and has so much more sustain and punch ....

There are a few consumer active electronics kit out there that can be pretty easilly installed in a bass with a little bit of soldering experience.... The one I installed in my buddies bass was designed and built by me so I can"t get you a link to it as mine aren"t ready for production yet....


Cheers
Click to expand...

i was looking really at passive circuitry, i don't want anything like overdrive etc either, just tone & volume. :cool:
 
The best thing to do in your case would be to buy high quality versions of the electronics that were in there. The downfall of most electronic things is the quality of the parts, swapping out a $6 pot for a $2 will make a lot of difference.
 
Farview said:
The best thing to do in your case would be to buy high quality versions of the electronics that were in there. The downfall of most electronic things is the quality of the parts, swapping out a $6 pot for a $2 will make a lot of difference.
Click to expand...

I concur. Btw the pots were probably just dirty and needed to be cleaned with contact cleaner. However if they were crappy pots you should just replace them anyway.
 
a crackly sound indicates the potentometers need to be cleaned out with some contact cleaner. but you alerady took them off so that is not a problem anymore:D
as far as MIA P bass pickups go the stock pups are hard to beat
you could replace the 250 K stock pots with some 500 K pots.
 
If it were mine, and I wanted a classic P Bass sound, I'd go for a Dimarzio Model P pickup, a couple CTS 250K pots, and whatever cap it came with. Oh, and a Switchcraft jack. But if it's a USA made P Bass, that's what it has (except, of course, for the pickup). Clean the pots, make sure the jack is tight, and you should be good.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
ok thanks guys, i've kept the pots & cap but'll i'll just replace them with precision components, i may get a couple of pots & caps and experiment with the tonal range a little. ;)

"Dimarzio Model P pickup"

i'll check this out and mabye try something like that later on.

"a crackly sound indicates the potentometers need to be cleaned out with some contact cleaner"

the pots were dirty and in need of cleaning/replacement, but i think there was also something else as it was a strange very low level distorted sound that just registered whenever any note was played. position of the pots didn't alter this distortion in anyway either so i thought perhaps it wasn't just the pots that were the problem.

cheers
 
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