shoulderpet

Some people have mentioned triggers broom but I say that if you got yourself a decent bass for a modest amount of cash then good for you, most of those people are probably the same ones that will buy a £200 Squier and spend another £200 modding it. Got to say, I love the bridge on that bass

Wow that is nice, very tempting at that price

I would buy 2 or 3 different sets used and try them and sell on the set that you don't use. Another option is a series/parallel switch, that should get you some extra mids

I have tried the Rotosound medium scale strings but they are not very good, lots of strange overtones and really odd gauges, I use the long scale Rotos now and cut them down, works fine

The feedback on the preamps seems to be solid and looking forward to having a midrange control, the stock Ibanez preamp seems to have a big scoop in the low mids and a huge boost in the treble so will be good to have a 3 band preamp

And I have an Artec se3pa 3 band eq on the way,seesm to be regarded favourably and , I figured that it certainly can't be any worse than the stock preamp with its ear piercing treble

Anyone else here find the treble eq on their Mezzo somewhat excessive? I have a Duncan SPB-2 in mine and I still have the treble rolled off

Thats actually a pretty good idea , after all if you have a customer scratchplate done you can always keep the old scratchplate and return it to its stock pickup configuration if you change your mind or decide to sell

I kind of like that more forward placement of the J pickup, is in a position where you could probably add a big fat MM style pickup and get a half decent tone from it, I agree that it is underpowered though, I am thinking of swapping it out for a Duncan SJB-2 to try and counter that P/J both pickups on scoop and add a bit more balls, was thinking of adding the SJB-2 and doing series/parallel but the SPB-2 I have in there is already 22k and the SJB-2 is around 16k so would probably be mud city with both in series

Yeah I was half considering that myself as I pretty much always find bridge J pickups a bit weak sounding and when mixed with a neck pickup they are usually a bit too scooped at would be nice to have a pickup in that position that I can solo that doesn't sound really weedy

Imo the two things that benefit from upgrading on this bass are the preamp and the J pickup, the J pickup is kind of pingy sounding to me, I have heard it is wound to only about 4k DC resistance which is probably why, I have upgraded the P pickup and the J will probably be my next upgrade. Worth noting though that I am not typically a fan of bridge pickups on pj basses

Aaaaand I spoke too soon, seems the new string zing lasts longer than most strings, then poof the high mids and treble dissapear, nevermind

I cant help you with any in depth technical info but on the 2 pickup Hofner's the bass On position switches off the bridge pickup but also engages a capacitor that rolls off the treble, the Treble slider in the On position switches off the neck pickup and engage a bass cut capacitor, I imagine on the one pickup basses it engages the above capacitors just without switching off pickup(s)

Funny enough I have switched to Rotosound swing bass nickels, I wanted a bit more mids so switched to nickel but honestly these are just great strings, really surprised just how much I like these, lots of midrange growl, quite aggressive sounding

Yep

What about practice at home? If I can't use a bass for home practice then it's not much use to me

Try and play one sitting down, that will soon kill the GAS, I had an Epiphone flying V a while ago and it looked great, sounded great but I ended up getting rid of it because trying to play it sitting down was just horrendous

Hi Am looking at replacing the preamp in my Mezzo bass in the near future as quite frankly the stock one is not great, the tone from the stock one is very processed and unless you use very midrange heavy pickups (which I am now doing, using an SPB2) it has a sizeable scoop in the low mids so I looking at my options , one of which is to replace the preamp but I have mostly had passive basses so dont really know a lot about preamps so basically I am after a 2 band preamp that is transparent sounding and is not scooped , any recommendations ? thank you

This is a good video that compares the SPB-2 to the Emg Geezer, gives a really good indication of its tone [YouTube]

SPB-2 will give you a tonne of mids, the tone is love it or hate it though as they are pretty dark sounding

Yeah I kind of wish I had gone with the Rotosound pressure wounds now

Having been a Rotosound user for a long time I thought I would try something different, the idea of a little bit less treble sounded good and the nickel wrap would presumably mean more mids. Took the strings out of the pack and noticed that the half round smoothing appeared to stop between the bridge and the bridge pickup, strange but I figured I don't play right by the bridge so no real issue Began fitting the strings and immediately was struck by how dead the E string sounded, literally sounded like a flatwound, I thought maybe it was a faulty E string but all the others sounded just as dead, lots of thump but no definition, I expected some nice mids and maybe something approaching a broken in nickel roundwound but no, just dead thump, then I checked the action on my bass and it had raised a half mm so they obviously have a fair amount of tension All in all half rounds are a real disappointment, if you are looking for something in between a round and a flat you are much better served looking at pressure wounds I think

Thanks for that, that link looks like interesting reading. So what about a bass with passive pickups and an onboard active preamp ?

Have pretty much always been a passive bass kind of person and was wondering, the passive basses I have played generally have a bit of a mid scoop with both pickups on, do active basses have the same mid scoop with both pickups on full? Thanks

And got the bass back, the scoop is definitely in the preamp, with the SPB-2 in this bass there is a tonne of midrange, more than enough available but there is a little less than when I had this pickup up in my Jaguar bass and the treble response is brighter than when I had this pickup in my Jaguar bass. Overall I am really happy with the new pickup, it is nice to have my midrange back and the bass is sounding noticeably fatter, I may at some point in the future have an active/passive switch fitted for some more tonal variety. The stock Ibanez pickups are the usual glued on ceramic magnets that you tend to see on cheaper basses, I will be trying them on my Jaguar bass before I sell them on just to see how they sound without the preamp.