itu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_Porra

4 hours ago, geoham said:

Can we infer anything about the quality or (dare I say!) tone of wood from its weight?

Yes. Sadowsky is no good because it is light.

I think the weight thing is so popular, because people haven't any other tools to discuss about the reasons some instrument feels or sounds good. How about the wood structure, shapes of the instrument, components... these already include details that are not possible to reduce to one simple number, like weight.

Pens have springs that are pretty functional with pickups and their screws.

If the foam is black, there may be quite a lot of carbon in it. I might use some other colour.

The voltage looks high in the P48 systems, but the power is very small. There are usually only few milliamperes of current in the system. You can have that P48 attached to a dynamic microphone - no issues in the mixer, no issues in the microphone.

13 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

To be the pedant, the pickup sees the vol as max 500k or less, with the 1M resistor...

It is good to be pedant. I would also start with no resistor parallel to the pot, so 1 Mohm is the first trial and option.

10 hours ago, rmorris said:

Worth looking here (legacy site)

http://www.audereengineering.com/TechDetails.htm

Yes. You can make trial of this impedance change by using let's say a megaohm vol pot and putting different resistors (1 M, 500k, 200k and so on) in parallel with it. This way the pickup sees the vol as a 1 Mohm pot or less.

You have here an LR-circuit. The pickup represents L (inductance) and the pot is a Resistor. Naturally the impedance will change, this is very bassic electronics.

Once more the bass signal chain:

pickups - blend - vol - tone stack - output

If all parts of the chain here are working without a power supply (usually a battery), this circuit is high impedance, a.k.a. passive.

If any part of the signal chain has a power supply, the system output impedance becomes low, a.k.a. active.

Low impedance output is easier than hi-Z to any amp input. If anyone has had issues with piezos (very high impedance), understands this. You know the thin sound that lacks bass. A quality preamp might help.

If your amp has issues with the poor bass response, a preamp (or pickups, or active blend or...) may help. The output impedance can be tweaked with the circuitry somewhat, but the main point is that low impedance lets the whole frequency band out.

Every component, and especially high impedance component in the signal chain affect the pickup response, usually by reducing it. This means that replacing any passive component with a lo-Z one will widen the response. Even the blend and volume pots, which are usually left alone while only the tone stack is replaced. If you still read this, take a look at the signal chain: both pots are right after the pickups - and reduce the freq response!

As all things have two sides, many effects behave differently if the signal is hi-Z, or lo-Z. I have tried far too many OD/fuzz/dist pedals, as well as compressors, to find out that some pedals just work and sound better with different signal types. Make lots of trials and find this out by yourself.

4 hours ago, adamg67 said:

Leaded solder all the way for me as well, you can still buy it no probs.

Agree. I bought few kilos of 60/40 after hearing about this RoHS thing for us ordinary customers.

5 hours ago, Jimothey said:

Thinking about the Grind you could make it look like a modern looking jazz bass...

Do we have too few jazzes around, if that Grind has to be returned to that shape? I have to say that the bass makes me think of pushing that shape even further away from basic J.

But of course this is about taste, which is simply personal.

-fret.

Musicman fretless 5 had a pau ferro board, no lines. Had one a long ago.

I have three (actually four) boards, easier than having just one and fixing it day and night.

6 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

I have no idea. It's not like Alex to create terms of out thin air. I'd ask him.

Exactly. Clean does not mean a thing. Distortion is there, the amount is just not specified.

Watts (RMS, 8 ohm) is a common (comparable) way of explaining the output power of an amp, or the input power of the cab. This may include distortion at certain level, like 1 %. It is meaningful to understand that bass can withstand up to around 10 % of distortion (nothing to do with the effect), and still sound decent.

Remember: watts is about electrical power, not loudness, although they are faintly connected.

Peak levels are funny, because they are so high, and people think that they represent something like ultimate loudness. Which is not true.

If we have numbers like output and input watts, they do not represent loudness levels. dB can describe loudness, but calculating loudness from plain watts - no chance. We need more parameters.

Cabs and amps can produce more or less sound. Watts, sensitivity... Before you certainly know the output level, you have to test the rig, or get lots of data and calculate. The question about the power levels, and their mismatch is mostly academic: it is very seldom the amp is fried if the load is more than 4 ohms. It is rare you can fry a cab if the powers and signals are at somewhat sensible level. I do not say it is impossible. Users can act erroneously, but hopefully this community can help those before any damage will happen.

On 19/03/2022 at 17:13, stewblack said:

This is near the top of my list...

Reminds me of Onkart Gromt Yellow Fellow, no, FunkyFellow!

You could share a pic of your solderings, if that could help us to give you some feasible hints.

Well, there are two options:

- red to the hot output

- red to the pickup's hot wire (here it is white)

Both are practically the same, but you want to try, the change of one wire (red) is quick.

Red one to signal, black to ground. Remove the tone pot. 

The basic idea is that different resistors and capacitors direct certain part of the signal away from the output. As there are only two places possible (out and gnd) the highs go to gnd. The amount is dependent on the values of the components.

25 minutes ago, 2pods said:

Can they handle the active pre amp ?

Is there a particular reason they couldn't?

Nice colour!

This particular bass was built in 2005, as the serial says. FU may mean two things, but here it is Funk Unlimited.

6 hours ago, paul_5 said:

Jazz basses with the metal 'Bell Plate' provide a mahoosive ground connection to the pots, because both the output jack and the pots are in contact with it the whole time. This is fine until a pot comes loose on a gig, and you start to get intermittent drop-out.

Exactly. A pot not soldered = problems. Sooner or later.

The easiest option is to buy a decent iron, powerful enough, say a 40 - 60 W unit. Big power equals short soldering times. Pots can take the extra power when the time is short.

3 hours ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

...Vigier Series III, which, whilst not being balanced adhere to the 600 ohm standard.

I see, you mean XLR-based lo-Z outputs. Yes, balanced is one speciality, and directed to studio people.

31 minutes ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

Active pickups are another story again, as are low-impedance outputs.

What do you mean here with the term "low-impedance outputs"?

Lo-Z output is any bass with any battery powered unit in the signal chain, like active blend or boosting tone stack.

pickups - blend - vol - tone stack - output

Show me the bass which has a fully "active" signal chain, please. If the blend and the vol are plain pots, only the tone stack is battery operated. (Yes, I am excluding those buffered EMGs and few other specialities.)

I wish the word "active" would have another word beside it which would separate hi-Z adjustments + battery tone stacks from true mixers (like some EMGs and John East stuff). Mixer would be fine but because so many people do not understand the difference, thus mixer will not be a widely used term.

I do see that the tone stack itself can be the issue (and is easily replaceable), just like the poor blend+vol stack (which is maybe worth £2). Take a look inside a studio mixer channel, and think why it probably has better sound than your "active" preamp that is worth £10. And I do not mean the price at the dealers. I mean the price of the components and the PCB.

You want to compare something, take a good hi-Z set (like @KiOgon) and try the same bass with a mixer (like East), then this discussion has a better start. Cheap tone stacks are just, yes, cheapo.