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Boodang started following Active pickups vs passive + pedal preamp , Best amp for intermediate player? , Is there a popular bass player, that you just don’t get? and 5 others
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A bit of a left field suggestion but this is the route I’ve gone down…. an active PA speaker. I bought an LD Systems Icoa 15a for £380. It’s got a 300watt class D amp, 128db max spl (although it doesn’t specify at what frequency), coaxial horn and weighs 25kg. Powerful, versatile, sounds great, and not that heavy. Admittedly you’ll need a preamp pedal (unless you already have one), but I think better value than dedicated bass amps. PS they also do a 12” version which is slightly lighter and cheaper.
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Is there a popular bass player, that you just don’t get?
Boodang replied to Rayman's topic in General Discussion
Yep, Jaco. I love the stuff he collaborated on such as Bright Size Life and Hejira, and let’s face it some great moments with Weather Report, but solo not for me at all. Just sounds like a technical exercise, clever but not melodic. PS I love fretless burpy tones tho. -
Funny you should start this thread as had a similar thing with bass bros recently. Nothing dramatic mind, just a slight lack of communication. Saw a Warwick on their site a few weeks ago, emailed an enquiry then noticed it disappeared from their website. Eventually called them and had a nice chat, but didn’t get a reply by email. Not really an issue but I can’t imagine their inbox is that inundated (I could be wrong). And for those that say ‘just pick up the phone’, I live half a world away, so not as easy
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Can somebody explain DI Recording to a dummy?
Boodang replied to MikeTheMisfit's topic in General Discussion
…. I mentioned no names!! -
Can somebody explain DI Recording to a dummy?
Boodang replied to MikeTheMisfit's topic in General Discussion
Lots of good recommendations and advice on what to get but bear in mind the OP asked ‘how’ it all works not ‘what’ to get! -
Can somebody explain DI Recording to a dummy?
Boodang replied to MikeTheMisfit's topic in General Discussion
Two things here… DI (direct inject) is where you electronically match a high impedance unbalanced signal (typically your guitar) to a low impedance balanced signal so you can plug it into the mic input on a mixing desk or interface. Put simply it’s a box where you plug in your jack lead and the output is an xlr mic lead. Used for live to get it to the desk or in the studio. The reason; if you plug high impedance (your guitar if it doesn’t have fancy electronics built in) into low impedance all the top end drops out. Also a good way of tapping into your signal at a gig or when recording. DAW is something different and is just your software / hardware interface for recording. Your interface to the daw will take your analogue signal and turn it into digital so the software can process it. Quite often you’ll use a DI box to get your guitar signal connected to the interface (especially if it doesn’t have a high z input. -
I’ve got one of these. Ambient is the only way to describe it! Great pedal.
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So, if anything, active pickups have less of a profile than passive pickups in the sense of their response. An active pup will generally have a wider bandwidth (especially top end) and have a flatter response than a passive pup which will have less above 3Khz. If you want flexibility, then active pups is the way to go as they have the greater frequency response. You can use an active preamp with either passive or active pups. For the greatest possibly flexibility use active pups with an active preamp. All you have to do now is try out / listen to the almost infinite combination of both available to you, especially if you decide to add some kind of pedal as well! You could play it safe and go for EMG active pups and Aguilar active preamp as a good starting point. In terms of preamp pedals, well, there's as many opinions as to what to get as there are pedals, so good luck! Personally, in terms of eq shaping I just use a compressor pedal (just please don't ask what compressor pedal to get as you'll end up starting 'that' thread again!).
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I did have lots of basses but that was because I hadn’t found ‘the one’. Then, not long ago, I accidentally had a custom made (long story!) and that was it. Now I’ve lost interest in buying new basses. However, gas obviously hadn’t left the building as I started playing drums but I haven’t found ‘that kit’. So I’m back where I started except drum kits are larger and along with the infinite cymbals I obvious need, it seems more expensive.
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Buy a B6 and ditch everything?!
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Active pickups or passive pickups with an active preamp? A lot of manufacturers install active preamps as it gives you a lot of tone sculpting power.
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A quick note regarding pre-amps... these are completely separate to active pickups and you can use an active preamp with a passive or active pup*. A passive preamp can only cut frequencies (typically treble roll off), whereas an active preamp will also be able to boost frequency bands and possible have a line driver as well to reduce the line impedance. An active preamp can be quite useful as you can install one that works well with a specific bass. However you can just use an external preamp (on your amp, pedal or rack) to do the same job. * There are some exceptions; active pups have an op amp so they are buffered. This means that you could blend two active pups in parallel but you can't put them in series. So you can't install a series/parallel switch on a bass with active pups. Also, there are a few preamps that have pickup impedance loading options but again, as an active pup is buffered you can't do that either.
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Also, ‘the trapdoor’ toneprint is worth a punt as it’s a full on aggressive comp.
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As to which pickups I favour… it used to be active emg’s but I just ended up rolling off the treble. Now I only use passive pups, I get custom ones made to get as close to the tone I’m after straight out. So for my P the response is very mid heavy and cuts thru, for my jazz it’s alnico2 magnets on the bridge for more mids, and alnico5 on the neck for more bass. Pickup design is a rabbit hole. Different magnets, magnet size/shape, windings and wire diameter… there’s an endless combination. But nothing I like more than discussing a new custom pickup design and then seeing what the results are like.
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The mechanics; the more windings on a pickup the higher the output but narrower the bandwidth. So a passive pickup will have enough windings for a usable output but not much response above 4k. To get around this an active pickup will have few windings, a full bandwidth and to get over the very low output, a built in op-amp to boost the signal (hence the need for a battery). passive pups also have an output impedance fixed by the number of windings (usually around 10k ohms) whereas active pups have an output impedance set by the op-amp which can be 10k or as low as 600/300 ohms, in which case it’s a line driver and the capacitance of the cable will not effect the top end (ie roll off treble). In practice it means active pups tend to have more top end and are brighter. There’s a good YouTube vid where someone goes through multiple types of replacement pups on a jazz, as soon as he plays the emg’s it’s a bright tone. If you want that bright hi-fi tone then actives are the way to go as no amount of boosting the top end will get what you want from a passive pup as it doesn’t have the bandwidth. Of course you can still eq an active pup but you might find a passive one does that for you. ‘Organic’ is a phrase often used for the tone of a passive pup but that’s basically because it’s applying its own eq by virtue of a limited bandwidth.