Creating an active bass out of a passive one

[allighatt0r]

Recently my brother bought himself a £99 6 string bass, and the price tag shows... but it's given him his first experience of a 6 string and he likes it, and it's a bit of a project upgrading it, new strings, nut, ...whatever.

And as the tone layout is frankly stupid (two volumes, one for each pickup, and no less than three passive tone knobs (each pot has a capacitor....)) So, we've come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a bad idea to make it into an active bass, changing the three tone knobs into a three band EQ...

I was wondering what would be the best way to go about doing this, should i try to purchase a ready made wiring set on Ebay, or would it be better to make one myself, buying a 9-volt battery adapter and some wires from Maplins and soldering the lot together, between me and my dad we have some half decent wiring and soldering experience.

Thanks for any help in advance.

[neepheid]

[quote name='allighatt0r' post='156258' date='Mar 12 2008, 06:52 PM']Recently my brother bought himself a £99 6 string bass, and the price tag shows... but it's given him his first experience of a 6 string and he likes it, and it's a bit of a project upgrading it, new strings, nut, ...whatever.

And as the tone layout is frankly stupid (two volumes, one for each pickup, and no less than three passive tone knobs (each pot has a capacitor....)) So, we've come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a bad idea to make it into an active bass, changing the three tone knobs into a three band EQ...

I was wondering what would be the best way to go about doing this, should i try to purchase a ready made wiring set on Ebay, or would it be better to make one myself, buying a 9-volt battery adapter and some wires from Maplins and soldering the lot together, between me and my dad we have some half decent wiring and soldering experience.

Thanks for any help in advance. [/quote]

I've had good results with Artec pre-amps, with 5 holes in the face of your bass, the SE-3 seems ideal:

[url="http://www.artecsound.com/se3.html"]http://www.artecsound.com/se3.html[/url]

You can get it from Thomann:

[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/artec_se3_basselektronik.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/artec_se3_basselektronik.htm[/url]

Remember you'll have to find somewhere to put a 9V battery. I usually get the router out and install a proper battery box.

Edited March 12, 2008 by neepheid

[Mottlefeeder]

[quote name='allighatt0r' post='156258' date='Mar 12 2008, 06:52 PM']Recently my brother bought himself a £99 6 string bass, and the price tag shows... but it's given him his first experience of a 6 string and he likes it, and it's a bit of a project upgrading it, new strings, nut, ...whatever.

And as the tone layout is frankly stupid (two volumes, one for each pickup, and no less than three passive tone knobs (each pot has a capacitor....)) So, we've come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a bad idea to make it into an active bass, changing the three tone knobs into a three band EQ...

I was wondering what would be the best way to go about doing this, should i try to purchase a ready made wiring set on Ebay, or would it be better to make one myself, buying a 9-volt battery adapter and some wires from Maplins and soldering the lot together, between me and my dad we have some half decent wiring and soldering experience.

Thanks for any help in advance. [/quote]
If you feel up to making one, there is a lot of useful information on this thread at DIY Audio
[url="http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=75949&perpage=25&pagenumber=2"]http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread....mp;pagenumber=2[/url] - it starts as 2 band EQ and then branches into 3-band eq and 3-band swept mid EQ
Also worth a look is this two channel 2 band eq design the bare bones bass blender (BBBB for short)
[url="http://personalpages.tds.net/~fdeck/bass/"]http://personalpages.tds.net/~fdeck/bass/[/url]

[allighatt0r]

After looking at those schematics i think the idea of building our own is pretty out of the window... they just look plain scary.

But thanks very much for the thomann link, it looks like just what we were after.

[tauzero]

[quote name='neepheid' post='156262' date='Mar 12 2008, 06:59 PM']I've had good results with Artec pre-amps, with 5 holes in the face of your bass, the SE-3 seems ideal:

[url="http://www.artecsound.com/se3.html"]http://www.artecsound.com/se3.html[/url]

You can get it from Thomann:

[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/artec_se3_basselektronik.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/artec_se3_basselektronik.htm[/url][/quote]
Look on ebay too, Artec preamps go for half the price they do from Thomann.