Help and/or advice for replacing pickups or preamp please!

[disgruntledmoose]

Hey there. I've been thinking about this for quite a while now, I own a Spector Legend Classic 5 series that looks exactly like this :[url="http://bassclubchicago.bizland.com/store/media/SpectorLegend5AmberburstGloss"]http://bassclubchicago.bizland.com/store/media/SpectorLegend5AmberburstGloss[/url]

I've had an issue with the EMG Hz pickups, both passive with an active preamp circuit. They don't seem to be very loud, the signal seems rather weak. I was doing some recording at our guitarist, Tom's house the other week, using a Peavey mixing unit - I forget what it's called. I took two basses, the Spector and my Yamaha RBX375. We plugged in my Spector first and Tom noticed it was oddly quiet and asked me to switch to my Yamaha which sounded pretty good through the unit. We had a look around the circuitry and replaced the battery without success, so we put it down to either a rubbish preamp or rubbish pickups.
I have not got much of a clue about circuitry to be honest so I'm flying blind here, but I know I want to replace the pickups and the preamp. I've done some digging around the internet and have decided that I should probably change the preamp first. I was thinking of going for an Aguilar preamp first, but I'm not sure which one to go for, even after lengthy research. I was hoping one of you kind folk would steer me in the right direction.

Yours faithfully,

A gear noob.


(Dan)

[MarkBassChat]

Being frankly I wouldn't replace anything without checking what is wrong with the bass. Spector has a very loud preamp (TonePump or TonePump Jr). If this is not caused by an old battery, I would check pickups first - you can connect them directly to the output Jack, and then the preamp (is there a gain trimmer? is it in the minimum position?). If you cannot find anything, I would contact Spector for help. In several similar cases I've seen, only in one case the problem was related to the preamp (which couldn't be fixed). I all other cases there were problems with weak battery, broken wires, or output Jack. If you fail to find a solution, I would buy Aguilar OBP-3: [url="http://www.aguilaramp.com/products_preamps_obp3.htm"]http://www.aguilaramp.com/products_preamps_obp3.htm[/url] . In any case I wouldn't spend any money before checking which actually component failed.

Mark

[Ou7shined]

The Aguilar pre's are a great choice.
It's quite simple, just choose the one which matches your current control set up (if you are happy with it the way it is). Your bass has 5 controls consisting of 4 pots with one concentric. The OBPs are very easy to customise to your own needs. I think you will be looking at the OBP-3 (but maybe you should check yourself)... which I'm a big fan of.

[url="http://www.bestbassgear.com/aguilar-preamp.htm?_s_ref=ILML1dgFS&kw="]http://www.bestbassgear.com/aguilar-preamp.htm?_s_ref=ILML1dgFS&kw="aguilar%20obp-2"&c=10702341451[/url]

[disgruntledmoose]

My Spector comes with an EMG preamp, which works but isn't amazing to be honest. It does sound good if you turn the amp volume all the way up, but it's very quiet if you plug it in to a recording unit in comparison to my Yamaha. Because I play through a Bass Terror, I'd like a bit more versatility from it so it seems going for the preamp is a good idea. I've been scouring the internets for a good place to find an OBP 3 preamp - I've decided I'm going to settle on that. I might have to go on bestbassgear, but is anyone aware of anywhere in the UK/Europe that could get it in quicker/slightly cheaper?