Adding a preamp to my Iceman

[Woodinblack]

I don't play the iceman as much as I should. It has 4 string and no preamp, so it tends to stay at home a lot, which is a shame as it really attracts attention. 

Having said that, its mostly down to the balance and the base straplock coming out that i haven't played it much

My Ibanez SR5005 pre-amp is a bit flakey, as it seems they all are, so I took it out with a look to repair it. I see on the net it is £150 which clearly it isn't worth, especially as they all seem to lose treble control after a while, so I thought I would get a new one. The artec pre-amps are really cheap and seem ok build. So I bought one for it. At the same time I realised that a stacked bass / treble for the iceman would be £20 and some knobs so I bought that. Looks like this:

So opened it up, put the other one in:

Looks like they already had plans for the battery.

 

 

and it ends up like

The only problem is that artec in their wisdom swapped the red and black wires from the balance control to the preamp around, and as a result it didn't work. If it had I would have gigged it yesterday, but it was mute.

In fact it was fine when I first put it together, as I forgot the earth wire, so it buzzed when i touched it, but when I soldered it up, it went dead. Took it all apart, seemed something was shorting the balance (it was, it was the balance output being grounded!).

 

Apart from that, whch was a bit frustrating, not a bad upgrade for less than £30. The sound is very transparent when flat, ie, you can't tell there is a pre-amp, which is a sign it is a good preamp, the tone has a good range and frankly I prefer a balance to two volumes.

Only thing I am not so keen on is that I think the balance is a bit of the wrong value, it is only about half its turn that it is that useful..

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2018 by Woodinblack

[Andytre]

I'm a big fan of those Artec Preamps. have them in 2 precision's and got another on route for a MM precision build. they're simple cheap and sound good to me! i haven't actually hooked up the ground in one of mine but it doesn't hum so a lucky accident!

also i now have iceman GAS thanks for that!! 

[Woodinblack]

I hope the bad wiring thing was specific to my version of the pre-amp. I will check before I fit the next one! Other than that, I am very impressed with them.