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brian_primrose
04-27-2013, 06:42 AM
Good morning.

Does anyone have experience with adding a passive/active switch to an active bass?

I aquired a maple body Ibanex 5 string with passive Bartolini pick ups and pre amp with bass, trebble and veri-mid control.

C3 +- (130.8hz) anywhere on the neck is a bit dull while F3 +- (174.6) is enhanced, again anywhere on the neck. I can dial it out to a degree but it is a bit of a pain. The ear to the horn test suggests that this in not the same dead spot issue that my last bass suffered from, and I was wondering if runing it passive may be a fun thing to try.

Any suggestions? Would this be a DIY or take it to a pro?

Brian

TobiasMan
04-27-2013, 10:50 PM
The Bartolini preamp in my Tobias (that replaced the original) has a passive/active switch, built into the volume control. Pull the volume knob and it apparently goes into passive mode. On the original preamp, that same switch triggered a somewhat scooped, slap type EQ, but that specific preamp is not available, from Bartolini or anywhere else. The new preamp works fine, but the tone with switch in what should be the passive mode is "weird" and I don't use it. May have something to do with the pickups, but I don't know.

I said this to indicate that there are preamps with this feature built in, as long as the rest of the basses electronics are compatible.