I think pickups or electronics on my practice bass might be dead.

I've been noticing that it distorts when I play through my home PC speakers, but my Stingray doesn't. So I tried it on my bass rig and the distortion is even more noticeable while the stingray sounds absolutely beautiful. I changed the battery and had a poke around in the electronics cavity, and I didn't see any noticeable problems.

It had a hard life so I'm not surprised it's starting to suffer. Nor do I feel it owes me anything. It's an old Ibanez SR885, circa 1992, with the sweepable mids, bass & treble knobs, 2 humbuckers.

Short of replacing the entire electronic assembly, does anyone have any suggestions as to what might fix the problem?

Does it distort with both pickups?
When I first got my Lakland 55-01 it would distort. I too thought it was the battery. Sometimes it would be OK but when I adjusted the mid knob it would distort again. I emailed Lakland and Dan sent meout a mid pot. I installed the new pot and it hasn't distorted since.
Try messing with the preamps controls and see if you narrow it down to a certain knob.

I'm gonna tag along here Pete. I'm curious to see what
comes out of it.

I think pickups or electronics on my practice bass might be dead.

I've been noticing that it distorts when I play through my home PC speakers, but my Stingray doesn't. So I tried it on my bass rig and the distortion is even more noticeable while the stingray sounds absolutely beautiful. I changed the battery and had a poke around in the electronics cavity, and I didn't see any noticeable problems.

It had a hard life so I'm not surprised it's starting to suffer. Nor do I feel it owes me anything. It's an old Ibanez SR885, circa 1992, with the sweepable mids, bass & treble knobs, 2 humbuckers.

Short of replacing the entire electronic assembly, does anyone have any suggestions as to what might fix the problem?

FWIW:

What's the Ibe sound like played through a bass rig? I don't think I give the PC thing a thought at all unless the Ibe didn't distort before. Could be the output is just a lot hotter than the Ray for whatever reason.

But after about 10 years Pre's can go South.

Turn your volume down on your bass... It might be too loud for PC speakers. I wouldn't worry about it... it only matters how it sounds out of your rig.

It was actually worse through my bass rig than the PC speakers. Backing it off did help a little, but the bass is pretty much unplayable.

Does anyone else think I should replace the preamp? If so, does anyone know any that feature controls for Treble, bass, and sweepable mids?

It was actually worse through my bass rig than the PC speakers. Backing it off did help a little, but the bass is pretty much unplayable.

Does anyone else think I should replace the preamp? If so, does anyone know any that feature controls for Treble, bass, and sweepable mids?

FWIW:

okay. I didn't say you should replace the preamp. It may be perfectly fine. I'd skip everything and run the pups straight to the jack first. If no distortion then the issue is likely somewhere in the harness - not necessarily in the preamp aspect of that.

If it does distort pups only then I'd wire them one at a time and see if one or both do it. Problem may be in the pups.

The source could be anything and I wouldn't rule anything out till I ruled it out.

Now you got a fun project going. That is good advice.
Isolate the pups. Then do the decision table.
If bad then isolate individual pups, else check preamp...