Anybody try the Audere preams yet?

Thinking of hotrodding my Pedulla rapture fretless. It comes weith bass/treble, but the key to that mwah is in the midrange, figure it'd be better to have a bass/mid/treb setup for it.

Randy

I've posted extesively on the Audere has has Jauqo-III and emjazz ... do a search. I've just purchased my second Audere preamp to placed in my Modulus Genesis to replace the Bart.

Excellent and versatile amps, and excellent value

I just ordered the Audere 2-band pre.

I'm looking forward to when it arrives.

Here's my thoughts.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=246642&highlight=Audere


If you decide to get the Audere preamp,make sure you get the optional caps(they will take an extremely well built and sounding preamp and make your tonal options endless).

I'm sort of excited about this preamp too. I've got a PRS that's ACHING for a decent preamp. It plays like a mofo, but the electronics are appallingly unbalanced.

I've been casting about for a while for a preamp, but only have 3 spots for pots and 1 switch. This may be what I'm looking for. I'm a bit overwhelmed at the options on the non-Jazz preamp and what I really need.

The Audere Z-modes provide a flexibility that no other amp provides. First, I should say that Dave Meadows underlying materials and circuits are first rate, on a par with Aguilar, Noll and other quality amps. But the Z-mode doesn't just provide static tone shaping like the tone controls. Rather its impact is different on the attack, sustain and decay of the note. I especially notice this on my Geddy Lee which is a bright instrument to begin with. High Z tends to be made for slap; low Z is deep. But it's not just a tone shaping ... it's a dynamic effect.

I'm purchasing my second Audere to put into my Modulus Genesis which is warm and woody, but could be brighter and more aggressive and punchy. I've purchased the second of Dave's new preamp with a passive tone control integrated (i.e., there is no A/P switch, rather the passive tone shaping is further downstream in the preamp) ... emjazz purchased the first as I understand. I'll report on this when I get it installed.

Anyway, Dave is great to deal with; I think he is one smart guy, and I think he really has pushed the envelope on bass preamps ... you definitely should have at least one bass with an Audere preamp.

you definitely should have at least one bass with an Audere preamp.


I agree.

I just received my FBB custom bass with a custom-featured Audere preamp, and will be posting a review soon. So far David has been excellent about communicating with me to see that I'm happy with the product, including troubleshooting some immediate technical glitches. The Jazz model preamp may be dead-simple drop in and play, but the wiring on the custom model is a bit more intensive and requires careful attention when installing.

For the current Audere users, would you say that it enhances the sound of the jazz bass, or changes it?

I have one installed in a Fretless Jazz with Barts and I can definitely say that it enhances it.The Bass growls more and it has a little more bite and definition as well.

OK, here are some soundclips of the different z-modes of the Audere preamp in my FBB. Each one goes: passive, hi-z, mid-z, low-z, passive again. Please excuse the sloppy playing, I only got about four hours of sleep after a 13-hour work shift.

fbbaudereslap.mp3 (http://www.bongomania.com/mp3s/fbbaudereslap.mp3)
fbbauderefinger.mp3 (http://www.bongomania.com/mp3s/fbbauderefinger.mp3)

The pickups are Bartolini P/neck and MM/bridge. I set the controls (V/V/T for both active and passive, no EQ) to P-full on, MM-half on, tone fully open. I plugged the bass straight into the computer via Presonus Firebox, with no EQ, compression, etc. While recording I did not adjust any control anywhere except for the z-mode switch and the active/passive switch.

There is a white-noise hiss with the preamp on, which David says may be caused by the way the electronics were wired in in this case. It is similar to the hiss when using an active treble boost, and is not a ground hum (it goes away completely when the bass is switched into passive mode). David has indicated that he will be working with me in the coming days to diagnose and fix the hiss.

There are four tiny adjustment screws on the housing of the preamp (not the Jazz model). Two of the screws adjust the volume per pickup of the low-z mode (which tends to be louder than the other modes). The other two screws adjust the resonant frequency, per pickup, of the high-z mode. Mid-z has no adjustments. The low-z volume controls are fairly intuitive and easy to deal with once I figured out what they were. I still don't understand fully the high-z adjustments. The trimpots are multi-turn pots with no stops, so you can just turn and turn and turn all day long. I can't hear a difference at any point in that adjustment, but maybe it is too subtle for my ears. I find the high-z adjustment infuriatingly frustrating, because there is no indicator of what is happening, if anything. Just keep turning the screw.

The low-z mode adds definite low end oomph to the tone, great for reggae etc., but it also seems to lose some clarity on the high end. The mid-z mode has razor-sharp clarity and brightness, but seems a little sterile. And the high-z mode just sounds bad to me. And as I flip through the settings, playing the bass, closing my eyes and forgetting which setting I have switched it to, I find that I like the passive tone best of all. I honestly think this particular bass (& pickups) sounds better with no preamp than with any of the active settings.

HUGE CAVEATS: I have only had this bass a couple of days. I am not a very experienced user of nice bass preamps. Heck, I'm not even an experienced bassist. David and I will be working to resolve the hiss, and it is highly likely that in that process over more days of playing and experimenting that I will learn how to get better tone out of the various settings.

I will definitely post more information and opinions as I learn more about using this preamp, and I will try to record some better samples soon as well.

The Low Z setting has a bit of body to it...not bad.

The Low Z setting has a bit of body to it...not bad.


The low Z setting has the boomiest(and clearets)low end of any onboard Preamp I have have ever encountered.It will seriously blow your mind.

i own a 50th anniversary fender Jazzbass and i really dig the sounds, but i have some lack of Mids and Low end and a really low output.
from what i have read here, i understand that the audere will give me the sounds im looking for but will not add gain to the bass output - am i right ?

my sister is coming for a vacation in L.A. so im considering buying one and have it shipped for her...

The high-z and mid-z modes do not add any gain to your output- in fact they may be slightly quieter than the passive bypassed output. But the low-z mode has a wide range of gain, and can in fact be quite loud if you choose. Low-z mode will also be perceived as louder just because of the frequencies it emphasizes. /EDIT/ Apparently this is mistaken; I thought I had read it somewhere on the Audere site, but now I can't find it. I must have imagined it, or mixed up different factors.

As I've used my setup a bit more (the J-plate in a Geddy Lee Fender with Lindy Fralin single coil pups) I found that some settings give me hiss as well. It seems to vary by amp and Z-setting ... the mid-Z is always fine, but with certain amps or for example my Sansamp BDDI, I will get a hiss either on the low-Z or high-Z. I'm not sure if this is the pickup (I'm using a single-coil, so this is inherently noisier but worth it for the tone) but it seems more like the way the preamp interfaces with the amplifier. Anyway bongomania, I will be interested in knowing what steps you take to resolve this.

The high-z and mid-z modes do not add any gain to your output- in fact they may be slightly quieter than the passive bypassed output. But the low-z mode has a wide range of gain, and can in fact be quite loud if you choose. Low-z mode will also be perceived as louder just because of the frequencies it emphasizes.

ok, too bad... i really thought this preamp will be the answer to the low output problem without changing the original character of the bass.

The low Z setting has the boomiest(and clearets)low end of any onboard Preamp I have have ever encountered.It will seriously blow your mind.


You can understand how that would appeal to me.

BTW, digging Essence of the Groove...Haven't had enough time to really spend a lot of time with it yet, but I've gone through all the samples and your commentary is pretty much exactly my take on playing. Only had about 3 chances to spend any time so far, though!

You can understand how that would appeal to me.

BTW, digging Essence of the Groove...Haven't had enough time to really spend a lot of time with it yet, but I've gone through all the samples and your commentary is pretty much exactly my take on playing. Only had about 3 chances to spend any time so far, though!

Again the low Z mode position is like dropping a low frequency Bomb(in a very versatile and good way).The Low Z mode output can be set for subtle enhancement or outright take no prisoners aggressiveness to anywhere in between.

And Asaf
The Z-modes switch and the preamp overall adds very very subtle gain.If you install the Audere preamp you will definitely hear a very pronounced difference in your Basses tonal output overall.Installing the system will guarantee you a big difference in the sound of your Bass compared to what it sounded like before the Audere preamp is installed.

I have yet to experience any hiss at all from my preamp no matter how I set it.

And I'm glad you dig and fing TEOTG helpfull.

And Asaf
The Z-modes switch and the preamp overall adds very very subtle gain.If you install the Audere preamp you will definitely hear a very pronounced difference in your Basses tonal output overall.Installing the system will guarantee you a big difference in the sound of your Bass compared to what it sounded like before the Audere preamp is installed.


Hi Jauqo,
if the audere will add some sound options and i will be still be able to get my original sound i would be happy (when the preamp is bypassed) , but if it doesn't add gain and mids like my bartolini in my pentabuzz im guessing it's not for me.

if you have any other recommendations i would be more then happy to check them out.

Ah, OK Asaf, now I can understand better. Before, it was not clear what you wanted. The Audere will not boost the gain of your mids in the same way a traditional preamp will.

if it doesn't add gain and mids like my bartolini in my pentabuzz im guessing it's not for me.


I played a Hexabuzz for a little over a decade(the duel J version) and I can say that the Audere has a very similar presence,if you didn't know there are optional capacitors that can be provided for each pickup(they can be plugged into the JZ3 board)that can seriously open doors for so many different sounds.

and it's a lot cheaper than buying a Bass that would cost so much more.

I still don't understand fully the high-z adjustments. The trimpots are multi-turn pots with no stops, so you can just turn and turn and turn all day long. I can't hear a difference at any point in that adjustment, but maybe it is too subtle for my ears. I find the high-z adjustment infuriatingly frustrating, because there is no indicator of what is happening, if anything. Just keep turning the screw.

The trim pots do not have stops - I wish they did also but most multi-turned adjustments do not have stops.

Sorry for the frustration that you can not hear a difference. It is easiest to hear when popping the strings. If you have speaker cabinets lacking in high frequency response (maybe you have turned a tweeter completely off) or if you have significant hearing loss it might not be possible for you to hear a difference.

In general, I used the multi-turned adjusters (which cost more) because having a single turn pot would be too sensitive for many types of pickups.

In the JZ3 preamp, I simplified the setup with replaceable caps. Players are reporting they can easily hear the difference from changing the caps, as Westland noted in his previous post, it does change the sound.

Low-z mode will also be perceived as louder just because of the frequencies it emphasizes.

Actually if you look at a human's hearing curves this would not be correct. You need a lot higher vol at low frequencies to hear them as equal vol. See the standard Fletcher-Munson curve below

http://www.audereaudio.com/images/Fletcher-Munson.gif

Low Z-Mode can be noiseier compared to Mid Z-Mode because when you set the sound level to be "equal" you will be actually be increasing the amplification much loader. All any preamp can do is have a very good signal to noise ratio. If you increase the gain you will hear more noise for any signal to noise level.

High Z-Mode has more noise. This is caused by 2 reasons:
1) The higher resistance to the loading has more Shot Noise. It will also have more Excess Noise etc. We use high quality low noise metal film resistors etc. to keep the noise down.
2) The pickup, itself, receives more noise from any voltage noise source in this mode.

In general, an active bass will have more noise than a passive bass unless you set the signal bandwidths to be equal. Most passive basses do not have a very wide frequency range in actual usage but this is also why they have less definition. Some preamp manufactures have cut back the bandwidth to lower the noise but this reduces definition. The tradeoff is simple physics and applies to pressure waves (sound), electrical waves, optics and any other type of wave. Is the tradeoff good or bad - it only depends on how you play and what you want to do with the bass...

I can help you reduce your options to 2 (or 1) Z-Modes and lower the bandwidth if that is your preference.

Ah, OK Asaf, now I can understand better. Before, it was not clear what you wanted. The Audere will not boost the gain of your mids in the same way a traditional preamp will.

:) sorry man, the english teachers here make 5$ an hour so most of the english i know is from reading Bassplayer magzines and watching movies (mostly porn :D ).

my problem is the output Volume - i need a preamp that will boost my signal, otherwise the audere seems to be the best choice.

I've posted extesively on the Audere has has Jauqo-III and emjazz ... do a search. I've just purchased my second Audere preamp to placed in my Modulus Genesis to replace the Bart.

Excellent and versatile amps, and excellent valueSorry, boy is that a newbie mistake or what... Search you say?????

I had researched preamps for this bass before, pretty extensively, didn't find the audere, so when I saw it on the TB banner, I assumed it was a new product just out.

I have one installed in a Fretless Jazz with Barts and I can definitely say that it enhances it.The Bass growls more and it has a little more bite and definition as well.That sounds exactly what I'm looking for. Getting a modern gravelly gritty fretless Jazz/Stingray sort of tone. Rather than imitating an acoustic double bass.

Thanks guys..

Randy

The Audere will give you what you are looking for and it wont break your bank.

Amen to that brother, it gives me an infinite palette of colors to paint with without leaving a signature tone:D

Here's a stupid question: Does putting a Vol, Bal/Mid, Treb/Bass JZ3 into a Vol, Vol, Tone Jazz require any tricky wiring or extra work?

Here's a stupid question: Does putting a Vol, Bal/Mid, Treb/Bass JZ3 into a Vol, Vol, Tone Jazz require any tricky wiring or extra work?

The JZ3 is offered in a Vol,Vol,Tone version

The JZ3 is offered in a Vol,Vol,Tone version

I would prefer the Master Vol, Blend and 3-Band EQ, though. That's why I was curious about the install...

Amazingly, I like the Audere more and more everytime I play. And yes, I did recieve the first "passive tone" rolloff. It's exactly what I was looking for and it's made it all the more enjoyable. I can get many, many more tones now.

Here's a stupid question: Does putting a Vol, Bal/Mid, Treb/Bass JZ3 into a Vol, Vol, Tone Jazz require any tricky wiring or extra work?

No tricky wiring, it replaces all of your old wiring so you just screw your pickup leads in the terminals and then crimp your bridge ground on the white wire then you're gtg.

Depending on the size of your cavity you may have to do some extra work to make the battery fit in, though. I had to redrill the holes that the bridge pickup lead and bridge ground lead came out of because they came out where the battery was and there wasn't enough room for the battery and the wires on the side of the cavity.

Sweet. Thanks. I'm putting in a set of DiMarzio Model Js next week and my next mod will probably be a Schaller 2000 Bridge, followed by the JZ3.

I just installed an Audere JZ3 in my Lakland Skyline JO4 and all I can say is WOW! This is one great sounding preamp.

The guitarist/singer in my band and I have been working on recording some demos. He records drums, guitar and vocals then sends me an MP3. I put it in GarageBand and record the bass line, then send just the bass line to him. I tried every bass I have, and settled on my G&L L2000 because it had the best sound, but even with it I had to do a ton of EQ to get it to sound good in the mix. I just redid one of the parts with my Lakland, with the preamp in Low Z mode and the EQ on the preamp and in GarageBand flat. It sounds absolutely perfect, with no EQ at all.

Here are a couple of clips, first just the bass, then with the full band. The bass has the stock Fralin pickups and TI flats.