my asat bass has gas!

[bishop55]

Hi folks,
Long time lurker, rare poster. I am at my wits end with my G&L ASAT bass. Whenever I play down on the first few frets of the E string it growls in an unpleasant and unmusical way. This is not a good growl, more like a fart, and it does it through anything I play it through, a GK 800 RB, a Peavey TNT, and Ampeg SVT, even straight through a preamp into a recording program. I hate it. I tried lowering the pickup, I play it mostly in the passive position, but I tried it, and it is now as low as it will go. Its not the battery. The only thing that works is turning the volume on the bass down, sort of. What the hell? I've never had to do that!

An interesting story, the damn thing came with a hairline crack right where the body joins the neck. I sent it back which took like a year literally, to get the same one built, and got it back, I just noticed another hairline crack. Very small, but enough to frustrate and confuse. Wah....help me help me, fix my broken wing.

mb

[felixxx]

Did you try with different strings? There may be a bad E string. Another thing that comes to mind is nut, maybe the string is a bit loose in the slot.

[Ken Baker]

I won't speak to the crack.

As to the farting issue;

1. Lower your pickups. They're VERY hot and lowering them will help. A lot.

2. Turn the darned thing down. If you're used to passive basses and diming controls, don't do that here. G&L basses, indeed all active basses, need to have the volume controls backed off to 50-70% and rarely, if ever, dimed. I'm also a believer in backing off the treble and bass to 70% or so as well.

3. Remember you've got a hot-signal bass in your hands, even in passive mode. This means to also back off the preamp gain on your amp so it doesn't clip. Adjust amp EQ to taste and control how loud you are with the master control.

Good luck!

Ken...

[bishop55]

Ken,
Wow, good replies fast! Ok, I'll try to back the volume down, that does actually work. I just sort of thought it should be clear even when dimed, but then again, its been a long time since I played with anything other than OLD technology. Cool, I appreciate it Ken, and I'll also look at the nut issue. I love the way the bass plays and it looks cool as ice . I never even thought about backing the volume off as a reasonable solution. As far as the pickups, I've lowered them as far as the screws will go.

Yeah, the crack, its barely noticeable.

thanks all,

mb

[Ken Baker]

Glad to help.

Backing off the volume and letting the amp do the work really makes a difference. You'll probably find that you can use your right hand to control dynamics, where it's nearly impossible when the volume control sits at 11!

Ken...