Effect won't work on active bass?

funkstag · #1 06-23-2011, 01:01 AM

Hey TB!
I have a Morley 'Pro Series II Distortion Wah Volume' pedal. May I add that this pedal is really great and I haven't had any faults with it until now.
Problem: This pedal's distortion refuses to work on my Stingray 4HH, but it works fine on my passive LTD B-50.
Question: Is it possible to get it to work or is this product not designed for active guitars? Is there anything I can do to get it working?

Thanks, the Stag

slaphappychappy · #2 06-23-2011, 01:37 AM

Have u tried turning the volume down on the guitar? Don't know if it will work??

warwick.hoy · #3 06-23-2011, 01:55 AM

Do you mean doesn't work with the Stingray or sounds like crap with the Stingray.

There are some Fuzz pedals that just don't sound good with Actives in front of it. I'm not sure of the details but I know it has something to do with actives generally being of lower impedance than passives. The better known problem pedals are the Zvex Woolly Mammoth and various Fuzz Faces and variants. You may be able to mod those circuits to accept a lower impedance but I'm not sure exactly how to do that.

Whether your Distortion Wah suffers from the same issue I don't know.

T-34 · #4 06-23-2011, 02:00 AM

Depending on how the volume pot is wired in the active preamp, turning it down may help. or not.

There are some effects like vintage Wahs or fuzzface which will work only with passive pickups. You can kinda simulate this by wiring a 10 KOhm resistor in series just before the jack socket (between jack and preamp). Again, this is just a hack and not a 100% equivalent to real passive pickup....

funkstag · #5 06-23-2011, 02:23 AM

To answer warwick's question, it simply sounds horrible and is very very quiet.