Aguilar OBP3 Preamp owners - what do you like/dislike about it?

[fourstringbliss]

I'm considering installing an OBP3 in my bass.

What do you like about your OBP3?

What do you dislike about your OBP3?

[slaerts]

I went from a stock 9v active circutry in a cheap bass and had an obp-3 put in. I still have it but find it way too boomy and loud. It puts a lot of sound to your amp. I find the Bass, mid and trebble very touchy. If you like a big boomy sound, someone described it as modern, then go for it. It does sound better than what I had but not, in my opinion, fantastically so.

[mdrdvp]

I agree with that. I'm playing a Moon Larry Graham which had a Bartolini pre-amp and art p.u.'s. The sound was too boomy, especially the E-string, so I replaced the pre-amp with an Aguilar OBP3. I still have the same problem. Soundwise it's different but and tonsewise you have a lot of options but for me it's not a real improvement. SO if somebody recognise this problem, please advise me in this.

Manfred

[sunbeast]

The problem that alot of people have with the OBP-3 in my experience is that a little adjustment can add alot of signal- just a little turn of the bass pot too much and it will sound boomy. It sounds pretty darn flat with everything in the center detent position though- I found just boosting the bass a hair past the detent was plenty, most probably are turning it up too far!

The only problem I had with mine is that the treble frequency is very high compared to most preamps, so it can get pretty harsh when turned up and will not sound like a passive tone when turned down- it was a useful frequency for dialing out string noise though!

Karl

[Freddy-G.]

I think its a great preamp. The mid control is very powerful and can change the tone dramatically. Careful with the bass boost -- a little goes a long way.

[nad]

I love mine on my Lull M4V, combined with a pair of Fralin single coil pickups.

People complain about the treble being too high but for me it's great, I find myself cranking that dial the most (about halfway up). Good bite without hiss.

Mine has a push/pull pot for the mid frequency shift, which I find incredibly useful. I can boost the lower mids and slightly back off the bass for a great low end punch, and then easily switch to a cool solo tone with the high mids boosted instead.

Sounds VERY flat when set as such, and always remains polite. My only complaint would be that it can be a little too polite, but when I want to get really aggressive I just switch to passive mode and hammer away.

[Eublet]

Boosts are too drastic for me, and it has an overly crisp quality that the treble knob doesn't tame IMO. I'd go with a U-retro (pricey) or an Audere.

[ubado]

Holy Loudness!
Other state it as "boomy"...to me just plain loud...crazy loud!
I like plenty of bass in my mix...the AGGIE has a ton and a ton to spare. I found myself having the bass only up about a third of the way. As for treble...it has a goodly amount...but is able to be controlled better...IMO

All in all...

[Eublet]

Originally Posted by ubado

Holy Loudness!
Other state it as "boomy"...to me just plain loud...crazy loud!
I like plenty of bass in my mix...the AGGIE has a ton and a ton to spare. I found myself having the bass only up about a third of the way. As for treble...it has a goodly amount...but is able to be controlled better...IMO

All in all...

Interesting. Most people that I've heard describe the output of the Aggie pre's as being very low. Now, you can boost the frequencies a lot (16 db I think), but that only goes back to many of the other complaints here. Putting 16db into half a knob turn makes it very east to overboost. It was just a little touchy too me. I think 12db cut/boost would be better.

[sunbeast]

Yeah- flat the OBP-3 isn't much louder than passive in my experience. Only when you add alot of bass or midrange does it get really loud...

Karl

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by sunbeast

Yeah- flat the OBP-3 isn't much louder than passive in my experience. Only when you add alot of bass or midrange does it get really loud...

Karl

Sunbeast, you would be a good one to answer my question for me. So, you know I'm considering adding an OBP3 to my L2500 Tribute. When I did I would have the following controls:

vol/vol
bass/treble (when active)
mid w/mid select push/pull (again, when active)
parallel/single coil/series switches for each pup
active/passive switch

Given the huge output from these pickups anyway, would the OBP3 be overkill? I'm just thinking it would be nice to actually have an active preamp rather than the simple active boost it has now, but not if I'm going to overdrive my amp with 1/4 turn of boost.

It's good to see that it's transparent when flat and that turning on the preamp only boosts the signal a tiny bit, but am I - in your opinion - going to make my bass more versatile, or is it going to be a waste of money?

[sunbeast]

Honestly, I'm not really a good person to ask about preamps!

After trying a bunch of 'em, I've gone back to passive setups completely. I just prefer a passive bass through a tube amp, I was searching for a good preamp to give me more tweakability through otherwise limited (EQ/options-wise) tube amps- I should say that I was still trying out different preamps UNTIL I got my first G&L, at which point I found what I was looking for sans-preamp!

The reality is that a preamp of any sort won't get a good passive sort of sound unless it's bypassed (in my experience!)- and do you want to add a passive tone control as well? Thats alot of knobs!

The only one that I really like and that I feel could get a very passive sort of flavor but also had a wide range of tones is a J-Retro (or U-Retro)- I wouldn't put it in a G&L though, cause- as you say- it would be overkill to me!

Karl

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by sunbeast

Honestly, I'm not really a good person to ask about preamps!

After trying a bunch of 'em, I've gone back to passive setups completely. I just prefer a passive bass through a tube amp, I was searching for a good preamp to give me more tweakability through otherwise limited (EQ/options-wise) tube amps- I should say that I was still trying out different preamps UNTIL I got my first G&L, at which point I found what I was looking for sans-preamp!

The reality is that a preamp of any sort won't get a good passive sort of sound unless it's bypassed (in my experience!)- and do you want to add a passive tone control as well? Thats alot of knobs!

The only one that I really like and that I feel could get a very passive sort of flavor but also had a wide range of tones is a J-Retro (or U-Retro)- I wouldn't put it in a G&L though, cause- as you say- it would be overkill to me!

Karl

I think you're probably right. With the wiring mods I'm going to do this week I should be able to find enough tonal variety without the expense of a preamp. I should probably just leave well enough alone. Plus, I've got an available six band EQ for each patch on my Bass PODxt that I can set before the signal in to the amp model. I think I'm set for tone tweaking.

Thanks!

[Modulrob]

hey, keep in mind that "boominess" and "harshness" depend greatly on the pickups being boosted, as well as the what level the input of the amp (or preamp, DI, pod, etc.) can handle. fwiw, I heard a bass with EMG pickups and an OBP-3 that was to die for. I owned a modulus with a Lane Poor MM pickup and an OBP-3 that sounded great, although I liked the frequency selection of the OBP-1's treble *much* more when one of those was installed. I tried a great playing bass with bartolini's and an OBP-3 that I didn't like so much. But everyone likes different things...try to find a bass with similar pickups and pickup placement to yours with an OBP-3 at some god-awful guitar chain store :-) and check it out. That may give you a better idea,

good luck,
-rob

[Eublet]

If you boost frequencies with the OBP-3, the result is not just more loudness. It changes the character of the notes. If you boost the bass and treble, it starts sounding scooped. You can try to counter that by adding in some mids, but it still creates a funky curve with the frequencies. It's not the same.

If you want the ability to boost as with active, but also want to preserve the natural passive tones of the bass, then you need a preamp that does both. My advice on the East retro's or Audere pre's are really the best preamps IMO to do that, with the U-retro deluxe having the upper hand. The Audere however is very nice, has a cool Z-mode feature, and is a little less expensive.

I loved the active sound of all my Aggy's (obp-3 and obp-1) in the past, but that's all they did, and that got old. I have a u-retro in a Modulus Q6 and a j-retro in a VJ. They are fabulous. Passive tone, continusouly variable mid, progressive low/high shelving, seperate frequency for treble cut/boost, bright switch, etc. They are very well thought out. Just ask the pro's.

I wouldn't recommend either of these for an instrument you might not want to keep, since the deluxe versions will probably require some extra holes be drilled. But if you have an instrument that you absolutely love but just need more options and tonal control over, the cost of the East preamps are well worth it IMO.

[mdrdvp]

So, how to avoid a boomy sound. What do you recommend?

Here are some specs of my bass:
Moon Larry Graham.
Badass II bridge, Bartolini JJ dual coil pickups and Aguilar OBP3 pre.

Un-amplified the bass sounds very clear en has a great sound.

Change the pickups? EMG's? Those are active I believe. I thought you could only use passive pickups.
I've contact a guy from Q-tuners here in the Netherlands but he didn't recommend the OBP-3 together with his pickups.

What do you think, after reading your posts it's likely the the Aguilar is great but that the boomy problem is somewhere else.

Manfred

[Crabby]

I put an OBP-3 in my passive Yamaha BBN5 5 string. It really brought the stock soapbars to life. I generally run the preamp flat with a little mid boost and then blend to the rear pickup a tad.

I love the tone and sheer versatility of this pre amp.

[alexclaber]

The OBP-3 is unity gain and with no EQ with knobs at zero - therefore the bypassed sound is identical (to my pretty sharp ears) to the flat sound. It does offer good impedance buffering.

I like how the bass EQ is voiced but there is far too much boost early on in the rotation and too much total boost available. The treble EQ is voiced a bit high.

Other than that, very good preamp.

Alex

[Eublet]

Originally Posted by alexclaber

The OBP-3 is unity gain and with no EQ with knobs at zero - therefore the bypassed sound is identical (to my pretty sharp ears) to the flat sound. It does offer good impedance buffering.

I like how the bass EQ is voiced but there is far too much boost early on in the rotation and too much total boost available. The treble EQ is voiced a bit high.

Other than that, very good preamp.

Alex

Exactly! As soon as you turn the bass knob past flat, the bottom jumps way too much IMO. It's hard to tweak. That's what I'm talking about with the Retro having the upper hand with regard to boosting frequencies. The boost's are progressive so that you can slowly dial up more and more bass. I think the frequency center get's lower as you turn it up if I remember John explaining it to me correctly. The result is very musical.

Also, it's not that the OBP-3 is boomy. If you dial up lots of bass, you'll get lots of bass. But lots of people boost the EQ to fix an overall ouput issue, which changes the tone of the bass. It may be better, and it may not be better,

As for the OBP-3 or OBP-1 sounding passive when set flat, well, I'm not so sure about that. I never felt like it did, and now that I have Retro's, I know what I was missing. The retro's truly sound passive when they're supposed to. There are even pots on the PCB to change the gain on the pups in passive mode, which loads them differently and can change the tone a bit. Very cool. And if you are used to a passive tone, it's just hard to do without one. A passive tone is great for taking the edge off, or fattening up the notes above the 12th fret for example.

As for controlling boom, let's say you really need to turn up the bass on your pre. Well, it will get more boomy as you do so. On a Retro, you can compensate that. Boost the mid a bit, and then turn the frequency center down a bit so that you get some low mids to make your bass growl again. Then if you need more zing, turn up the treble. Since the treble is progressive, it get's lively without getting brittle or fragile sounding, unless of course you want it to sound that way, then just keep turning it up. No way could I ever do this with an OBP-3, even with the variable mid option. The frequency range is too narrow.

Don't get me wrong. The Aggy pre's are great in terms of quality, but they are only average in terms of features. They are extremely limiting compared to Retro's or Audere's simply because they lack passive options and the more musical EQ.

In short, if you have a bass with a MFG pre that is noisy and you just want to get something that works better, then the OBP-3 is great and fairly inexpensive. If you want features and a truly versatile preamp, the Retro is the way to go IMO. The Audere is another good option.

[gimmeagig]

I do have one for sale.It came out of my Moon JB 5 and is mounted on a 5 hole Jazz Bazz control plate Bal Vol Treble/Mid/Bass.I went with the OBP 1.I never used the mid and the treble center freq is a little high for my taste.