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Originally Posted by mebusdriver  So I play an American Deluxe P-bass and I ordered a Basslines APB-1 p bass pickup. I installed the pickup to the best of my knowledge but there's a problem. The output from the pickup is extremely hot. So hot that I can't turn my amps gain past 1 or 2. Another thing is that it's using batteries in a week. This makes me think I have something wired wrong. But I'm not sure. I know that my bass has an on board pre-amp, and I was wondering if the pickups come with there own little pre-amp and the combination of the two is what's overdriving the sound? I don't know. I think I just have something wired wrong. Has anyone ever had this problem with an active bass? |
The APB 1 is an active pickup and apparently has it's own internal preamp. It sounds like it's too hot for the active circuit in your P bass. I don't know if there is an internal contol to turn down the gain on that pickup or if there is an input gain on the preamp in your P bass to cut back the amount of signal going into its preamp. If there is you should be able to trim it back to match the levels. If not, and your wiring is correct and isn't the problem, then either the pickup has to go or the preamp has to go or you'll have to get someone to wire in a trim pot between the pickup and the preamp of your bass. Using up batteries in a week isn't right either. Maybe because you're running so hot but there may be something wired wrong. Call Seymour Duncan and let them know what is going on and they can suggest the best fix. But re trace all your connections first and look for internal trim pots to cut the gain back.
Most active basses use a passive pickup into an active preamp and they match up fine. But even all my active basses will overdrive the active input on my Mesa if I run it wide open on the instrument. I usually run it cut back to about 2/3 maximum. Still plenty of signal and less chance of overloading the preamp on my amplifier. If I use any boost on the instrument's EQ I cut back a bit more.
