Any active pickups with builtin EQ?

[davesisk]

I'm curious if there are any active bass pickups that perhaps have built-in EQ and, say, trim pots that let you tweak how they sound to some extent.

I can really see some value in having seperate EQ available for each pickup...BUT...the flip side is that you'd have 4-6 knobs on the bass just for that, which could be quite difficult to work with live. however, if those were trim pots in the control cavity or maybe somewhere accessible on the pickup itself...first thoughts are it would be awefully appealing.

Anyone know of a pickup that have a feature like this?

If not, my other thought would be to perhaps build a simple EQ circuit. I've seen and am curious about the Rhom BA3812L, which is essentially a 5-band EQ-on-a-chip (you use a few external components to set the frequency centers and control boost/cut, but it looks simple enough that I could probably build it!) I could see putting two of these (one for each pickup) between the pickups and the onboard preamp. If anyone here has experience building their own onboard electronic gadgets, please post!

Dave

[Shoewreck]

If you will use passive PU's you may add some caps to adjust tone of individual PU's.
Additional capacitance in parallel with a pickup (0.00047-0.01 range is most useful) will cut some highs and add midrange coloration (a bigger capacitance will lead to less highs and warmer mids). Additional capacitance in series (0.01 to 0.1 range would fit) will cut lows. If you want pre-set EQ to your pickups this may be the way to go.

[davesisk]

Interesting thought...I would have never thought of this! The bass I'm thinking of applying to this to has active pickups though, so I assume this approach would not work with it, correct? (Warwick with MEC pups and preamp.)

Dave

[Jazz Ad]

Shadow and Seymour Duncan both made bass pickups with built-in filters and EQ.
It was a while ago though and they may be a bit hard to find.
I think it is not even half as usable as a couple knobs but to each his own.

[Big Willy!]

Yeah, Duncan made P & J pickups with 3 little dip switches on them. You could get 8 colorations of tone out of each pickup.....not too useful for on-the-fly changes, but still a pretty wide range. That was way back in the late 80s though. It may be tough to find 'em nowadays.

Good luck!

[A9X]

I don't see the point in the idea.

[davesisk]

Originally Posted by A9X

I don't see the point in the idea.

And that's fine.

Actually, the point is something like this: I love the sound of a solo'd bridge pickup in a lot of cases...BUT...it's not like you can just pan to the bridge side without touching any other knobs...there's usually not enough lows from just the bridge pup to sound right in the mix (based on my own personal tastes), so I find myself generally boosting the lows and possibly cutting the highs just a tad. So, rather than turning one knob, I've now turned two or three knobs. In my mind, it would be much easily to pre-tweak what the bridge pup sounds like by boosting some lows and cutting some highs ahead of time (say, via some dip-switches or mini-pots in the control cavity). But, you'd need to "pre-EQ" both pickups so that you can still get a decent sound with the pan knob centered or somewhere in between, etc. In my mind, this would add a huge amount of flexibility to tailor what the bass sounds like before it even hits any amps or pedals (which is important to me as my main gig at the moment is playing in church straight through the PA with no amp and minimal pedals).

So, there's where I see the point. If you don't have the same needs, that's all good too.

Since the pups with this feature don't seem to exist anymore, I think I'll shift my attention to the possibility of building a pre-EQ circuit that I could install between the pups and onboard preamp. So, that's probably best posted as a new thread.

Dave

[A9X]

If you're going to build your own pre, then individually buffer the pickups and shape the FR with EQ before mixing them.

[davesisk]

Originally Posted by A9X

If you're going to build your own pre, then individually buffer the pickups and shape the FR with EQ before mixing them.

'Xactly! That's why I said two EQ sections, one for each pup.

Dave