Bartolini MK-1 Preamp , Why is this considered a poor preamp?

[markdavid]

Hi All ,

Will be adding a new bass to my collection soon and have noticed that a lot of the mid range Ibanez and Cort basses have this preamp , reading up on this I have found that people generally consider that this is not a brilliant preamp but none of the posts have actually said why , so my question is , what makes this a poor preamp?

[basadam]

Originally Posted by markdavid

Hi All ,

Will be adding a new bass to my collection soon and have noticed that a lot of the mid range Ibanez and Cort basses have this preamp , reading up on this I have found that people generally consider that this is not a brilliant preamp but none of the posts have actually said why , so my question is , what makes this a poor preamp?

Although I don't have an extensive experience, I used that preamp for a while on a Lakland 44-01. I don't know why people are saying it's bad, I didn't find anything "wrong" with. Perhaps a bit too much hiss when treble is cranked, but I don't know who would do that during "normal" playing.

MK1 preamp is usually accompanied by a pair of MK1 pickups, and together they have a different tone than the ones most people are familiar with (P or J). To my ears it has a sharp tone, too far apart from the warm vintage tones associated with classic basses. That is probably why most people think it's bad, to me it's not bad, just different.

[Ach]

This preamp colours the sound way too much while set all-flat. It adds lot of high end sizzle, but losts some lows and mids, so it's harder to cut in a live situation. But it sounds great for solo, such a piano-like tone!

[Eilif]

I have the MK1 system in my 55-01. I found the tone to be a touch harsh. I also found that some of the pots had a significant jump/drop in volume from 8-9. I've never had any difficulty cutting through in a live situation, but it is difficult to get more mellow tones out of it. I like passive tones, and when using an active bass I like to get smooth bassy tones, that the MK1 sometimes has trouble producing. What it comes down to for me is that I am not sure that I wouldn't rather have no preamp in that bass than the MK1, but I don't have the guts to take it out and go passive.

That said, it's not a bad preamp at all, and is superior, in my opinion, to many of the preamps in similarly priced basses. I think for some reason, the MK1 system is usually compared to better systems like the American Bartolini, and the Aguilar.

[stflbn]

Unfortunately, around here things can tend to be very polar regarding preferences. In many cases if someone doesn't think something is the 'best' then the resulting answer will be 'it sucks' or 'it's horrible'. When in actuality the preamp may have been fine for most uses, but that person either wanted what they considered 'the best' or they convinced themselves that there was some intolerable tonal flaw in the preamp that is keeping them from getting the perfect tone that cause the heaven's to open up and grant them instant fame and fortune, and that's often excuse enough to upgrade.

There's very few if any preamps from the major name brands that are universally agreed to be poor. I personally think that way to many times people think that a stock preamp, pickups, etc must be poor in order for the manufacturer to save money and hence make more money.

The thing to keep in mind is that for every Talkbass member here complaining about something that's 'poor' or 'horrible' there's a thousand or more bass players out there that are completely happy with their stock basses.