distortion issue with audere jz3

Jumbotron · #1 01-28-2009, 04:20 PM

I spent the afternoon wiring a jz3 into one of my basses. There seem to be two problems, and I figured you guys might be able to help me figure out what they are.

(1) Everything is distorted, no matter the settings on the knobs.
(2) The LED is acting weird. When I tested it outside the bass, it seemed to be working fine, but now that it's installed, when I plug in, I get one flash and then nothing, or nothing at all.

I know one thing I did wrong--I wired up the stacked volume/balance knob backwards, so the balance wires are on the volume pot and vice versa. Would that cause all the distortion problems?

I also wonder if I wired the pickups in wrong. I thought I remembered that white is the hot wire. If black is hot instead, and I wired those backwards, would that cause the distortion?

As far as the LED, I'm pretty much baffled.
Anything ya got would be great. I'm going to try rewiring this weekend, and if that doesn't work, I'll pester Audere with some email.

Jumbotron · #2 01-28-2009, 04:39 PM

A thought just occurred to me as I was chopping onions. Both problems could be explained by a very dead battery, so dead that it won't light the LED, but will still provide a super-minimal and distorted signal to the amp. Will see if this hypothesis is correct after dinner.

If it's a battery, I guess my first post is dumber than originally thought. Oh well.

4StringTheorist · #3 01-28-2009, 04:53 PM

I remember reading on the Audere site that if you hook your shielding into the pickup inputs on the Audere preamp, you'll get a distorted signal.

You have any and all shielding tied into the input jack, not into the preamp with the pickup wires, right?

Jumbotron · #4 01-28-2009, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4StringTheorist

I remember reading on the Audere site that if you hook your shielding into the pickup inputs on the Audere preamp, you'll get a distorted signal.

You have any and all shielding tied into the input jack, not into the preamp with the pickup wires, right?

Yeah, that's all taken care of.

Turns out my earlier revelation was right: dead battery. May others learn well from my mistakes.

Now that I have it up and running, I have to say, it sounds every bit as great as I was hoping. New life breathed into my mainstay fretless. Evidently, I did a good shielding job too, as it's very quiet.

I still have to fix that volume/balance stack (which works reversed, by the way. I guess the differences in the individual stacked pots don't matter all that much), dial in lowZ gain, which is way too high for me, and mess with the highZ capacitance settings.

Man, Auderes rule all.

4Mal · #5 01-29-2009, 09:31 AM

quibble, quibble but for the sake of clarity ... If you are wiring pot's to your Audere pre - it's more likely a 3ZB. That is the module based pre. The JZ is a plate, for a JBass. The pot's are hard mounted to the circuit board - that one you don't wire the pot's on unless you're having a really interesting day ...

Jumbotron · #6 01-29-2009, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4Mal

quibble, quibble but for the sake of clarity ... If you are wiring pot's to your Audere pre - it's more likely a 3ZB. That is the module based pre. The JZ is a plate, for a JBass. The pot's are hard mounted to the circuit board - that one you don't wire the pot's on unless you're having a really interesting day ...

You're right, of course. I have a jz3 installed in my other bass, and this is the 3zb. Oopsy!