| Pimp my Acacia...added a Bart pre...
OK, all the traditionalists in the house, go ahead and get your moaning done now. There. That's better. I never had a problem with my Acacia as I used it. It just didn't have the guts for my new gig. Also, the Warwick Quadrupplet preamp I moved to seems to require a higher input signal. The passive Lane Poors just didn't cut it.
Decided that, although I dug the tone, running a passive bass through my rig wasn't giving me the punch I needed. I didn't want to be bothered with adjusting the input on my pre to accommodate it when I would switch out the Smith (w/ 9v HazLab) for the Acacia. Also, the Acacia's tone was a little thin for a live setting and the overall eq was minimal. We had problems recording in our lofi system because the signal was so small. Had to run it through an outboard anyway just to get something you could work with.
The Acacia has two Lane Poors passive soaps; nice tone for quiet stuff, but, like I said, pretty weak signal. Like a good singer who just didn't have the pipes or versatility to sing on Broadway. The set up was V-V-T. However, you could not put the volume full on each because they'd start to cancel each other out and you'd actually lose volume.
I had a Bartolini 3.3, NTBT pre dropped in. That's a 3 pot / 2 pup / 2 band / 9v system. The set up is a V-Blend-B/T. My only concern was that I'd loose the voice in exchange for the volume and versatility. I ran it a little last night at rehearsal for the first time. Not a problem at all, I had nothing to fear. It really didn't change the sound or vibe of the instrument. I was able to really get some thickness from it but it still rang out with clear crisp mids. The highs sparkled without any harshness.
It was as if my bass had been to a vocal coach. Although it's still my back up (for now) behind my Smith, I can see myself working it in more deliberately. Although I won't be playing on Broadway, this baby is ready for show time, it's certainly Bowery-bound.
Also...I had the install done for me at Guitar-Villa in Bethlehem, PA. I would have done it, and wanted to do it myself, but the schematics for the wiring didn't jive with how the harness was wired and it only showed one wire from the p'up lead (where there were actually two per). All I need now is a new stacked B/T knob. For some reason, they used the existing gold knob for the treb, but a black plastic ring for the bass. | 
