Talk to me about my Aero single coils...

Personally, I love Aeros. In the Musicmaster and the J-bass, I've found them to be pretty true to the character of the bass without being "transparent" or wimpy in the slightest. Run passive, I've had all the high end I want, but never felt any harshness. As for growl, well... I don't tend to favor the bridge pickup.

I suspect the preamp. Is there a passive mode you can try?

 

Which Aero's? The Type 1's are definitely aggressive, and perhaps some would consider them harsh compared to a more vintage 60's jazz tone. I love Aero's for how they sit in a mix, but if you want something smoother then a swap could do the trick.

 

Why have that preamp if you run everything flat? What's the point? Try boosting the lows and taking the highs down slightly and see what you get.

With the tone controls flat, the preamp will still give a brighter tone than passive because the pickups are being buffered.

 

So which environment are you wanting a different sound in? Smooth pickups often get buried in a the mix. Some folks like that however since it provides a bottom end yet keeps the bass inconspicuous. Not better or worse, just different.

 

I like the Type 1's a lot for how well they work in a rock/blues context. They have an honest 'raw' quality about them that I find endearing. You can always tame them a bit with some cmpression/limiting and a little tone control work anyway... Personally - I would lose the preamp and get back to Vol/Vol/Tone. Yeah - it has it's limitations but overall - I keep going back to that setup.

The only pre that I've been happy with long term is the Audere and that is primarily due to it's relatively transparent tone. Pretty much it still sounds like a J. Not a 'J on steroids' ... that seems to be the goal of many of the preamp vendors out here. The real benefit for me is the transparency and Active Buffered Blend - I do dig that but... I still keep going back to V/V/T as it just works for me.

Pull the pre and play the bass a while. You can always re-install if you don't dig it.

The othe rpickup I'm knocked out by these days is the split coil JBX4 from Pete @ Vintage Vibe. Quiet and J like.

 

You have a preamp - use it. Make your amp flat, and get a close-to-perfect sound from the bass' onboard. Then use the Amp to touch up.

 

I think it's most likely your preamp.

I say this because when I owned a Lakland DJ5 the previous owner had installed an Audere preamp that I came to realize was limiting the range of the Aero pickups. I pulled the preamp and installed a passive setup from Lakland. Bam. Issue solved. It moved immediately from being my backup to being my number one.

Adjust until you like it or pull it. Is their preamp boost/cut or boost-only? I like cutting frequencies first, personally.

 

+1.

I EQ the amp for the room, and then the bass' control to get the tone I want while I am playing. For some basses I always give them a little low end lift.

 

A good preamp like the Audere wont limit the range of the pickups, since the range of the preamp is in fact wider than the pickups.

What you are hearing with the pickup passive is the high end being rolled off and the resonant peak being lowered. Passive limits the range of the pickups, but is a tone a lot of people are accustomed to.

 

Huge +1. The Z mode switch on the Audere is actually intended to simulate that loading of a passive pickup. The 5 Zmode version offers a lot of variance in tone so that you can get that passive tone with an active preamp.

 

Interesting.

So, then, I wonder why I enjoyed the passive tone of the those pickups more (immediately)? Just their inherent tone? Or did I just not spend enough time tweaking the preamp?

 

What z mode where you running the preamp in? IME, the Audere preamp in mid-Z mode with the EQ set flat is about as passive sounding as you can get, just like not having a preamp at all. However,if the combination of a specific cable and outboard preamp loads your pickups in a certain way that you like, then an onboard preamp of any sort would interfere with that since the pickups would only see the load of the onboard preamp. That's cool. The issue that many folks encounter and don't like with passive instruments is that the tone of the instrument can vary too much depending on what they're plugging it into.

 

Well, the preamp was already installed when I took possession of the bass. Once I installed the passive setup, I never looked back. That is, once I got the passive setup in -- and enjoyed it so much -- I never saw a reason to put the Audere back in with the intent of trying to cover that tone with the preamp. Perhaps I should have.

I typically used the mid-Z mode, occasionally used the low-Z mode to emphasize a more "Sadowsky"-inspired tone, and never used the high-Z mode (without somewhat substantial EQ modification). I typically ran the EQ "mostly" flat (a small amount of modification in the mids depending on the song, and small boost in the lows and highs). I'm also the guy that rarely boosted his Sadowsky EQ, so....

 

I put a Duncan 3-band pre with a Duncan pickup into a Music Man several years ago. It always sounded a bit grainy in the top end and lacked anl real low mid body.

I always thought it was the pickup so the bass stayed in the closet for quite a while. I recently replaced the Duncan pre with an Aguilar and it completely changed the sound of the bass.

So my guess is it's the preamp. IMHO, YMMV and all that stuff.