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Light weight bass?

moreorless

moreorless

Oct 7, 2011
36
27
#1
Hello all!

I am new to Talkbass. My question is this: can anyone suggest a light weight passive electric bass? Due to physical "issues", I now need a much lighter weight bass to do 4 hr gigs (with no breaks!) Any suggestions? Thanks!
 
#3
The lightest bass i have and know of that is not some custom job is the Yamaha RBX A2. They are discontinued now but you could probably find one pretty easily. I am looking to thin my herd and have one to sell. (it's the white one). Do a search on them, there are many posts.
 
#4
I used to have an Ibanez SR505 (newer version) that was really lightweight, almost didn't realize I had it on sometimes. The neck was extremely comfortable too and had great balance (wondering why I got rid of it now...).

Anyway, it comes with import Barts and Bart preamp. But you could easily convert it to passive if you really wanted to (maybe vol vol tone tone with a dummy pot or something since it has 5 pots in the preamp vol bal bass mid treb).

I'm not sure if the lower models of Ibanez SR series are as lightweight, but the balance and neck contour should be the same. There is a wide price spectrum in the SR line.

The other thing you could do (if you have the $$, time and skills or a local luthier) is to build yourself a very lightweight bass in the style of your choice. Warmoth can make a body that is either chambered or out of very lightweight ash. If you use ultralight hardware and do a large rear cavity route, you could really have a nice lightweight bass in the end.

However, extremely lightweight bodies and hardware have their own sound - I'm sure you kind find several threads on TB about discussing the nuances of mass and tone.

Hope this helps.
 
#6
Thanks for the suggestions! To ameliorate the situation: I'm currently using a P-bass "Lyte" unfortunately it is an active bass and I much prefer the sound of passive pick ups. (My beloved jazz has been relegated to recording duties only... sigh...) And the only other bass I have found that sort of works is a Yamaha BB 404 (now discontinued) but I find the neck a bit wide and hand fatique becomes an issue. Thanks for all input!
 
#11
Nordstrand has great passive pickups and can easily make pickups for your needs. For instance... They wind a passive pickup replacement for a Fender Mustang ( MusicMaster?) bass. Theses are smaller scale basses that usually sound smaller. The Nordstand pickups make them sound the same as a 34 in scale bass. They could easily do the same for you.

In other words, you could take all the active electronics out of your bass, put in some Nordy pickups and sound much better than the bass did in the first place. This would also take a little more weight out of the bass you have now.

Give them a call.
 
#12
I have a P-Lyte, and have done a lot of searches on her regarding the electronics. I'll summarize all that I have found, the vast majority of people on here swap out the pickups and/or preamp. I have yet to do this on mine since for my applications it sounds just fine. I know a lot of people like the enhancements that SD BassLines add to this instrument.
 
#13
tdizzle said:
If the bass has active pickups, then you will have to replace them with passive pickups. If the bass has an active pre-amp, then you can bypass the pre-amp with the proper switch.
Click to expand...

+1

There are three types of "active basses"
- Active pickups with passive controls (small value pots for vol & tone and small preamp circuits built right into the pickups)
- Passive pickups with an active preamp. This is the most common "active bass" from large manufacturers.
- Active pickups with an active preamp. Rare and will usually have two or more batteries, one for the pups and one or two for the pre.

So, you probably have passive pickups with an active preamp. With the big manufacturer basses, the preamp usually makes up for some less than stellar pickups. If you are up to the soldering... find a passive wiring diagram for your bass - looks like the Fender Lyte has 4 controls, so you could do vol vol tone tone or traditional vol vol tone and have a dummy pot just for looks. Buy the pots and caps - lots of threads here about that or you could just go to a site like stewmac or guitarpartsresource etc.

Remove the existing preamp and battery. You can reuse the 1/4" jack but you will not connect anything to the "Ring" section. You probably won't be able to reuse any of the existing pots bc their ratings are too small and will bleed massive amounts of tone out to ground. Plus, it's easier just to remove the whole preamp, disconnecting the pups and jack.

Solder and install the new parts per the diagram. You may even be able to find a prewired one online and just wire the pups and jack.

Check out the sound. If you don't like the sound, get some new pups - lots of threads on TB about that too.
 
#14
99% or so of active basses are passive pups with active 2-3 band preamp. Yours is passive pups with active preamp.

Pretty much any of the Ibanez SR basses will be among the lighter weight high qaulity low price basses. Though these are active like most of todays basses.
 

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