Hey Brian and Alan or anybody, how about making a tone setting chart for this preamp? You, like all of the high in distributors do? With the title and settings on each pot, etc. "That would be super man!" 
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ACG onboard preamp (ACG/John East design)
- Thread starter emjazz
- Start date
yours must be different because the 2 ribbons on mine are identical except that somebody wrote V and B on them in black ink.
Hey Brian and Alan or anybody, how about making a tone setting chart for this preamp? You, like all of the high in distributors do? With the title and settings on each pot, etc. "That would be super man!"
Which "high in distributors" are you talking about? I'm not sure it would even make sense to do that, since the different settings will sound different depending on which pickups/bass you have the preamp connected to.
Mike
I have not changed any pickups before by myself and wondered what exactly am I going to have to do when I order New pickups and the ACG preamp? Am I just going to have to solder the output jack wire and then everything else is screw terminals? I am just wondering if I could do this myself. I have soldered before but when I attempted to install my delano pickups and preamp in my other bass it became a nightmare. Soldering 1 wire is fine but soldering multiple wires I will probably leave that job for someone else. So can anyone tell me what exactly IS involved?
hi guys...I got here a little late... ACG pre is this "new"
I have a jazz bass with the J-Retro is this the same pre or a different one?????????
tx Capt Kirk
I have a jazz bass with the J-Retro is this the same pre or a different one?????????
tx Capt Kirk
Hi
There is no colour coding of the wires for the pots they tend to have a variety of different colours. They should be marked V and B.
The wiring for the jack socket is colour coded and is the same all the time.
The only wire that will require soldering is the cavity ground, the spare black wire on the jack socket. Beyond that it is screw terminals for every thing else.
Although designed by John East it is a completely different pre-amp from the J-Retro.
Alan
There is no colour coding of the wires for the pots they tend to have a variety of different colours. They should be marked V and B.
The wiring for the jack socket is colour coded and is the same all the time.
The only wire that will require soldering is the cavity ground, the spare black wire on the jack socket. Beyond that it is screw terminals for every thing else.
Although designed by John East it is a completely different pre-amp from the J-Retro.
Alan
Can ACG produce a nice marcus tone? I like the factory installed preamp, but it's too noisy and lack of gain.
I am thinking to install a preamp for my JB marcus 5 bass. and my options are only 2, the ACG EQ 02 or John east Marcus Retro.
Has anybody tried the ACG or East at Marcus Miller JB? and I am completely confused.
Or any suggestion...
I am thinking to install a preamp for my JB marcus 5 bass. and my options are only 2, the ACG EQ 02 or John east Marcus Retro.
Has anybody tried the ACG or East at Marcus Miller JB? and I am completely confused.
Or any suggestion...
I'm sure a lot of people tried the J retro on the Marcus Jazz, do a search in this forum and I'm pretty sure something will come up. As for the ACG it is still pretty new.
Also read up in this thread about the ACG, it is a very different beast from the J retro. You are basically asking to compare apples and oranges here...
Also your Marcus could be noisy for different reasons other than the preamp.Are you having buzzing or hissing? Could be lack of shielding etc etc.
Has any body experiment with the EQ-02 using mini switching the pickups in series parellel, etc.? And if not would that make it even more enhanced?
May be not in preamps but major companys like SWr, Eden, etc. have charts of their tone setting for the amps. As for the my axe for now is a MTD Z5.
like Mike said, it is useless since you are not boosting and cutting frequencies with a set + or - 12db etc. What would be a low frequency emphasis on a pickup may not be that low on a different one with the ACG, you have to use your ears. Anyway it is not complicated,all you need to know is that fully counter-clockwise, only lows pass through, roll it clockwise and more and more of the higher frequency come through. The top knob emphasizes/boosting the sound that you are hearing. That's it
I don't have experience with the ACG preamp, but I do with John East, and let me tell you he is one hell of a guy and he builds incredible preamps.
It'll give you more options. I have to say that it's the only preamp that I've really liked using with my pickups set in parallel. Because the preamp really seems to work the midrange, it can be, to me, a little much with the pickups in series unless the bottom knob of the lower filter is set low.
So are you saying use a DPDT switch on each pickup for series and parellel, or just leave it as is without?
I'm saying try it for yourself and see which you prefer. I had my pickups on a DPDT switch myself.
waiting for SGD Jazz pickups to arrive so that I can try them with the ACG preamp, should be good since they are mini blade humbuckers, and are completely shielded and encased in epoxy a la EMG.
It is interesting reading your experience with the Alembic pickups and the ACG02. I suspect that a lot if not all of your issues with the low pass filters were down to the low output of the pups. With respect I'm not sure that your comparison of the two pre-amps is valid given this.
If it were me I'd have ditched the Alembic pups and kept the ACG02
Out of curiousity, would you mind posting a picture of the cavity of one of your finished instruments?
My one critique about East preamps is that they are a PITA to make look neat in the cavity when retrofitted into an existing instrument due to the ribbon cable. It's not the sort of thing that would ever make me use something else because the preamps are head and shoulders above anything on the market for the price, but man it's really hard to not make it look like a rats nest. And I pride myself on doing really neat installs.
Despite the terminal blocks and single soldered wire, I think it takes longer to install them than a normal preamp just because of the routing. I can do a totally unwired Aguilar preamp in 10-20 minutes, but the East took forever to figure out what can fit where and how- though I imagine this would be less of an issue when the cavity is made specifically for that pre.
I'd love to see a picture of your installation!
