Three basses Go South in six different amps with no bad cables, and the rest of your basses are fine.
I got nothing.
Are there crop circles in your back yard?
I got nothing.
Are there crop circles in your back yard?
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Active basses dying
- Thread starter BigD1961
- Start date
Oh yeah, clearly your house is haunted by Voltage Vampires. Call an exorcist, problem solved.
MM and spector there's no semi-local shops certified for them, the brubaker was modded(not by me) with a duncan pre in it. brubaker a friend and I just spoke and he thinks bad solder joint. The other 2 are factory stock with no mods, but little to no output.
I would buy some fresh batteries. See if you got a bad batch?
Who knows?
Sounds related though.
Who knows?
Sounds related though.
I have two older Carvin active basses (1992 and 1993). Each has seen MANY hours of playing. I started noticing the same thing. I didn't see it in this thread but I started having similar issues with fresh batteries, etc. I even pull the batteries when not in use. For 4-hour gigs, I would hear some distortion coming in. I tried swapping batteries, chords, amps, speakers. I also sanded the battery tray contacts and few other desperate moves. It just seemed battery life was decreasing even with the same lot of 9V.
In my case, because I had 30+ years of pulling batteries and putting them back in, I started wearing out the wires connecting to the battery tray. When I went in to re-solder the battery tray contacts, I saw that the tray wasn't holding the contacts tight against the battery. I bent the contacts for a better connection which improved a bit but that wasn't good enough. I found the same/knock-off battery tray on Amazon. I bought one to try on the guitar I use less and VOILA! It's been perfect for >2 years. Batteries act like they last longer due to better connection. I switched-out the other one ~3 months later.
I didn't see if you had a lot of miles on your basses.
In my case, because I had 30+ years of pulling batteries and putting them back in, I started wearing out the wires connecting to the battery tray. When I went in to re-solder the battery tray contacts, I saw that the tray wasn't holding the contacts tight against the battery. I bent the contacts for a better connection which improved a bit but that wasn't good enough. I found the same/knock-off battery tray on Amazon. I bought one to try on the guitar I use less and VOILA! It's been perfect for >2 years. Batteries act like they last longer due to better connection. I switched-out the other one ~3 months later.
I didn't see if you had a lot of miles on your basses.
You may have measured the voltage at the battery, but did you measure the voltage at the preamp power in, where the wires are soldered, (with an instrument cable plugged in so as to close the contacts on the output jack)?
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About 1/2 my basses I bought because they were collectable or limited editions, and most of those are passive. But whats confusing me is the MM, because it has low playing time on it, so hardly any wear. I have a Spector from 98, and a fender from 94, no issues with either of those basses and they have been played quite a bit.
I'm going to check that on the Spector and the MM next. Didn't even think of that at all, and none of my musical friends suggested it either, all I checked was nothing was frayed or loose. Thank You!!
As much as I enjoy active basses, the plug-on caps or the single or double battery boxes could stand to be far sturdier than they are, especially their wiring pigtails.
I agree. Mine lasted about 30 years but I'm pretty careful with those items, other than the fact that I did open and close mine maybe a lot more than others. The wire bending back and forth from opening fatigued the wire but the contacts (the brass "bendy" kind) for the two battery terminals as well did get worse a couple years before changing.
HA! Don't jinx yourself! There's some various good info in this thread that will hopefully solve the issue.
Well took 2 of the basses to a local shop today, the MM and the Spector. MM bass he looked at and said it could be a couple things and he would have to check deeper, the Spector on the other hand, much to my surprise, worked when he plugged it in! He played with it some and tweeked one of the pots and it died again, so he's going to replace the pot for me. So 1 will be an easy fix the other is still in the air. The 3rd bass he thinks is the battery box, which I'm going to fix myself, if that doesn't do it he said bring it in. Like my Dad used to say " if you can fix it yourself do it, if your unsure of whats wrong, take it to someone who knows how to fix it".
That will be wild if all three basses all started croaking at the same time with different causes.
Blew my mind when the Spector was diagnosed as easy as it was, thing that's a killer on that is it's a 2017 bass. The one that has me nervous is the Musicman, have a feeling that one is not going to be as easy of a fix.
Yes I do, that's what I'll use on the Brubaker to make sure it's the battery box.
