So the other night at band practice I decided that I would take my six string to play as we were writing new songs and I want to use some tapping in our music. I plug in and can't get enough volume to be heard over our two guitarists, drummer and singer. I had it cranked all the way up, so I decided to try my active four string and had the same problem. So I decided that I would try my passive pbass and it worked fine, got more than enough volume at volume 1 1/2. The amp is a yorkville 100B, 100w 1x15, there is only one input. Both of my active basses work fine on my practice amp at home. What could be the problem? lowsound
They are both fresh, one of the first things that I checked. They both work with my other amp, just not the one that I use for gigs. lowsound
Believe it or not I've seen this before. Turned out to be a bad instrument cord. The cord worked fine with a passive bass but not with an active. We switched cords and all was well. It was very strange, but it happened. Give that a shot...
since cords are mentioned... could it have been a TRS cable instead of a TS cable?? balanced vs. unblanced. Balanced cables will not "shut off" the preamp when plugged. If it is the only cable you have, stop after the first click
Also, remember that an active bass does not in any way mean that it is a 'high output' bass. There are many passive basses (Lakland DJ, Reverend, etc.) that have much higher outputs than almost any active bass, and some active basses like the FBass, that have very low, unadjustable output. Also, many active circuits have an internal gain control, so your active bass might be set very low. This would not be as apparant playing solo through a small amp. So, that might be one thing... easily fixed by cranking up the input gain on the amp. If that's not the issue, the other thing that might be happening is that your active bass is putting a lot more low end into the amp, which would, in many cases, make the perceived volume and cut through less than a more mid oriented passive circuit.
Don't think that it was the chord, I use a different chord almost everytime I play there. There are about 20 different ones lying around. I don't think that it is the internal gain control either, I have used the basses with no problem on different larger amps to play with other people. I use to have another of the same amp and my six string set on 1 1/2 would shake the house. I think that it is a problem with the amp, it was just recently fixed because it used to cut half way out, as in I would be playing and volume would cut in half for a few seconds, or sometimes I would have to turn it off and back on. Now it seems as if it is at this half way cut out all the time with an active bass, but it used to do it with both active and passive basses, yet passive basses work fine on it now. lowsound
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