Hey y'all! Just trying to revive this Pearce Preamp thread. Also, havent been on in awhile, and I'm feeling nerdy, and chatty hah!
So, I actually just picked up a mint looking Pearce BC1 today, but Im not sure if I'll be keeping it. It was a really good price, so full honestly, I bought it with the intentions to check it out, and then will likely get it up on the bench, and give it a recap, and service, as Im sure the near 60 year old electrolytics aren't doing it any favours at all, plus its a pretty minimal/simple circuit, so why not.
As far as mods go, Ive never looked at what is being done with whatever Billy Sheehan Mod is floating around, but from what my ears hear, this amp has a very signature character, and Im willing to bet the BS mods are more based on refinement, smart tweaks rather than making it sound like a different animal.
Anyway, Id be curious to hear from any owners/users/modders etc, and just for instance, have you had one stock, and then modded it? Was it the BS mod, or something different? Also, can anyone tell me more about what the BS mod is actually doing, whether you know technical details, or just the differences you noticed after?
I personally feel like first of all, with preamps, the power amps can play a big roll, but also, at least in the studio its much easier to play with standalone preamps, which I still need to find time to hear just the preamp on its own, but that said, from what my ears hear, the low end, at least in a gain structure sense, a lot of lows get distorted, and early, making it sound for lack of better words, mushy/farty/loose lol. Not in a bad way really, but if I was going to start modding one, at least on one channel, Id probably look at pushing less lows in the distortion path, keeping the mids/high mids more the focus of the distortion. Even for cleaner sounds, the low end might be able to be tightened up a little. The thing is, Im almost positive that just recapping it will help the keep the low end tighter, and add some clarity, and attack/punch, so def starting there which is always a good idea IMO before modding. You wanna hear something how the designer intended IMO. I even listened to a demo of someones stock BC1 vs the Neural DSP capture, which I dont know if its un modded, but you can def hear that the Neural Capture is far tighter, and more open, and has more clarity etc, so Im def willing to bet someone like Neural DSP who are like super nerds are definitely not going to do an official capture to release to the world of something using 50-60 year old electrolytic caps ya know hah!
Anyway though, ya, would love to start a little discussion again, and just shoot the poopie, because these are really cool preamps. I also just need to say, it kinda bugs me when people(usually people selling something like this for a high, or new made up price) says they are rare. I wouldnt say these are rare by any means. Theres probably more than 100,000 of them out there, but I think they are cool, and unique enough, and the fact Billy put them on the map, that people keep them, and you just dont see them for sale as much as some things, so yes, Id say they are somewhat rare in that sense, but aside from that, I just think they are so cool, because for a SS bass preamp, they def dont sound like anything else out there, and I think its been one of those if you know, you know type things, because what Im hearing so far is that aside from how they sound on thier own, in a mix, especially the sound of the distortion, they just occupy a very nice sonic space, and just seem to sound awesome. As a mixing engineer myself, whether live, or on an album mix, but especially an album mix, sometimes Bass can actually be quite tricky, and finding the right distorted sound to sit properly not only with the cleaner, and other bass tones, but in the mix with the guitars can be a tricky thing, but I feel like the gain structure, and EQ of this amp just seem to occupy a nice space vs guitars just off the bat. That's not to say it would still totally depend on a lot of things, like what the specific other bass, and guitar sounds are, among other stuff, but its just caught my attention fairly recently as a really cool, and unique preamp.
