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Audere vs. Series/Parallel

#21
RebelBass117 said:
I have an MIM Geddy Lee, no problems with it or anything and I love it, but I also like having options and being able to tweek things. I've been looking at the possibility of upgrading to 500k pots with a push/pull for one of them for a series/parallel switch, but while trying to figure out exactly what I'd need I also ran across Audere preamps, which most people here seem to love, and quite a few have put in Geddy Lees. I honestly don't really "get" electronics and circuits despite my best efforts to understand at least the basics, and kind of have a hard time trying to figure out what everything means reading through all these old threads.

It seems that installing an Audere would eliminate the possibility of taking advantage of series wiring, am I correct here? Does anything the Audere does approximate switching to series? Or would its overall versatility outweigh the ability to switch?
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If you want to try 500k ohm pots try just swapping out the tone pot only. 500k ohm volume pots on Fenders can sound harsh.
 
#23
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#24
I don't have much experience but I am an information hoarder when it comes to investing in anything more than about five to ten dollars, and from what I hear, Audere's are great for basses that are either passive, or would sound great passive.

When I get a Fender, I'm going to install an Audere, not sure which type yet. But, when I upgrade this six string sitting next to me, I'm going with an Aguilar OBP-3 because I like the way I imagine it will color the tone of my humbuckers (more harmony, melodic piano-likeish?). I don't really want them to sound transparent, I just want to have them sound good, and great together.

I'd say preamps are kind of like ketchup, mayonnaise, and barbecue sauce, or something like that, and people often don't like messing with the classic's. I can't blame them, turkey and cheese sammiches will probably be around as long as there are turkey's and cheese. Just don't hate me for placing jalapeno's on things you wouldn't, and if you like marmite, I'm cool with that too.

Watch this if you want to see how much different preamps can color your sound. Most people in the comments seem to prefer the East.

 
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#25
I'm a fan of series/parallel on Js, the series wiring gives more of a P style sound. I always found my AVRI J seemed puny compared to my Ps, so I wired it permanently in series (it's a super simple and easily reversed mod) and was much happier. A big plus is series disables one of the volume controls, so on stage volume changes are easier to make. It also gets rid of the typical hum when the two pickups are at different volumes.
 
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#28
I did a S-1 series switch in my jazz (with Fralin split coils), it was interesting for about a week for me. And during that week, series was not useful to me, just interesting.

And now I have Auderes in that bass and two others also...

You can do the S-1 mod for minimal dollars just for fun though.
BF52A4AE-0CEE-4BB9-804E-2F0F3DE6DAD1.jpeg
 
#29
I find it that with any mods, it's helpful to be clear what you want. Otherwise any changes are just that, changes (not improvements). If you want to just try a few things to learn, passive solutions are easy to do and tweak, and cheap. If you don't want to mess with soldering all the time, alligator clip leads work well for experimentation.

Higher resistance pots can be interesting, but not necessarily the most useful on a jazz, which I find typically has plenty of highs (particularly with both pups at 100%). If you mess around with dialing the volumes a lot, to get just the right mix between the two, changing pot TAPER could be helpful. But a simple way to try what "500K" pots would sound like is to try direct to output wiring - that's the brightest sound your bass can make passively. Or you can leave one pot to dampen the resonant peak somewhat, like 500K pots would...

One thing that has a pretty big influence on tone are loading caps (wired in parallel, between hot and ground). What caps do is shift down the resonant peak (the higher the cap value, the lower the frequency of the resonant peak). In fact, you can approximate the sound of a series wiring by using a small cap (say, 1000-2200 pf), although it will not have a volume boost (which is not necessarily a bad thing). This is the basis for Tonestyler and varitone circuits (which are basically cap selector switches). Because they are in parallel, you can just hook up different caps via alligator leads on the output jack, and don't have to unsolder anything. It's even easier to do it on the male jack on your cable, if you have the kind where you can unscrew the barrel, exposing the hot and ground connections (then you don't even have two remove the control plate on your bass). Just get a set of alligator leads and a set of caps (I suggest a variety of values from about 680pf to .1uF) and start experimenting!
 
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#30
Crash 56 said:
I added the Audere three band to the jazz in my pic. The factory pickups in it are sorta "meh" (its an 06) the audere really added a lot of control and headroom to the tone, without ruining the "Fenderish' character. I love it!
Click to expand...
Sounds like most Audere owners are saying pretty much the same thing, it's really colorless but maybe improves tone a little and puts EQ right on your bass.
 
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#32
sikamikanico said:
I find it that with any mods, it's helpful to be clear what you want. Otherwise any changes are just that, changes (not improvements). If you want to just try a few things to learn, passive solutions are easy to do and tweak, and cheap. If you don't want to mess with soldering all the time, alligator clip leads work well for experimentation.

Higher resistance pots can be interesting, but not necessarily the most useful on a jazz, which I find typically has plenty of highs (particularly with both pups at 100%). If you mess around with dialing the volumes a lot, to get just the right mix between the two, changing pot TAPER could be helpful. But a simple way to try what "500K" pots would sound like is to try direct to output wiring - that's the brightest sound your bass can make passively. Or you can leave one pot to dampen the resonant peak somewhat, like 500K pots would...

One thing that has a pretty big influence on tone are loading caps (wired in parallel, between hot and ground). What caps do is shift down the resonant peak (the higher the cap value, the lower the frequency of the resonant peak). In fact, you can approximate the sound of a series wiring by using a small cap (say, 1000-2200 pf), although it will not have a volume boost (which is not necessarily a bad thing). This is the basis for Tonestyler and varitone circuits (which are basically cap selector switches). Because they are in parallel, you can just hook up different caps via alligator leads on the output jack, and don't have to unsolder anything. It's even easier to do it on the male jack on your cable, if you have the kind where you can unscrew the barrel, exposing the hot and ground connections (then you don't even have two remove the control plate on your bass). Just get a set of alligator leads and a set of caps (I suggest a variety of values from about 680pf to .1uF) and start experimenting!
Click to expand...
Your right, that wouldn't be a bad idea to try wiring direct to the jack and see how I like it before I swap things out. One reason the Audere sounds so interesting to me is that it's so easy to just drop it in. I'm actually in dental school so I don't have a ton of free time and I'd rather use it playing than soldering haha, so I don't know about messing with capacitors and everything else, but it sounds fun and interesting, I'd probably love it but there's definitely a learning curve. I also like the idea of increased versatility and being able to do lots of things with one bass since it'll be a while before I can start building up a collection like everyone on here seems to have!
 
#35
I have done all the mods and agree that in the end for practical use, a good preamp beats everything for the useable, solid tone you are looking for. And there are a lot of good ones out there. I have a Nordstrand 3 band in one bass that I like a lot—esp the ability to boost the signal across the board—and of course I have a few Sadowsky preamps in various basses that are just super easy to dial in.
 
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#38
RebelBass117 said:
Sounds like most Audere owners are saying pretty much the same thing, it's really colorless but maybe improves tone a little and puts EQ right on your bass.
Click to expand...
Ish... if you go for a Z-switch model you get three separate base tonalities all of which sound great. With my Frankenjazz I intended to swap the cheap stock pickups but with the Audere everyone agreed it sounded like a monster bass so I ended up keeping them.
 
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#39
RebelBass117 said:
I don't have a ton of free time and I'd rather use it playing than soldering
Click to expand...

Smart choice, playing beats everything!

RebelBass117 said:
I also like the idea of increased versatility and being able to do lots of things with one bass
Click to expand...

Also very smart.

RebelBass117 said:
building up a collection like everyone on here seems to have!
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IMO not very smart :D


I think a preamp could work well for you. Easy to try, and you can resell if you don't like it. I'd probably try to buy used in the first place, if possible, then you don't lose much money if any... I almost wish I had a bass to try an Audere Z-Mode preamp, it seems really intriguing!
 

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