Bartolini Pickups "Clipping"

[Vince Jackson]

I just bought an Ibanez Sr805. Comes with Bartolini MK1 soapbars. Amazing bass btw. Only after a month I have noticed the highs started to clip. Over about a week, I tested all my pedals, thinking they were the cause. I plugged in my ESP LTD F155DX with identical strings and config, and it sounds wonderful. Plug in my Ibanez, and it's crap.
So, two basses with onboard preamp set identical, similar pickups, same strings, new 9V batteries. Ran them both thru the same cable, same pedals into same mixer. One sounds like it should and the other sounds distorted.
I also plugged my Ibanez into different channels, amps, with different cables, and it's a varying degree of the same high end clip. The circuits all look okay and I even tried lower the pup height. Neck pup seems fine, bridge pup sounds bad.
Am I safe to assume it's a bad bridge pup? Or a bad connection somewhere?

 

[Vince Jackson]

Wouldn't that make both basses sound bad? And wouldn't it have sounded bad the whole time I owned it? Since I play with pretty mild string attack, I highly doubt that's the issue.

 

[David Jayne]

Wouldn't that make both basses sound bad? And wouldn't it have sounded bad the whole time I owned it? Since I play with pretty mild string attack, I highly doubt that's the issue.

 

[David Jayne]

My guess is it's the preamp. If it's new, return it. If not, try wiring the pickups directly to the jack. One at a time if you like.

 

[mmbongo]

Well those pickups are not really Barts, they are Korean made G&B pickups. But, usually the first thing to replace is the preamp as it's pretty common for the MK1 pickups and preamp to be harsh sounding and to cause clipping.

One thing you can do is dial back any EQ boosting and lower the overall volume a little and see if it still clips. If backing off the controls fixes the issue, a better preamp (like a real Bart with an output trim) will fix the problem.

 

[Vince Jackson]

I ran it with a flat eq, and I had to back the volume to around half to smooth it out, which is pretty unacceptable playing live. It's new and under a full service plan, so I'm gonna take it in and have them look at it, and if in fact it's the preamp or pups, I'll prolly just have them upgrade the whole deal.

 

[mmbongo]

I ran it with a flat eq, and I had to back the volume to around half to smooth it out, which is pretty unacceptable playing live. It's new and under a full service plan, so I'm gonna take it in and have them look at it, and if in fact it's the preamp or pups, I'll prolly just have them upgrade the whole deal.

Yeah if you backed off that far to fix it sounds like there's a problem.

 

[khutch]

Just to be sure I would take the battery out of the Ibanez, put it aside somewhere, and then transfer the battery from the ESP to the Ibanez and see if the Ibanez still sounds bad. I've lost count of how many times my wife has absentmindedly put the old battery back into something while changing a battery and I've done it too....

 

[Vince Jackson]

Just to be sure I would take the battery out of the Ibanez, put it aside somewhere, and then transfer the battery from the ESP to the Ibanez and see if the Ibanez still sounds bad. I've lost count of how many times my wife has absentmindedly put the old battery back into something while changing a battery and I've done it too....

I actually tried that. Lol. Turns out.. it was the strings... D'addario Pro Steels. The Ibanez has a lower action than the ESP, so as the strings are actually gripping the frets on the higher strings causing the highs to sound almost distorted. Never had that happen before... going back to nickelwounds.

 

[JustForSport]

I actually tried that. Lol. Turns out.. it was the strings... D'addario Pro Steels. The Ibanez has a lower action than the ESP, so as the strings are actually gripping the frets on the higher strings causing the highs to sound almost distorted. Never had that happen before... going back to nickelwounds.

That's different, but thanks for the update-
yeah, different strings/types generate stronger signal at different frequencies.

 

[iiipopes]

In addition to the string change, the strings might be slapping the pickups as well. Lowering the pickups a quarter turn might clean that up as well.

 

[Vince Jackson]

Pickup height was okay. I switched strings, readjusted pups and action and added a reamp box in between the bass and the board (after the wireless) all these seemed to drastically clean up the tone.