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Bass Mods Preamps... Anyone use them?

#124
c0d3h4x0r said:
I installed the standalone preamp, but it has a bad/crackly push/pull volume pot. I already contacted them about it, and they shipped out a replacement free of charge. I haven't received it yet, but once I do I'll report back if it's any better.
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Received the replacement push/pull volume pot and installed it. Same problems: scratchy/intermittent. Taking a closer look at it and comparing to photos online, it seems like an inferior-quality version of the 500K DPDT push-pull volume pots sold by StewMac and BestBassGear.com... so I ordered a couple from BestBassGear.com and hopefully that will be better.

The volume and blend pots utilized by BassMods for the preamps are both cheaply made, and I'm sure it's a big part of how they're able to cut costs to price the preamps so cheap. The prewired plastic input jack also doesn't exactly scream "quality"... gonna keep the original metal Switchcraft jack around to swap in when the plastic one finally bites the dust.
 
#125
c0d3h4x0r said:
Well, so far I'm not very impressed by the quality of the products I received from BassMods. I ordered one standalone prewired BEQ12 3-band 4-knob preamp (for my Schecter), and one Jazz plate prewired BEQ 3-band 4-knob preamp (to upgrade my FrankenJazz).

I installed the standalone preamp, but it has a bad/crackly push/pull volume pot. I already contacted them about it, and they shipped out a replacement free of charge. I haven't received it yet, but once I do I'll report back if it's any better.

I was going to install the Jazz plate, but the preamp's black plastic housing is slightly too big to fit inside the Jazz bass control cavity, meaning it's impossible to install without routing the cavity larger. This is a subtle but critical fact they completely neglected to mention anywhere in the product description on their web site. This means I'm going to have to undo most of the copper shielding job, route the cavity larger, and then redo the shielding. Major hassle. Also, after wiring up the Jazz plate to check the electronics, I discovered it has a bad/crackly blend pot. I contacted them about the second pot tonight, so we'll see if they do the same and ship out a free replacement for that one.

The preamp itself sounds quiet and natural, and the customer service has been good so far, but I'm not thrilled with the defect rate on the pots. Plus, the lack of warning about the preamp not fitting inside a typical Jazz control cavity is a major negative.
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Installed in my jazz with no issues. I also have copper shielding. It's a VERY tight fit. Don't be afraid to cram it in.... I did and it fits.
 
#126
silvertripper said:
Installed in my jazz with no issues. I also have copper shielding. It's a VERY tight fit. Don't be afraid to cram it in.... I did and it fits.
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Trust me, it doesn't fit in mine. The fit is too tight to just "cram it in".* That isn't a good idea anyway, because it puts pressure on the plastic casing, which can ultimately lead to cracks.


* "Huh huh, that's what she said!"
 
#128
alexofc69 said:
Yeah, I agree the pots and jack are not top shelf. I have no issue with mine. My Squiers all have battery boxes and electronics cavities, so no problem with space issues. Maybe we all can send them some customer input to see if they can get the preamp made smaller and better pots.
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I've been in touch with "Rob" at BassMods about these issues. He says their pots are Korean-made and he's seen a low defect rate. He always sends out replacements when a customer reports a bad one, but he says the defect rate has been fewer than 10 out of 1000 (so less than 1%).

Yesterday I took my Jazz bass apart, routed the cavity about 1/4" wider, re-shielded it, and installed the Jazz plate. (I replaced the defective blend pot with another one I happened to find in my collection of parts.) It sounds and works great!

The only catch is that the Jazz has EMG active pickups, so the 250K blend pot is WAY too touchy. I placed an order last night for a 25K blend pot to swap in. I'm not sure if I'll also need to replace the 500K push/pull volume pot with a 25K, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So the Jazz is now running at 18V (I hand-routed a dual-battery compartment and installed the holder) with the BassMods Jazz plate preamp and EMG JAX active pickups. I can switch between "BassMods preamp on" and "BassMods preamp bypassed" using the push-pull volume pot. (Obviously the pickups can't be run truly passive, but it's still nice to have the option to bypass the preamp if needed). It sounds very nice -- I'll post some recordings sometime soon.

The other preamp (with the scratchy push/pull volume pot) is already installed in my Schecter. Other than the bad pot and the crappy EMG-HZ pickups, it works fine. I've got the preamp running at 9V for now. After the Delanos and the better volume pot arrive and I get them installed, this should be a killer instrument.

I plan to also upgrade the Schecter to 18V with a 2x9V battery compartment, but I'm on the fence about whether to route out the compartment on my own. While it turned out fine on my Jazz bass, it was a hell of a lot of work (drilling/chiseling/Dremeling), and honestly I was just lucky I didn't accidentally drill too far or gouge out a big chunk with the chisel. I may see what a local shop would charge to route the battery cavity and install it, or see if I can find a friend with a wood shop in their garage who could do the routing for me.
 
#130
I'm curious what dual 9v battery compartments are being used. If you do a search you'll see that quite a few players have had issues with differing battery sizes, particularly when using lithium batteries, which is what I'd like to use in my project.

Your comments are appreciated.

iJazz - "When you start me up, don't ever stop..."
 
#131
iJazz said:
I'm curious what dual 9v battery compartments are being used. If you do a search you'll see that quite a few players have had issues with differing battery sizes, particularly when using lithium batteries, which is what I'd like to use in my project.

Your comments are appreciated.

iJazz - "When you start me up, don't ever stop..."
Click to expand...

I always use Duracell 9V batteries in all my basses. I'm using StewMac item #3576, pictured here: Invalid Link Removed

The Duracells fit fine in it... the compartment is nearly identical to, but not quite as tight a fit for the batteries as, the dual 9V holder on my MusicMan Bongo bass.
 
#132
I ordered one of the three band, plus passive tone, on 4 pots ones. It will be going into my Spector NS2000/5, along with SGD pickups. That bass currently has EMG DC40s and the BQC preamp. I went for the SDG pickups cuz they sound better, IMHO. I went for the bassmods preamp for three reasons. First, I wanted to see what they were like. Second, I like the passive option. Third, it has adjustable gain. My EMG rig is just too hot for my wireless, as well as the front end of the rig I play through. I'll add my thoughts about the preamp once it is in the bass. The SGD pickups are not in yet, but I think I'll install the bassmods pre with the 40HZs the bass came with, for now.
 
#133
BassikLee said:
I ordered one of the three band, plus passive tone, on 4 pots ones. It will be going into my Spector NS2000/5, along with SGD pickups. That bass currently has EMG DC40s and the BQC preamp. I went for the SDG pickups cuz they sound better, IMHO. I went for the bassmods preamp for three reasons. First, I wanted to see what they were like. Second, I like the passive option. Third, it has adjustable gain. My EMG rig is just too hot for my wireless, as well as the frist end of the rig I play through. I'll add my thoughts about the preamp once it is in the bass. The SGD pickups are not in yet, but I think I'll install the bassmods pre with the 40HZs the bass came with, for now.
Click to expand...
these preamps are pretty hot themselves. But you will be able to tame with the gain control on pre.
 
#134
alexofc69 said:
these preamps are pretty hot themselves. But you will be able to tame with the gain control on pre.
Click to expand...

The gain control on the preamp will let you go slightly below unity amplification with active EMGs, but not by much. That said, my active EMG JAX set is really not a very hot output even running at 18V. My MusicMan Bongo and my Carvin Icon both have to be turned down to about 1/3 volume to be on par with the active EMGs on full.

I installed the same preamp (3-band/4-knob) on my Jazz bass with the active EMG JAX set. For anyone going that route, you'll need to swap out the included 250k blend pot with a 25K blend pot, and you'll also need to swap out the included 0.068uF passive tone cap with a slightly larger one (I haven't found the right value yet, but I have 0.1uF, 0.15uF, and 0.2uF all on order from DigiKey). Otherwise you'll find that the blend acts more like a switch than a gradual range and that the passive tone control really doesn't clamp down a wide enough range of frequencies to have much effect. (Note that the passive tone control is also in operation when the preamp is in active mode, so you end up with two different treble/tone controls, which is a little weird but by-design for this preamp.)

Also, don't be surprised if some of the pots with the BassMods preamp are scratchy. Odds are good that you'll have to order some better pots. I recommend finding Alpha-manufactured pots, they are infinitely better made. All the replacement pots I received from BassMods were just as scratchy/bad, but the first Alpha-manufactured pots I ordered elsewhere worked great.

Once the tone caps arrive and I find the right value so I can get my Jazz bass to a point I'm satisfied with the passive tone control, and once my Delano pickups arrive so I can install them into my Schecter bass, I'll come back and post photos/video/MP3s of the results for everyone's benefit.
 
#138
I'm still not overly impressed with the BassMods preamps. They work "okay" (when you don't get a defective unit), but the quality of the wiring, pots, and jack is all sub-par. Also, the "Q" on each of the EQ adjustments feels pretty darn wide, making it tough to dial in exactly what you want. There's a good reason highly-rated preamps from Aguilar and Glockenklang and the like cost more: better-quality parts.

That said, if you're on a tight budget, the BassMods preamps are tough to beat price-wise.
 
#139
c0d3h4x0r said:
I'm still not overly impressed with the BassMods preamps. They work "okay" (when you don't get a defective unit), but the quality of the wiring, pots, and jack is all sub-par. Also, the "Q" on each of the EQ adjustments feels pretty darn wide, making it tough to dial in exactly what you want. There's a good reason highly-rated preamps from Aguilar and Glockenklang and the like cost more: better-quality parts.

That said, if you're on a tight budget, the BassMods preamps are tough to beat price-wise.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I must have got lucky. No pot quality issues and No problems with wide EQ adjustments. mine is the other way. really sensitive to small changes and very powerful. It was nice to try at the price point. But, i think my next mod will be back to using Aguilar OBP-3. But, I still recommend for the price.
 
#140
c0d3h4x0r said:
I'm still not overly impressed with the BassMods preamps. They work "okay" (when you don't get a defective unit), but the quality of the wiring, pots, and jack is all sub-par. Also, the "Q" on each of the EQ adjustments feels pretty darn wide, making it tough to dial in exactly what you want. There's a good reason highly-rated preamps from Aguilar and Glockenklang and the like cost more: better-quality parts.

That said, if you're on a tight budget, the BassMods preamps are tough to beat price-wise.
Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for the reply. You think it's worth replacing pots and jack? Thanx again!
 

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