Originally Posted by
jacojbass http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f38/c...reamp-users-849018-post13355568/#post13355568
I'm interested in one of theses pre's. How hard are they to install, any soldering to do at all? I plan to uses mk-5 barts, anyone do this?
Yes, I know...two posts one after the other about the same thing.
I spent the day on Saturday installing this properly and decided to start from scratch. The control cavity in the bass I installed it into had an odd routing pattern, where the whole cavity was routed to about 3/4 of the overal depth, but then each of the 5 pots was routed a bit deeper so that each of the pots sat in it's own little well. That had given me problems installing the copper foil as neatly as I wanted and also with clearnace for the pots - and especially the ribbon cables. So, out with all the controls again, and stripped the bass right down. Pickups out, bridge removed, neck removed, then out with the router and 15 minutes later the control cavity was all smooth bottomed in a conventional way.
Lined the cavity bottom and sides with copper foil again, then slowly worked through all the wiring - starting with the pup and bridge grounds. The bass has got an individual 'bridge per string' and I found that none of them were grounded properly because they had a piece of enalled wired snaking between the saddles, but the enamel had not been scraped away so they were all still insulated. Battery leads and jack socket wiring followed, then installing all the pots in the positions I wanted them - My jury rigged attempts had shown that I actually wanted the controls in a different position to how I had imagined and so I repositioned them from how I had put them in the first place.
Then I replaced the pups, wired everything up, then gently wiggled the preamp into a suitable nesting spot between all the wires...plugged in and was treated to....silence.
One of the only downsides with installing one of these preamps is that the filters are connected by ribbon cables, which can't be shortened. The volume and balance cables also have their own connectors, so they can't be shortened either and what with several earth wires, battery leads and so on, no matter how carefully you install it, the control cavity quickly becomes cluttered. It's also surprisingly easy for the vol and bal connectors to be pulled out when trying to ease the preamp into the cavity and that's what had happened...
So, installation isn't hard, a bit of soldering of ground wires to the copper screen but the rest done with screw terminals. The screw terminals are a bit fiddly when trying to persuade a pup wire and a wire from the passive tone into the same connector with sausage fingers., and, like I said, the crowded wiring led to a workmanlike and functional install rather than the ultra neat control cavity I wanted.
Only a couple of things that the install and instructions could improve on, the pictures showing the orientation of the pots and cables are taken as if you are looking from the front of the bass (as if the wood or scratchplate was invisible), so you have to think "upside down" when installing the ribbon cables - and in my case the layout also meant using the rear mounted filter stack connector, so it was a case of telling myself "now the side of the ribbon nearest the control shaft needs to go into the connector on the flat side of the preamp" - it caused a bit of head scratching that using a marker pen to put a simple red stripe on the cable and a red spot on the connector resolved - could help a lot if the preamp came already marked or if the instructions gave that tip. Also, on the instructions I had the orientation of the vol and bal cables was impossible to see because they're completely masked in shadow on the photo - not difficult to work out that if the controls work in reverse to how you would expect you have them the wrong way round.
All of these little things aren't difficult but add a few minutes of chin scratching - which can all be overlooked when you've finally got it right and you start using it because the sounds are incredible. I'm still getting used to the way the LPF and HPF interact because there is a substantial crossover region, but even after a couple of hours I'm starting to get the sounds I want intuitively rather than having to think about it.
All I need now is a few more pounds in my piggy bank and in the next week or so an EQ-01 will be on it's way into my fretless
