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Can I remove my preamp?

Porteroliver

Porteroliver

Guest
Feb 9, 2014
10
1
pheonix AZ
#1
So, I've been looking at a bunch of wiring schematics, and I've seen that almost none of them have a preamp in them, and I would like to wire up my bass differently. I don't know, however whether or not I can safely remove my preamp, and still have my bass work properly. So, has anyone ever done this, or, should I just leave it be?
 
#4
Would help if you told us what you are working with. What model is your bass? Maybe someone has modded one here and can tell you if it's an improvement.

If your pups are passive you should be able to remove the pre and just rewire the pups to the volumes or balancer as seen in the many passive diagrams floating around.
 
#5
Removed my stock pre-amp and rewired a passive system with pickup balance, tone cap selector and series/parallel options. For me the options have made a massive difference. I simply didn't use the pre-amp at all with using a variety of different amps in different practices I found myself altering settings at the amp to get my tone not on the bass.

Depends on you want out of a rewiring and what you currently use.

What bass is it? Stock pre-amp?
 
#10
My Schecter Omen-4 sounded like I put active pickups in it by removing the active preamp. I'm sure different pickups would react different but in my case, it made the bass have a lot more low end punch and the highs would ring clear. It sounded terrible with the preamp even with a new battery. It was probably either broken or very cheap, probably both.
 
#11
Maz said:
I cold be wrong but it looks like it's already passive. Three knobs on a P/J bass usually means volume , balance, tone. What controls do you have on yours? Is one of those a stacked knob?[/QUOTE bridge volume, neck volume, tone when pulled out, mute when pushed in( I don't think it's supposed to mute it, though. It's probably broken, one of the reasons I want to re-wire it)
Click to expand...
 
#15
Cool, just checking.
perhaps you could post a couple pics of the controls / preamp. also check the pots, if they're 250 or 500k you should get a good passive signal, and you could possibly use the push/pull as a series/parallel switch. what model bass is it? I cant tell from the Pics.
 
#18
It can be done very easily. One of my basses is a 2011 MIA Fender Jazz Deluxe. It came with active electronics and an 18 volt pre-amp. I wasn't happy with the sound so I bought a set of Lindy Fralin jazz pickups, over wound 8%, new pots and capacitors and had it wired passive with volume, tone, volume, tone. I was told this couldn't be done, but it does work. In my opinion, the bass sounds better than ever.
 

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