Dean Pace barely getting signal at sound board

[rholler]

I recently bought a Dean Pace EUB, and it sounds just fine thru my little Roland Cube100 combo amp at home. But when I tried to use it on a gig last weekend, running it to the PA system, the sound folks told me that they were barely getting *any* signal, and when they ran the gain up enough to get a decent volume, the low rumble noise that came with it was horrible.

The sound they were getting sounded like an active pickup when the battery has gone dead -- very distorted, and worse on the lower notes. But the bass doesn't have a battery, so that wasn't the problem.

I was running it thru a Mooer Acoustikar acoustic guitar simulator, into a Radial BassBone box (similar to a SansAmp), out the balanced XLR output to the stage snake, and then on to the mixing board (Soundcraft digital). But even with the levels cranked to 3 oclock on both the Mooer and the BassBone, they still said they weren't getting hardly any signal from me.

I don't think that my Mooer or BassBone were the problem, nor do I think the Dean EUB was at fault - it has piezo bridge pickup, so no battery required, and the only thing inside the electronics box is an input jack and a volume control. But we did try bypassing everything and running the base directly to a DI box... which made no difference.

Since our sound person is just learning how to run sound, I suspect that there was something that she didn't have configured correctly on my channel of the board. But I'm not a sound guy, so I don't have a clue as to what might have been wrong.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Turnaround]

You need to change the battery. At least the listings I have seen for them says it includes a 9 volt battery.

 

[primusfan1989]

From Dean's webpage about the pace
"Piezo bridge with buffer preamp lets you plug right into a standard bass amp."

If it has a buffer pre-amp, there is definitely a battery on board somewhere. I suggest reading the owner's manual.

 

[rholler]

You need to change the battery. At least the listings I have seen for them says it includes a 9 volt battery.

No, these don't use a battery! As I said, the only things inside under the access cover is the input jack, the volume control, and a wire leading thru the body to the piezo pickup under the bridge. No battery.

 

[rholler]

I suggest reading the owner's manual.

Point me to an owner's manual, and I'll for sure read it!

 

[Turnaround]

No, these don't use a battery! As I said, the only things inside under the access cover is the input jack, the volume control, and a wire leading thru the body to the piezo pickup under the bridge. No battery.

I guess there is more than one version. I got this from the Dean site:

 

[202dy]

Piezo pickups are usually fed into a active preamp. The reason is that they do not sound very good dry and really need some buffering.

That said, I have a Dean ABG that does not have a active preamp. Sounds pretty good UNplugged.

 

[rholler]

I guess there is more than one version.
View attachment 3861823

Yeah, this get's weirder by the minute! Mine certainly doesn't have a battery or battery box, and there is no indication that anything has been removed inside the electronics cavity.

But aside from all that, shouldn't my Radial Tonebone box serve as a preamp to boost the signal appropriately?

 

[Matt Liebenau]

First, could you post a picture of the electronics cavity? Particularly the output jack. It might help to determine if there have been modifications.

If the Tonebone has a 1/4” out I’d suggest trying the whole setup at home with your amp. That might help narrow down where the problem is coming from.

Last, an odd question, at the gig were any of the 1/4” cables you were using stereo or TRS? If there is a battery in the bass a TRS plug will keep the battery from connecting and cause odd symptoms. Same thing with pedals if you’re running them off of batteries. Speaking of which, if you were running those pedals with batteries and not AC adapters, if they can be run that way, you should check or replace those batteries as well.

 

[rholler]

First, could you post a picture of the electronics cavity? Particularly the output jack. It might help to determine if there have been modifications.

If the Tonebone has a 1/4” out I’d suggest trying the whole setup at home with your amp. That might help narrow down where the problem is coming from.

Last, an odd question, at the gig were any of the 1/4” cables you were using stereo or TRS? If there is a battery in the bass a TRS plug will keep the battery from connecting and cause odd symptoms. Same thing with pedals if you’re running them off of batteries. Speaking of which, if you were running those pedals with batteries and not AC adapters, if they can be run that way, you should check or replace those batteries as well.

I took a couple of pictures with my old iPhone6 but they weren't very clear. I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow using my newer iPadAir. (3 photos attached)

As for your other questions, No, no TRS cables were used, and none of my gadgets run off batteries.

And I have run the whole setup at home, as I mentioned originally.... going from bass -> Mooer -> Tonebone -> Roland Cube100 amp, everything sounds just fine. I honestly don't think the problem is with the bass or any of my gear. What I don't have any control over, or knowledge of, is how to set the channel on the mixing console, and what might have been incorrect.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

That is a TRS output jack but, as best as I can see on the phone, nothing was soldered to the third lug where a battery negative would have connected. The only other things I can think of is if you have a line / instrument level selector on the Tonebone that should be set to line. Could be a bad XLR cable or line in the snake. There could be some kind of pad set at the input on that channel on the board but I’m not familiar with that mixer so I’d have to have it in hand, so to speak, to see. There’s an outside chance there’s a bad channel in the mixer, it doesn’t happen very often but it can happen.

Hopefully, someone else will happen along and come up with something simple and concise. Let us know what it was when you get it figured out. I’m curious. I suspect it’s something simple and, once you see it, obvious.

 

[brossmac]

Mine has two 9V batteries in a separate opening than the electronics cutout.

 

[rholler]

I recently bought a Dean Pace EUB, and it sounds just fine thru my little Roland Cube100 combo amp at home. But when I tried to use it on a gig last weekend, running it to the PA system, the sound folks told me that they were barely getting *any* signal, and when they ran the gain up enough to get a decent volume, the low rumble noise that came with it was horrible.

Just as a follow-up... I finally gave up on tracking down the issue with the venue sound system. I just took my little Roland Cube100 down there, hooked it up, and ran a line from the XLR output to the board, and it sounds just fine.

For those of you who have these things *and* have batteries, they must have put out different versions of them, because this one *does not* use batteries, and there's no place to put one (or where one might have been previously). I've also had a chance to look over an NS WAV4c EUB, and it also does *not* use a battery. (I was rather surprised by that, as I expected it to need one)

So for the time being, I'll just continue running this thing thru my Roland amp, at least until we have some time to spend trying different things in search of a sound system solution.