Defect audere?

[uly_]

Hi TalkBass!

I just recieved my Audere 3Z preamp (after paying a handful of danish taxes - ouch!) I followed the instructions all the way through, but still it wont work for me? The LED isn't even lightning up or anything when I plug in the jack?

Can it be that I got a defect pre?

The bass I've tried to install it on is a squire VM jazz.

Thanks in advance!

 

[RED5]

You should contact Audere directly. I have and Dave answered my e-mail the same day. Very helpful. You can connect from their site. Good support.

 

[uly_]

Thanks for replying

Right, I just emailed Dave now. Hopefully he has an idea of what I might have done wrong.

 

[uly_]

Just to follow up: I've messed a bit more around with it and now the led blinks one time (really fast) when plugging in the chord. Theres no sound though - only hum.

 

[Audere]

Just in case you did not see it - I emailed you hours ago

 

[uly_]

Hey David,

Yea I've read your mail, but i'm away from home at the moment. Will be back tomorrow though, then I'll try out what you suggested.

Thanks for your fast response though

/ Bo

 

[uly_]

Right, thought I would update this thread instead of letting it die

I've emailed back and forth with David today and he came up with some good solutions. The problem was that I was using a stereo jack cable. Hope it's o.k by David if I quote him here - just in case anyone else runs into the same problem as I had:

David wrote:
"Common preamps (ours, Barts, Aguilars, ...) will not work with a stereo cable (the top one).
If you really want to use this type of cable then you have to go to a different type of jack but everyone just uses a mono jack.
The preamps will not turn on because the one side of the battery (negative in our case) is disconnected.
For current to flow you must always have a complete loop - so no loop no power."

Next, I got it all assembled and it worked! The LED flashed up perfectly when inserting another cable. But unfortunately it hissed and hummed like crazy. E-mailed David once again as I'm quite an electronics newbie who's afraid of frying up things A short time after I sent the mail, he replied with a number of solutions. One of them was to shield the pickup cavities. To my luck I had some shielding cobber tape lying around and it took me like 20 minutes to shield them both. Furthermore I added wires from each cavity and soldered them together with the grey/white wire and the bridge wire.

Complete! There's a little hum when you listen closely and not touching the strings, but it's nothing to stress about at all!

I think all this contributes to all the other threads about Audere and Davids customer care. Not the last time I throw my money after Audere products

 

[4Mal]

On Fender style basses there is a ground wire that runs under the bridge plate back to the control cavity. you might want to check that for continuity - they are somewhat notorious for breaking and / or not making good contact with the bridge. That could be the source of some noise.

 

[uly_]

On Fender style basses there is a ground wire that runs under the bridge plate back to the control cavity. you might want to check that for continuity - they are somewhat notorious for breaking and / or not making good contact with the bridge. That could be the source of some noise.

Hey 4Mal and thx for replying!

Well yea, I've checked it already and it seems just fine. The noise is not really noticeable, so it dosn't bother me

Edit: Also, most of the "noise" is also coming from the cable I switched to when I found out about the stereo cable issue. It's a cheap noname cable which is half-broken. Tested it with my fender strat and it also hummed with that (the stereo cable didnt)