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Double Bass Disappointed in Fishman BII preamp

M

MichelD

May 19, 2014
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#1
I bought a Fishman BII Preamp last week hoping to tame the sometimes brittle over trebly sound coming from my bass through an Underwood pickup.

Tried it out with my Roland Cube 60 amp and my Ampeg V4B tube amp and I could detect no noticeable difference in the tone no matter how I adjusted the controls on the preamp.

Admittedly, using the volume control on the preamp allowed me turn the Ampeg up more than without it while using the volume control of the preamp.

Overall I am pretty disappointed.

It was a used unit from a music shop. they said it worked and it looks new in box. I have three more weeks to return it if I like.

By the way, what is the difference between a preamp like this and a graphic equalizer?
 
#3
Basically, all the BII preamp does is place a 10 Meg Ohm input buffer between the pickup and your existing amplifier while it ads boosts for Volume, Bass, and Treble.
I have it's predecessor the Fishman Model B Transducer Interface ( that's a mouthful isn't it?). Preamps and Graphic Equalizers have the same basic goals allowing the user
to boost or cut certain frequencies. The Graphic EQ is just more specific to a particular set of frequency ranges so it's more selective. If you're using the BII preamp with
a Fishman BP-100 it's the pickup that's your problem IME, IMHO. Switching out pickups will get you a lot further to a nice useable sound than adding preamps or Graphic EQ.
 
#7
mooseonbass said:
I often use the original Fishman B preamp with my basses, both of which wear underwoods. It really helps with many amps, I’m thinking specifically of a small ampeg, a hartke, and a fender, that I use at jam sessions. When the battery is gone, which takes a long time, it sounds the same as plugging the pickup straight into the amp.
Click to expand...

If I have my facts correct, the original Fishman Model B Preamp was an offshoot of the Sadwosky External Preamp, with a 10 megohm input impedance.
 
#8
The BII has boost/cut EQ. Flat is at the middle detent.

At full boost, it creates a deep notch between 350hz and 1khz. At full cut, there's a huge midrange hump in the same band. If that "makes no difference" it's either busted or you're deaf :laugh:

I'd start at full treble cut and slowly boost bass until you get a good balance. Most of the "treble" you are hearing with your Underwood is really a midrange hump common to most piezo pickups that is somewhere around 800hz-1khz.
 
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#9
I used to use the Fishman BII preamp and found that it went through batteries kind of quickly and when the battery got low all kinds of weird stuff would happen. I'd put a fresh battery and try again. Eventually I started using an AC adapter - you've got to plug the amp into AC anyway so you might as well power the preamp with AC.
 
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#10
MichelD said:
I bought a Fishman BII Preamp last week hoping to tame the sometimes brittle over trebly sound coming from my bass through an Underwood pickup.

Tried it out with my Roland Cube 60 amp and my Ampeg V4B tube amp and I could detect no noticeable difference in the tone no matter how I adjusted the controls on the preamp.
Click to expand...

I had the one of the original Roland Cube 60’s (they were Orange!) and used it with an Underwood Pickup. I had to shim my Underwood, to get it snug enough to sound

decent. Like Goldy Locks says, the fit of the Underwood has to be “just right, not to loose and not to tight” you can also take out one of the elements and let it hang, most

players do that, because it improves the sound. The Roland Cube 60 (Orange) is ported in the rear, through the tube that you stow it’s AC power cord into. If you leave

part of the cord in the port or set it to close to something that blocks the port it sounds bad/weird because the airflow to the speaker is restricted. As to the V4B IME it’s

a incredible tube head for bass guitar, not one I love for DB, but DB some players love it. Just my take.
 
#11
Thank you folks. OP here. I tried it again yesterday and I'll keep it. I am partially deaf it is true, in the higher frequencies.

With a bit of tweaking I found a decent balance using the Roland Cube 60, but where the Fishman preamp really shone was using the V4B. With no preamp the amp fed back very quickly but with the preamp I could turn the amp up with no feedback and make the upright sound like the hammer of Thor.

Regarding the Underwood, I have both elements in snugly there. I have heard of leaving one hanging, but I have never tried that.
 

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