EHX LPB-1 overdriven??

[insect]

Hi,

I have an Ashdown LittleGiant 1000 which has a well-known poor preamp. I have read about that many people using a boost pedal before the amp to compensate the weak sensitivity.

So I obtained an Electro Harmonix LPB-1. Everyone had good opinion about it, no colorization, no noise, whatsoever etc...

I plugged my Stingray 4 into it and about noon (or even about 9) it produced a characteristic overdriven sound out of the box... If I boost the preamp eq, it became more and more aggressive (but not so nice... like clicking and so)...

If I reduce the volume on the bass, the "overdrive" disappears, even on full boost on the pedal. This way I can only achieve a slight boost, about 10dB, or less...

Is this normal, or is it a faulty unit?

 

[rratajski]

Normal. You're overdriving the pedal from your bass' input.

 

[insect]

Every clean booster is like that?

 

[RCCollins]

Most every clean boost will break up if you send a hot signal through it. Stingrays are active and pretty hot. There are boosts that might work better with your Ray, but keep in mind the LPB-1 is a "classic" in that it is a very early, fairly unsophisticated design. It was designed primarily to get a hotter signal out of passive single coil guitars. I don't agree that it is noiseless, though it performs well for such an early design.

Honestly, I think a Stingray should have a hot enough output that you don't need a boost before that amp.

 

[MCS4]

Yep. It's tricky to match any gain-based effect (boost, overdrive, fuzz, etc.) with active basses. It's a lot easier if you get a booster that has separate gain and volume controls.

 

[insect]

thanks guys!

 

[Lebowsky]

I found the LPB-1 to be pretty crappy and overdrive past 9 o'clock even with passive basses. I'm using an sfx microboost, most transparent boost you can find. I use it to compensate the difference in volume between my passive Ripper and 18v Bongo.