EMG + cheap bass

[Chris J]

I'm planning on getting a Brice 6er in the near future and want to replace the electronics. Regarding the BQC control (preamp without volume or balance pots), their site says it would work with non-EMG pickups as long as they're high impedence. I plan on getting new pots to replace the originals. Should this be a problem with Brice's pickups? And if anyone has done this installation before, any tips?

 

[phatcactus]

My Brice 6 came with an EMG BTS preamp, so unless you really, really need a vari-mid control on your bass, you're all set.

Although I should add that I bought used. However, I don't think the seller mentioned any tweaks to the insides.

 

[tuBass]

EMGs are the best thing that could ever happen to a cheap bass. I have a yamaha BBG5S with DC45s in it, and it sounds fantastic.

 

[luknfur]

FWIW:

I turned a BQS control into an outboard preamp (Dimento's preamp experiment), used it with a bunch of different pups and never had a problem. In fact I used it with active EMGs and it worked fine. Can't remember whether I ran other make actives through it or not. Don't use preamps any more so they're all history.

To me the variable mid was a pain cause I couldn't find a tone and if I did I couldn't get back to it. To make it worse, the EMG's don't have center detents on the mid control. I wired an OBP-3 with a variable mid and it was the same way, but at least the pot had detents (cause it came from a Bart harness). I'll take a mid with just boost/cut or boost/cut with a switch over a variable mid any day.

I had a BTC in a bass with EMG PJ's and it was a pretty decent preamp. Also liked the NTBT. Didn't like the OBP-1. I'd prefer control over mids but I'd take a good 2 band over a 3 if the 3 had a variable mid that had to stay (like the EMG, for the OBP-3 it's an option).

 

[adam on bass]

I put EMG P in my old Japanese Lawsuit P and it now sounds absolutely amazing with the BTS system. I spent maybe 200 on the whole thing including the bass and I use it to record with sometimes.

 

[Chris J]

FWIW:

I turned a BQS control into an outboard preamp (Dimento's preamp experiment), used it with a bunch of different pups and never had a problem. In fact I used it with active EMGs and it worked fine. Can't remember whether I ran other make actives through it or not. Don't use preamps any more so they're all history.

To me the variable mid was a pain cause I couldn't find a tone and if I did I couldn't get back to it. To make it worse, the EMG's don't have center detents on the mid control. I wired an OBP-3 with a variable mid and it was the same way, but at least the pot had detents (cause it came from a Bart harness). I'll take a mid with just boost/cut or boost/cut with a switch over a variable mid any day.

I had a BTC in a bass with EMG PJ's and it was a pretty decent preamp. Also liked the NTBT. Didn't like the OBP-1. I'd prefer control over mids but I'd take a good 2 band over a 3 if the 3 had a variable mid that had to stay (like the EMG, for the OBP-3 it's an option).

With the obp-3 isn't there a way to wire in a switch for the mids instead of the variable mids that you describe? I think I saw it on their website under the various wiring schemes. I may be wrong...getting kind of tired.

 

[luknfur]

With the obp-3 isn't there a way to wire in a switch for the mids instead of the variable mids that you describe? I think I saw it on their website under the various wiring schemes. I may be wrong...getting kind of tired.

Yep, you can wire a switch from what I recall but I got the BQS after the OBP-3. So I was up for checking out a variable mid when the OBP-3 arrived and that's how I wired it. Having both of them with variable mids helped me conclude it wasn't the preamp but the form of control that I had issue with. I had a couple of Bart NTMBs with the mid switches at the time so it was just something different to jack with. Preamps were on their way out anyway so not an issue.

I actually thought the OBP-3 wired with the variable may have been a 4 band unit initially cause, unlike the BQS, there's a seperate boost/cut control for the OBP-3. The Aggie site doesn't state the details. So the stack could have actually been designed with low mid and high mid. Turns out one is frequency and the other is tone shaping (which further complicates getting a given tone). The BQS stack is the obvious boost-cut/frequency.