G&L fallout bass pickup too HOT?

[Lowbrow]

I played an L-1000 exclusively from about ‘82 to ‘89. I found it very loud but never to the point of having sonic issues I had to work against. I think the L1K bass/treble tone controls may have helped with this: I always kept it in OMG, with treble on full and bass rolled off about 1/4 way.

 

[Dv8shredder]

Well...some like it hot! Ahem. It could be your amp settings. If you're hitting the input too hard, yeah - that's what you'll hear. Does your input have an Active/Passive option? How about your volume? Do you have a separate gain? Lower that. It could also be an eq thing - sometimes a hard upper mid bite will make your speaker freak out. I play these instruments a lot, and yeah - they're loud! It requires some adjustments on your front end.

It does have a -15db button but I'm almost never getting the red clipping light when I'm playing so I just assumed the gain is set correctly.

 

[rotero]

Are you saying you already use the -15db pad? With MFDs you should use the pad and recover that with the preamp.

What kind of amp are you going into? Try lowering the volume on the bass and turning up the preamp on your amp to see if you get a clean sound that works better. That will give you an idea if you want to let the preamp do more of the work. Even if the light isn’t showing clipping you may not have much headroom left. It depends on the amp. Is it a preamp LED or power amp overload LED, is it a tube preamp or not, etc.

Whatever preamp you have will sound different depending on how hard you hit the front. A lower input signal will let you hear the character of the preamp change more as you turn it up. When it is getting a hot signal up front it may already be saturated and won’t be as flexible. This will be more noticeable in tube pres but will still be a factor with SS.

 

[Dv8shredder]

Are you saying you already use the -15db pad? With MFDs you should use the pad and recover that with the preamp.

What kind of amp are you going into? Try lowering the volume on the bass and turning up the preamp on your amp to see if you get a clean sound that works better. That will give you an idea if you want to let the preamp do more of the work. Even if the light isn’t showing clipping you may not have much headroom left. It depends on the amp. Is it a preamp LED or power amp overload LED, is it a tube preamp or not, etc.

Whatever preamp you have will sound different depending on how hard you hit the front. A lower input signal will let you hear the character of the preamp change more as you turn it up. When it is getting a hot signal up front it may already be saturated and won’t be as flexible. This will be more noticeable in tube pres but will still be a factor with SS.

Currently NOT using the -15db as I just figured that was a volume decrease that would have been post pre amp signal so it wouldn't make a difference. I'll play with it at practice tonight and see what happens.

 

[Standalone]

I seek basses with pickups that hot.
My pedal board and amp are set for such basses and ones that I can’t raise the pickups enough on get sold or gather dust.

Amplifier choice has much to do with it. My old GK’s love a hot signal and just sing.

 

[Dv8shredder]

I seek basses with pickups that hot.
My pedal board and amp are set for such basses and ones that I can’t raise the pickups enough on get sold or gather dust.

Amplifier choice has much to do with it. My old GK’s love a hot signal and just sing.

Which pedals are you using?

 

[Killing Floor]

G&L pickups are hot. Leo said if it’s too hot, you’re too old. True story.

You could try a volume pedal if you use multiple basses.

 

[Standalone]

Which pedals are you using?

In order:
Pitchblack
OC2
BOD
MXR Bass Env Filter
C4
Tone Corset
Bass Soul Food
Hot Tubes
Joyo Chorus
MXR CC
MXR Phase 90
Boss DD7

The compressor is rarely used, just to alter the response of the dirt if I feel like I want to.

GK700rbii into a bag end stack

 

[rotero]

Currently NOT using the -15db as I just figured that was a volume decrease that would have been post pre amp signal so it wouldn't make a difference. I'll play with it at practice tonight and see what happens.

If it’s a pad on the DI out (typically on the back panel) it may be post preamp. If it’s up front by the input to work as a passive/active setting that it will be the first thing the signal hits and it’s designed for basses that are coming in really hot like yours.

 

[bumperbass]

Just use it in active mode and turn it down.

 

[BassPilot]

I had an SB-2 and a Kiloton. Both have the MFD pickups and although I love the body shape and they were wonderful playing instruments I could not deal with the tone of those MFD pickups. I remember Iv@n reviewing one G&L model with the MFD pickups and he referred to them as “Brutal” - perfect description.
I have an LB-100 and although it’s pickup is a bit overwound it is tameable with the volume/tone knobs and is a wonderful instrument.

 

[Ric5]

anyone having issues getting a strong, clean tone with this bass at band levels? It seems like no matter what I do I keep getting a bit of a distorted sound especially when using the OMG mode, which is by far my favorite. Any suggestions?

lower the pickup height

scoop mids

 

[eliascalles]

I have a fallout and yeah mfd is very hot output. W volume pot full it toasts the input of my comp. NBD to roll it off a bit. My pickup height is as it came and I only need to back off the vol maybe 5% to tame it. Maybe that ever so slightly alters the tone but it’s not enough to make any real diff on stage and I can adjust down stream anyway.

 

[Max Bogosity]

Does it have a treble bleed circuit? If you don’t like the tone change when you reduce the volume, you might consider adding one.

 

[BadB]

Treble bleed on the volume or simply pad the input on the amp. That's what it's for. If you still detect distortion, it'll most likely be on your board.

 

[Jazzdogg]

This is what I've been doing, I can't help but think the volume knob diminishes the overall tone a bit.

That's been my experience with passive basses, but I've never experienced it with my active basses.

 

[Road Hat]

I’ve always run my instruments “wide open”, and I have to engage the -10db pad on the amp so the Fallout in OMG mode won’t hit the front end too hard. As mentioned by many, I make up gain in the amplifier preamp, and it works/sounds fantastic. Didn’t add any noise either. The tone control on this instrument is the best of any production bass I’ve had, and I’m actually using it now.

 

[spideyjg]

Lower the pickups. Blasphemy....