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G&L guys, how do you like the passive tone?
- Thread starter Tommy Tourbus
- Start date
Pretty simple really. In the bass you have to take the battery out and short the clip with another battery clip. Now if you use a TRS cable with 9 volts on "ring" it goes right to the active circuits.
On the amp end you need a 9v pedal power wall wart of which I use the "1 spot" brand as they are short circuit protected. (If you plug a mono cable into the amp with "phantom power" on, it will short the supply) I mounted it inside the amp and feed +9 volts to the "ring" terminal on the amp input jacks (in my case it turns out it was easy because the amp already had stereo jacks with the "ring" terminal connected to nothing. For my convenience I added a mini switch and LED pilot light. The switch either puts 9 volts on the "ring" terminal of the jack (to supply power to the bass and also the pilot light) or it goes to ground. This way when the power is "off" the ring terminal is grounded and you can use the amp as usual for active basses with batteries using the "ring" terminal as a power switch without having to go to a mono cable.
Note some basses have an actual switch on the jack with ring connected to nothing. On these you have to change the jack. G&L basses, however do have the stereo jacks.
That's pretty much it.
I also put an "emergency" AC power switch for the wall wart on the back of the amp just in case it suddenly decides to smoke and die. This way I can turn it off and keep playing in passive mode.
Yeah, I'm having a hard time finding the active mode on my JB-2. But in passive mode it sounds fabulous, dahling!
+1
Of course, I put a set of Quarter Pounders in one of mine, and it now thinks it's a P-bass. The other one's kept stock, for pure J loveliness.
Active & passive are like 2 different flavors of steak, and I love 'em both.
I have 10 basses, 5 of them passive, and the other 5 active. Of these, my Rickenbacker 4004Cii, Rickenbacker 4003, and Fender Jazz are my preferred passive basses, and my Spector Euro LX and EBMM Stingray are my preferred active basses. Each has a place for live & recording, and I like having the various tonal colors to use as needed.
I have 10 basses, 5 of them passive, and the other 5 active. Of these, my Rickenbacker 4004Cii, Rickenbacker 4003, and Fender Jazz are my preferred passive basses, and my Spector Euro LX and EBMM Stingray are my preferred active basses. Each has a place for live & recording, and I like having the various tonal colors to use as needed.
I've had my L-2000 Tribute carved top for about 2 months now, and I prefer the active tones I've been able to dial out of it. Have you guys ever heard the slap tone with the Active Treble-Boost on? Sounds friggin' epic!
Interesting. Thanks for the excellent description.
I imagine you're careful to plug into the bass before plugging into the amp.
Ken...
My L2500 is in active w/ treble boost-mode all the time! I'm even thinking about swapping the preamp for a Sadowsky pre in order to get even more bite out of it...
Not really. If you start plugging with power on etc. you get some pops etc. but not super loud and the short protection in the 1 spot keeps things from blowing up.
My usual procedure is volume down. TRS Power off. Plug up bass to amp. Turn on "phantom" power. (It's not really phantom power which would use mono cables rather than the TRS) Turn up volume.
The hassle now is with basses with the quick change battery boxes. For those you need a dummy 9 volt battery that is shorted. I took a 9 volt battery apart to try to figure out how to make a shorted dummy battery but haven't done it yet.
I like passive when recording with my L2K, but live, I prefer to use active. I really hear it as pretty much just a line level boost, especially live. When I slap, I'll toggle down to parallel, and bump up to treble boost..... that kinda keeps my volume level consistent.
Well, I stand corrected. At least three of you here in this thread use your L2000s primarily active.
Cool!
John
My G&L has higher output than my Yamaha BBs. Crazy. Used it at practice last night and ended up having to roll off the highs a bit and turning down. This thing is nuts (in a really really really good way).
My L2K is in passive mode about half the time. My L1505 however never leaves active mode.
I usually used my previously owned L2000s in passive mode and from time to time would switch to active for a boost effect or if I just needed to poke through a mix but that was rare. Now I only have an L1000 but it's a slammin bass. Love it! I vastly prefer it to my Stingray 5.
I use my ASAT bass in passive mode 90% of the time. I'll go into active mode when I need a signal boost on the fly. The truth is, active mode is just too noisy (gezz, aren't these supposed to be humbuckers?). The treble boost is completely out of the question! These pickups are very powerful without the preamp and tonal variety via pickup selection and rolling off a little bass is pretty good. The series/parallel switch is handy too when you want to slap but again we get into the noise issue.
My .02.
My .02.
