Help with my Bartolini Preamp :(

[chrisd1891]

Hey everyone,

I have a NTMB-918F preamp with the EMG active P/J Pickups in a Bass that I made. I'm getting this nasty distortion when I play...It's not the battery, I've tried several new ones. The only way I can get the sound to go away is by taking the battery out and switching into passive mode. Passive with the battery in doesn't make the distortion go away. It's on nearly all the notes, but it's more apparent lower down.

I also have the gain on the little preamp bit all the way down...distortion gets worse as I turn it up...

Any Ideas?

 

[maurilio]

what's the value of the blend and vol pots?

 

[Tedward]

Correct me if I'm wrong but if the EMG's are active and your running those into the Bart Pre you might be over driving the Bart with the EMG's. Either one or the other. It's kinda like running the out put of a power amp into the input of another power amp and then out the second power amp= distortion. Tedward

 

[maurilio]

the problem is the pots.
if the op'er would chim in, we would know.
He needs a 25k blend and if the vol is before the preamp (usually it is if there is an active/passive switch) also a 25k.

 

[73jbass]

Active pickups into a preamp isn't good.The EMG pickups already have a preamp built in.Either get an EMG tone control set,or swap out the pickups with passive ones.

 

[chrisd1891]

No, I'm not running the EMG harness in addition to the bartolini. The blend on the preamp is 250k. The volume also says 250k

 

[maurilio]

again:

the problem is the pots.
if the op'er would chim in, we would know.
He needs a 25k blend and if the vol is before the preamp (usually it is if there is an active/passive switch) also a 25k.