How to tame the volume ?

[Tymophil]

Are you plugging it into power amp's passive input or active?

Active... If I use the passive channel, the gain knob has to be set very low to avoid clipping and have a nice sound.

At home, I play on a TC-Electronics BG250, there is one input. I have yet to use it in a rehearse or a gig, as I use the amp that is in the studio or on the scene.

 

[Munjibunga]

Wouldn't be a good idea, as you would lose dynamic sensitivity. That's accomplished with brickwall limiting, which just squashes the amplitude down to never exceed a particular threshold.

Yeah, but you can hear it when it hits the wall.

 

[Munjibunga]

Oh it does make sense, as long as you're not in the middle of playing a song. Although even then, some people are good at on-the-fly knob turning while playing.

Have you ever seen one of those guys who go to the volume knob every measure? Drives me crazy. Although I'm trying to work in a bit of business where, whenever I have a whole note, I go up and grab one of my tuners like I'm adjusting it.

 

[synaesthesia]

Have you ever seen one of those guys who go to the volume knob every measure? .

BB King and Carlos Santana come to mind. BB is a serial knob twiddler.

 

[Rockin Mike]

How does turning a knob not make sense?

If you are going straight to the amp, no problem.
If you are going into a compressor or other effects, changing the volume at the bass, whether by the volume control or the tone controls, changes the input level to the effects.

This can make your compressor more squashy than you want it or less squashy, forcing you to bend down and adjust the threshold or input gain, and it can change the response and tracking of other effects pedals. My octaver is pretty sensitive. It won't track right unless it gets input in a pretty narrow dynamic range. Triggered filter effects also change character when they see different input levels. Also depending on what kind of amp you have, a lot of them have a sweet spot in the preamp so you want to find that and then keep a consistent input level.

For me it's a real PITA to get all the levels set right at the bass, the compressor input & output and the amp's preamp & master so when I get it all nice I don't want to touch it. I put a volume pedal -after- everything else. How do you put a volume pedal after the amp's preamp? Use the effects loop.

 

[Rockin Mike]

How much play do you have with the pickup heights? Some tweaking there might take the edge off the volume swings caused by the blend knob.

I wouldn't lower the pickups to reduce the output of the bass. Having them too low can make the bass sound lifeless.

 

[Mushroo]

That is something I already do...
But the difference in volume can, sometimes, force me to pluck a certain way.
The consequence is that I cannot use my plucking to fit the mood of parts within the song.

If you are serious about developing this skill (and it *is* a skill that you can practice and improve, just like any other skill) let me tell you what I did: I removed the controls from one of my basses (no volume or tone control) and went on tour. After 1 month, no problem controlling volume and tone with my fingers!

If you are disciplined then maybe you don't even need to remove the controls, just be disciplined about not touching them.

 

[rtslinger]

Compression pedal works for me

 

[nikolozj]

The point of the pad on the "active" input is to turn down the level of a high-output bass, to avoid unwanted clipping in the amp's input stage.
.

Oh really? It's to avoid clipping? I thought no one knew why they did it.
The question I asked is why do you have to have some attenuator and still go through unwanted circuit (pre-amp), when you can simply bypass it (pre-amp) and not use attenuator at all and avoid additional noise also that pre-amp may have, that's the question you avoided and gave me a lecture of something different that I clearly understand

it's a tough room here guys, must be careful of using word "understand" in first person in negative form, brings a lot of problems I guess.
and a word "why" probably too.
good experience here.

 

[Dave W]

Oh really? It's to avoid clipping? I thought no one knew why they did it.

You haven't been around TB much, huh?

The question I asked is why do you have to have some attenuator and still go through unwanted circuit (pre-amp), when you can simply bypass it (pre-amp) and not use attenuator at all and avoid additional noise also that pre-amp may have

I would hardly call the preamp an unwanted circuit. If you bypassed it, you would have no tone shaping abilities on your amp. Or are you talking about an onboard preamp on the bass, which still may not be able to be bypassed.

 

[bongomania]

I thought no one knew why they did it.

I didn't say such a thing, and I don't see any other posts here saying that. The fact is that the real function of the padded input is widely known, especially to anyone who has read the manual that comes with their amp; what we do not know is why the industry persists in using the "active" label for it. As line6man said, we can make some reasonable guesses about how that got started.

The question I asked is why do you have to have some attenuator and still go through unwanted circuit (pre-amp), when you can simply bypass it (pre-amp) and not use attenuator at all and avoid additional noise also that pre-amp may have, that's the question you avoided and gave me a lecture of something different that I clearly understand

The reason I answered the way I did is because again you are making a false statement as a basis for your question. You CANNOT make that assumption about bypassing the preamp. There are some specific isolated cases where what you said is true, or could be true depending on how the system is set up, or what you expect from it.

Generally the unity-gain output of a bass will average less than 0.5 volts; generally the power section of a head needs an average signal of 0.7 to 1.0 volts. There are exceptions, and specific measurements will vary widely, so there will be some cases with a higher-output bass and a more sensitive power amp section, where it will work; my point is that claiming something will work the way you described is false as a generalization.

But even if we overlook this question of millivolts as a minor disagreement of terms, there is a vast chasm between saying you "clearly understand" amplifier design, and saying the active input bypasses the preamp. That's something where the truth is easily seen on a schematic. That's why I "lectured" about studying the circuits some more.

 

[Rockin Mike]

The idea that active basses have a higher output than passives is a myth.
Some do, some don't.
Some passives are hotter than some actives.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

The idea that active basses have a higher output than passives is a myth.
Some do, some don't.
Some passives are hotter than some actives.

Yes. Active is more about better frequency response and/or more flexible tone controls.

You can wind a passive pickup hot, and then it starts to sound like mud. You can get similar output with a clearer brighter tone with an active setup. But louder isn't always better either.

 

[JustForSport]

"If I have the balance between pickups in favor of one over the other, once again, the boost is quite big."
-Some blend pots (don't remember which kind) are quieter in the center,
others are not, and one pup decreases when the other increases.
And some are both pups wide open in center.

 

[Rocker59801]

If you must adjust tone for different songs then figure out about how much volume to roll on or off for that setting.
**Learn to use dynamics in your playing style.**
I can have my amp cranked and make my bass whisper.

 

[nikolozj]

bongomania
I wanted to "bypass" your reply but it's just funny.

saying you "clearly understand" amplifier design

I did't say I clearly understand the whole design including IC and its processes.
What I said is I clearly understand what you're trying to explain to me over and over again, with this paragraph:

Generally the unity-gain output of a bass will average less than 0.5 volts; generally the power section of a head needs an average signal of 0.7 to 1.0 volts. There are exceptions, and specific measurements will vary widely, so there will be some cases with a higher-output bass and a more sensitive power amp section, where it will work; my point is that claiming something will work the way you described is false as a generalization.

And I think you just don't understand what I asked. It wasn't about output voltage or input or impedance or whatever..
It was about attenuator.
Attenuator instead of bypass.

Let's say power amp needs 0.7v signal and passive bass gives you 0.5. It needs definitely pre-amp, right?
Let's say now that you have bass with 0.8v signal (compressor in chain, distortion, whatever...) and you technically don't need to go through pre-amp. You can go directly into power amp.

So instead of literally passing by the pre-amp, why should I still go through it and use some attenuator to reduce signal?
My bass, or whatever signal source is, already has output voltage that is absolutely enough for power amp. So why the hell I should go through pre-amp, which technically speaking is just another circuit in chain, which means just another source of additional noise, when I can simply go straight to power amp?


That is the main question I asked.

Is there any practical reason why they put attenuator there instead of passing by?