Looking forward to the kickass bridge installation on the Mezzo!!
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Ibanez Mezzo Upgrade Path
- Thread starter technocraft
- Start date
And have got my Mezzo bass back and have it wired up now so that I can either run it with the preamp or I can completely bypass the preamp.
I have to say that although I knew the preamp coloured the tone I was surprised just how much it does colour the tone.
The bass in particular is very boosted with the preamp set flat, the treble is boosted also with the preamp set flat, there also seems to be a baked in frequency curve on the mids, the low mids are pretty scooped and the high mids seem to be slightly boosted, I would say that passive my bass definitely sounds fatter in the low mids.
I think the rationale behind the scooped eq on the preamp is that it does sound good on its own, people are likely to play it in a shop(covid permitting) or at home and be able to easily get a pleasant sound with the preamp flat whereas a low mid heavy tone on its own may not be particularly appealing, its when you play live (again covid permitting) that you likely to run into problems with the scoop.
Anyone here able to confirm if a neck J pickup will fit in the J pickup route for this bass? Seems it is sized slightly differently to most bridge J pickups
It’s a bit narrow to fit a J neck pickup in a bridge. Just have the corners of the J bridge slot filed down a bit, doesn’t take too much work. Even a nail file would do, my tech did it and you can hardly see where he slotted the sides of the cavity to fit a regular sized J bridge pickup.
See previous pic of mine with the added kickass bridge
Decided to take off the pick guard on my Mezzo. Honestly looks better without one, but I might play around with it and trace the pick guard for WD to make one in White Pearloid.
Don't suppose you are UK based are you? I am after a black pickguard for mine as I'm not a fan of the white pearloid
Edit: just seen that you are not UK based
Anyone else here find the treble eq on their Mezzo somewhat excessive? I have a Duncan SPB-2 in mine and I still have the treble rolled off
JeezyMcNuggles
Inactive
- Feb 23, 2018
- 14,723
- 20,970
- Disclosures
- I suck, but nobody really notices
Yeah, most ibanez basses have that upper mid quack and are un impressive in the low end. It's the necks. And the super thin, super light bodies probably don't help much either. That's where the electronics play the biggest part. Pre-amps are your friend with SR basses. The pickups are usually pretty decent though. If you pulled those out, and put them in a Fender, you wouldn't notice much difference between the two sets. Pre amp. Upgrade your pre amp.
I really like this model though. Looks like it's killer to play. And fun.
I agree whole heartedly with this comment!!! Honestly the tone changes when you go passive, even with a different preamp the treble can still be somewhat excessive.
And I have an Artec se3pa 3 band eq on the way,seems to be regarded favourably and , I figured that it certainly can't be any worse than the stock preamp with its ear piercing treble
So this is happening...
I had the original pickups and preamp ripped out not even 24 hours into ownership. Interesting thing to note that they went super complicated with what they used and how it is all connected. It looks to be total overkill for a simple 2 band eq setup, or maybe I'm just used to seeing a tidier design from EMG or Bart. The pickup wires were actually soldered to a board, which is the first that I encountered on any active bass. Usually they're soldered to a pot or use some kind of quick connect system. The original preamp is definitely the weak part of this bass. It sounds good flat, but there isn't much wiggle room either direction before it hits the extremes and noise is introduced.
What is going in is an EMG "Victor Wooten" set (not official) which contains the PAX and JVX pickups. The preamp will be the EMG BTS which should be arriving shortly. I thought about the BQC, but I've had it before and I didn't find myself playing with the mids as much as I thought I would. I have the BTS in two other basses and it's one of my favorites. I almost went with the new EMG Les Claypool pickup and was going to turn everything to black and gold and "pimp" this thing out, but any time I played one in the store I always felt I could sculpt a decent Wooten tone, so that's the direction this one is going.
The JVX is the long version and, as expected, I had to take a small hand file to the ends of the pickup route. It didn't need much material removed to get it to fit. Maybe a millimeter or two in total and I went very gently in order to avoid chipping the very delicate paint on this thing. The screw holes lined up perfectly and I think it turned out great! The PAX dropped right in like it was made for it.
Of course, I've spent more on the electronics than I actually did for the bass, but that isn't a first for me. The Mezzo's are a lot of fun to play and are a good platform to do upgrades on as you have all experienced. I'm kind of making this a slapper's delight type of bass and I'm going to try out a set of the EXL220BT's even though I usually prefer 45-100 or 105. The EXL165's that came on it felt a little heavy for such a fast playing neck.
I had the original pickups and preamp ripped out not even 24 hours into ownership. Interesting thing to note that they went super complicated with what they used and how it is all connected. It looks to be total overkill for a simple 2 band eq setup, or maybe I'm just used to seeing a tidier design from EMG or Bart. The pickup wires were actually soldered to a board, which is the first that I encountered on any active bass. Usually they're soldered to a pot or use some kind of quick connect system. The original preamp is definitely the weak part of this bass. It sounds good flat, but there isn't much wiggle room either direction before it hits the extremes and noise is introduced.
What is going in is an EMG "Victor Wooten" set (not official) which contains the PAX and JVX pickups. The preamp will be the EMG BTS which should be arriving shortly. I thought about the BQC, but I've had it before and I didn't find myself playing with the mids as much as I thought I would. I have the BTS in two other basses and it's one of my favorites. I almost went with the new EMG Les Claypool pickup and was going to turn everything to black and gold and "pimp" this thing out, but any time I played one in the store I always felt I could sculpt a decent Wooten tone, so that's the direction this one is going.
The JVX is the long version and, as expected, I had to take a small hand file to the ends of the pickup route. It didn't need much material removed to get it to fit. Maybe a millimeter or two in total and I went very gently in order to avoid chipping the very delicate paint on this thing. The screw holes lined up perfectly and I think it turned out great! The PAX dropped right in like it was made for it.
Of course, I've spent more on the electronics than I actually did for the bass, but that isn't a first for me. The Mezzo's are a lot of fun to play and are a good platform to do upgrades on as you have all experienced. I'm kind of making this a slapper's delight type of bass and I'm going to try out a set of the EXL220BT's even though I usually prefer 45-100 or 105. The EXL165's that came on it felt a little heavy for such a fast playing neck.
I found the stock preamp too treble heavy, I used mine with the treble heavily rolled off, I had an active bypass installed and I found that I had to roll everything off by about 3 notches from the centre detent to get the same bass/treble response as passive, centre detent was useable but treble boosted past that was way too bright and noisy
I agree. The nice thing about the EMG BTS preamp is that you have four different options for which frequency the treble control manipulates via two internal dip switches.
Ok so I have got the bass back from the tech and the Artec preamp is faulty
bass and treble function as you would expect, the mid pot has no sweep at all and full on sounds very bright, rolled back at all is like a dub bass tone, like a really extreme treble cut, very dissapointed to be out not only the cost of the preamp but also the cost of the labour in fitting what is a faulty preamp
I had to look up that brand because honestly I've never heard of it. Also, without a sound or video clip I'm making a pretty random assumption here, but a mid sweep is capable of going from dub to bright depending on the frequency it has available at each end. Are you positive it's not actually working? Looking at the diagram the top knob is the frequency selection and the bottom is boost or cut of that frequency, which is the opposite of everything I have ever used.
Yep, the top knob which is meant to control the frequency does absolutely nothing, the bottom knob goes bright mids and then dub reggae with nothing in between
Darn. I was hoping that might have been the simple solution. Do you have a way to contact anyone at Artec or whoever you bought it from? It looks like you could just replace the piece that has the mid control and what i'm assuming is the actual brain of the preamp without having to pull the others.
Spoke to the supplier who thinks it was wired wrong, sent me a wiring diagram which I sent to the tech that fitted it and he followed the diagram and the mid control now cuts and boosts but still no mid sweep, the tech thinks the preamp is faulty, after not being pleased with the stock preamp and now this I am thinking of taking out the preamp entirely
