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Ibanez Mezzo Upgrade Path

#101
shoulderpet said:
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
Click to expand...

I'm not going to tell you how much money to spend, but I think anything by EMG, Bartolini, Aguilar, John East, etc are all going to be worlds better than the Artec. At least with those brands you will receive some actual support direct from the company should something not be perfect.

I'm not sure which country you are from, so availability and price may vary. Here's some options -

Invalid Link Removed - mid sweep, compact, easy to install
John East UNI-Pre 4 knob - fantastic preamp with a lot of configurable tone options, active/passive, mid sweep, easy to install with minimal soldering
Bartolini 4 knob preamps - mid selector, no mid sweep
Aguilar OBP-3 - mid selector, no mid sweep
Nordstrand 3 band preamps - several options, but mid selector and no mid sweep
 
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#102
fauxtoe said:
I'm not going to tell you how much money to spend, but I think anything by EMG, Bartolini, Aguilar, John East, etc are all going to be worlds better than the Artec. At least with those brands you will receive some actual support direct from the company should something not be perfect.

I'm not sure which country you are from, so availability and price may vary. Here's some options -

Invalid Link Removed - mid sweep, compact, easy to install
John East UNI-Pre 4 knob - fantastic preamp with a lot of configurable tone options, active/passive, mid sweep, easy to install with minimal soldering
Bartolini 4 knob preamps - mid selector, no mid sweep
Aguilar OBP-3 - mid selector, no mid sweep
Nordstrand 3 band preamps - several options, but mid selector and no mid sweep
Click to expand...
Thanks, I have decided to go passive for now, Volume, blend, tone and series/parallel, looking forward to seeing how it sounds
 
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#103
IMG_7801.jpg
Added some vinyl block inlay stickers for a little more vintage look

IMG_7804.jpg
EMG's installed
I'm still experimenting with the setup and pickup height for the right tonal balance, but so far it sounds pretty darn good. I also threw some black knobs on it that I had lying around. I positioned the controls in a more natural way for me, so if you're looking straight at the bass it goes -

-------Volume
Blend--------
-------Bass
Treble-------

I prefer the Treble at the bottom like if it were a tone knob.
IMG_7799 (1).jpg
Can you fit two 9v to make it 18v? Yes you can!

IMG_7800.jpg
EMG BTS System 2 band preamp all stuffed in there. I had to extend the wires from the jack in order to get from A to B, so a little more soldering was required than usual for a "solderless" design. No big deal whatsoever and it was expected.
 
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#104
shoulderpet said:
Thanks, I have decided to go passive for now, Volume, blend, tone and series/parallel, looking forward to seeing how it sounds
Click to expand...
And I have the bass back from the tech.
I decided that I would go with a switch to switch the P pickup between series and parallel as the P pickup is a Duncan SPB-2 which is pretty dark sounding and low mid heavy due to it being wound to 22k so putting that in series with the bridge pickup would probably be mud city.

Switching to parallel brightens the tone and makes the P pickup sound more open and cleaner sounding, not as fat as series but due to how overwound the pickup is it still has plenty of heft, the strings currently on the bass are Rotosound nickels which are pretty much the darkest sounding nickel plated rounds out there (anyone finding this bass too bright and brittle sounding , taking out the preamp and changing to a Duncan SPB-2 and Roto nickels will take care of that) so I will be changing the strings to Rotosound steels and looking forward to hearing how the bass sounds in parallel with some brighter strings.

In standard series mode the bass sounds great, the mid scoop of the stock preamp is gone and the tone control full open gives a nice darkish sounding rock tone, with the tone control rolled back a little and the P pickup soloed the tone actually reminds me of a Gibson mudbucker

Overall i am finally happy with the tone of this bass and would recommend the Duncan SPB-2 to anyone looking for a darker tone
 
#105
shoulderpet said:
And I have the bass back from the tech.
I decided that I would go with a switch to switch the P pickup between series and parallel as the P pickup is a Duncan SPB-2 which is pretty dark sounding and low mid heavy due to it being wound to 22k so putting that in series with the bridge pickup would probably be mud city.

Switching to parallel brightens the tone and makes the P pickup sound more open and cleaner sounding, not as fat as series but due to how overwound the pickup is it still has plenty of heft, the strings currently on the bass are Rotosound nickels which are pretty much the darkest sounding nickel plated rounds out there (anyone finding this bass too bright and brittle sounding , taking out the preamp and changing to a Duncan SPB-2 and Roto nickels will take care of that) so I will be changing the strings to Rotosound steels and looking forward to hearing how the bass sounds in parallel with some brighter strings.

In standard series mode the bass sounds great, the mid scoop of the stock preamp is gone and the tone control full open gives a nice darkish sounding rock tone, with the tone control rolled back a little and the P pickup soloed the tone actually reminds me of a Gibson mudbucker

Overall i am finally happy with the tone of this bass and would recommend the Duncan SPB-2 to anyone looking for a darker tone
Click to expand...

+1 on everything you said although I’ve experienced the same results with a set of DiMarzios. Will look into using rotosounds next after my GHS Balanced Nickels set.
 
#106
sonojono said:
+1 on everything you said although I’ve experienced the same results with a set of DiMarzios. Will look into using rotosounds next after my GHS Balanced Nickels set.
Click to expand...
Yeah I was suprrised how dark the Rotosound nickels are as they start out very bright sounding for nickels but after about a week on the bass they became very warm sounding, the only roundwound I have tried that is darker is Fender 7150
 
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#107
shoulderpet said:
And I have the bass back from the tech.
I decided that I would go with a switch to switch the P pickup between series and parallel as the P pickup is a Duncan SPB-2 which is pretty dark sounding and low mid heavy due to it being wound to 22k so putting that in series with the bridge pickup would probably be mud city.

Switching to parallel brightens the tone and makes the P pickup sound more open and cleaner sounding, not as fat as series but due to how overwound the pickup is it still has plenty of heft, the strings currently on the bass are Rotosound nickels which are pretty much the darkest sounding nickel plated rounds out there (anyone finding this bass too bright and brittle sounding , taking out the preamp and changing to a Duncan SPB-2 and Roto nickels will take care of that) so I will be changing the strings to Rotosound steels and looking forward to hearing how the bass sounds in parallel with some brighter strings.

In standard series mode the bass sounds great, the mid scoop of the stock preamp is gone and the tone control full open gives a nice darkish sounding rock tone, with the tone control rolled back a little and the P pickup soloed the tone actually reminds me of a Gibson mudbucker

Overall i am finally happy with the tone of this bass and would recommend the Duncan SPB-2 to anyone looking for a darker tone
Click to expand...
And I have swapped out the Nickels for some Stainless steel swingbass and really liking the results.
The Duncan SPB-2 pickup does not work well with flats but it seems to work well with whatever roundwounds you use with it, with darker rounds such as the Roto nickels it gets quite mudbucker-ish and it seems that with a brighter string such as the Rotosound steels you get the extra growl that you get from that type of string but with a roll off of the higher frequencies so that the midrange growl and bark becomes more pronounced, its kind of like if Gibson made a P bass pickup it has a kind of dark growl to it.
 
#110
sonojono said:
Nice combo!

What does the switch do?
Click to expand...
It switches the P pickup from series to parallel, I could have gone with a switch that puts both pickups in series with each other but the P pickups dc resistance is in the 22k range so I think with that setup I would just get mud whereas this way I get the standard pj tone or I can get in the ballpark of a jazz bass tone
 
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#113
And new(ish) pickguard, thought I had posted this already but doesn't seem so, looks so much better than the dreadful white pearloid that the bass comes with
 

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#114
Never did this before trying something new. Picked up a demo mezzo, like the bass but hate the pickguard which take a long time getting a replacement. So decided to try and paint the pickguard, a first for me. will post a pic after its done see how it turns out. Here's a pic without the pickguard
mezzobefore.JPG
 
#115
Kev1955 said:
Never did this before trying something new. Picked up a demo mezzo, like the bass but hate the pickguard which take a long time getting a replacement. So decided to try and paint the pickguard, a first for me. will post a pic after its done see how it turns out. Here's a pic without the pickguard
View attachment 4371320
Click to expand...
So painted the pickguard, didn't go smooth, the plastic on the pickguard is to soft to sand smooth, Live and Learn, will last until I get the custom pickguard I ordered. Here's a pic of the end result

mezzopaint.JPG
 
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