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Ibanez Prestige Series - Electric Buzz?

#21
A little over a month ago I sold my SR1005, which I had purchased in early 2006. I loved the bass and I do not remember a buzz. Reading these postings, however, made me conscious of my BTB1205. I went home and listened carefully for it, and indeed, if the trebble and volume knobs are all the way up, then there is a noticeable buzz that is present even when I move the pickup selector to either one, but more prevalent with the neck pu. The buzz goes away if I bring the trebble down a little and also if I move the volumen knob down a little from full on.

I then dished out my Tobias Basic to see if it also buzzed, and it did a little, but not quite as much as the Ibanez.

Some buz must be normal, or isn't it? I also detect a slight cracking noise, especially in the BTB, but again, reduced or eliminated as soon as the trebble and or volume go down a little.

Is this reason for concern? I love my BTB, which I purchased new about a year ago, but I hadn't really been bothered or even registered this buzz that much. To some extend I thought some of it must be normal.
 
#22
svoncampe said:
Some buz must be normal, or isn't it?
Click to expand...
Not with dual coil humbucking pickups, unless the noise is coming from the preamp.

Is this reason for concern? I love my BTB, which I purchased new about a year ago, but I hadn't really been bothered or even registered this buzz that much. To some extend I thought some of it must be normal.
Click to expand...
Only if you plan to play around fluorescent and/or stage lighting. My bass is quiet at home around incandescent lighting.

Cheers,

Jeff
 
#23
wildcard said:
I'd get a little buzz from the pick-ups { sounded like bad grounding}. Once I changed the the Pre-amp, no more buzzing at all. Also the tones, that I got out of it stock pre-amp were nice, but after I swapped out the pre-amp, with the Bartolini. Wow, more crisper highs , the lows were nice , & clear. Also great mids. Basically any tone that you want ,you can dial in. The only reason I sold the bass was to upgrade. Which after all was said & done, I wish I would of kept that bass. It was the same bass that you have , except it was the maple neck-thru. Another good thing about the Bart pre-amp, is with a pull of the volume switch you can go passive. I hope this helps.
Let me know if you need any help.
Rick
Click to expand...

Rick - thanks very much for the info!

I'm curious as to how difficult it was to replace the preamp. My bass has vol, blend, stacked treble/bass and stacked mid/mid sweep, but I believe the NTMB uses a switch for the mids. Did you have to change the knob layout or drill a hole for the switch?

Cheers,

Jeff
 
#26
jweiss said:
Thanks for the info!

Have you tried playing it around fluorescent or stage lights?

Cheers,

Jeff
Click to expand...

Hi, I haven't really gone out of my way to do any experimenting, just my "seat of the pants" real-world observations at home in my music room, or playing out:

I've played the BTB at home and at church. In those situations it's quieter than my Lakland Skyline 55-01 (single coil buzz) and my Skyline Joe Osborne 5 (single coil buzz). It's as quiet as the MIA Cirrus V I traded in for it (that thing was absolutely silent).

I've never bothered to dime the treble pot and listen intently for noise though. It wouldn't surprise me however, if you heard some though, as that's the frequency spectrum where most of the electrical noise is.

I just never boost my treble. I do that on the amp (a Genz Benz GBE 600 or 750) via footswitch "attack" control(infrequently).

At any rate, I've never had cause to single out the electronics of the BTB as a problem issue for me. For all intents and purposes it's virtually silent.
 
#27
Hawkeye said:
Hi, I haven't really gone out of my way to do any experimenting, just my "seat of the pants" real-world observations at home in my music room, or playing out:

I've played the BTB at home and at church. In those situations it's quieter than my Lakland Skyline 55-01 (single coil buzz) and my Skyline Joe Osborne 5 (single coil buzz). It's as quiet as the MIA Cirrus V I traded in for it (that thing was absolutely silent).

I've never bothered to dime the treble pot and listen intently for noise though. It wouldn't surprise me however, if you heard some though, as that's the frequency spectrum where most of the electrical noise is.

I just never boost my treble. I do that on the amp (a Genz Benz GBE 600 or 750) via footswitch "attack" control(infrequently).

At any rate, I've never had cause to single out the electronics of the BTB as a problem issue for me. For all intents and purposes it's virtually silent.
Click to expand...

Thanks Hawkeye. I don't boost treble at all, on my bass or on my amp. But the noise is still loud enough to create a major problem for the sound guy on gigs, and the only way I can get rid of it is to solo the bridge pickup or to turn the treble on the bass all the way off to cut it.

Cheers,

Jeff
 
#28
jweiss said:
Rick - thanks very much for the info!

I'm curious as to how difficult it was to replace the preamp. My bass has vol, blend, stacked treble/bass and stacked mid/mid sweep, but I believe the NTMB uses a switch for the mids. Did you have to change the knob layout or drill a hole for the switch?

Cheers,

Jeff
Click to expand...
At the time, I went with the 4.5 A/P pre-amp harness. For your needs though, I'd recommend the Bartolini 4.6 A/P pre-amp harness, keep your pick-ups. There custom made Barts, & they're great pick-ups. With the 4.6 A/P harness it should just go right in with out any mods. Check out the Bass Place, they have a lot of different types of the NTBTs for a great price. Also with the 4.6 , it will give you a stacked mid knob, & a stacked bass, & treble knob. No drilling at all. One thing I would recommend, is that you wire it up to 18 volts. You'll have all kinds of head room. The only problem that you will run into is, where to put the other battery. Otherwise, I personally think after you do the mods, you're going to be a very happy camper, with that bass.
I hope this helps
Rick
 
#30
jweiss said:
Thanks Rick - if we can rule out the pickups I will definitely consider this!

Cheers,

Jeff
Click to expand...
Another option is, EMG, & an EMG pre-amp. Although I'm not a big EMG person, but that's just me. I played an ESP LTD B1000 with EMGs in it { the nick pick-up was a 35P4 , & the bridge pick-up was a 35TW, it also had an EMG pre-amp, the bass was a neck-thru, made of mahogany & walnut I think. That bass sounded really good with that EMG set-up, & was dead quit also . Anyways, just another idea.
 
#31
i have a 2006 limited ed. sr prestige,i got it new 2 years ago the bass was dead silent. last month i started to get a buzz ,looks like it was from the neck pickup and if i would close the treble the buzz would go ,i brought it to the shop and the guy told me that those customs bartolini ave a problem and ibanez no about it, i finali replace the pickups for basslines soapbar and the buzz stop.but alot of those bass with the custom pickup as a defect it starts buzzing after 2 years or so
 
#32
Interesting to see this thread again - I just had the neck pickup replaced with a new one directly from Bartolini (yeah, it took a long time to get it). Initial tests in the shop demonstrated that the new pickup is quiet! Will update this thread if/when I get a chance to play at the venues where I used to have lots of noise.

I'm pretty damn sure at this point that it was not the preamp. Did some recording with the bass a few weeks ago and it was pretty clear that there were two orientations of the bass in the studio room, 180 degrees apart, that resulted in the bass being quiet. So it's e/m interference, which comes from the pickups.

drsp - I can't imagine why your pickup would suddenly become noisy after two years. Perhaps you didn't play it around any problematic e/m sources during the first two years.

Cheers,

jeff
 
#33
I just bought a new ibanez sr prestige 1000emf (2008 build)and it has the buzz. It goes away only when you turn the treble down to about 1/4.
Any new updates on a positive solution for this?
It did it in the store and at home. the pickup ballance does not seem to make a difference.

Thanks
 
#37
Hey jweiss,

I have a 1207 that I bought 2 or so years ago and I am getting this exact noise! It doesn't depend on which pickup I'm on but turning down the treble gets rid of it. This is annoying and I'm going to try and figure it out. Hopefully I don't have to replace any pick-ups. Maybe they are defective Bartolini's? Have you fixed your problem?
 
#38
Hmmmm, this is an interesting post. I just bought a 20th Anniversary Prestige Soundgear bass and it had a very annoying hum coming from it too. In fact, it is at Ibanez right now getting repaired. They were kind enough to warranty it if I sent it into them. I wonder if this is an ongoing issue?
 
#40
A new front pickup pretty much eliminated the problem. I can still hear a little hum around fluorescent and neon lights but nowhere near what it was before, and it is no longer an issue for live performance.

As I mentioned above, if the sound is most noticeable/prevalent around fluorescent light sources, it's probably the pickup(s).

Cheers,

Jeff
 

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