Ibanez SR305DX mod

[Bob the bassist]

I'm an advocate of stripping out onboard volume and tone controls. I don't really use them; The tone and volume are better adjusted with my Zoom B2.1u: my feet are free, and the circuitry is more advanced. Removing the pots takes a load off the pickups and shifts the resonant point of the circuit upwards, giving a brighter tone. All my passive basses are long since stripped, the pickups wired in parallel straight to the jack; The holdout has been my 5 string, since I didn't want to muck with the active circuitry. It's got some hum and noise problems, however, so I was planning to disassemble it and install better shielding, and got Ibanez's circuit diagram to aid in the disassembly/reassembly. Having looked at the circuit diagram, I realised that the active part of the circuit is separate from the passive components, and that the battery switching through the jack can be tweaked to allow an external power supply.

Here's the plan:

 

[evermelon]

IMO just toss the Phat II eq and use your Zoom B2.1u like you stated you do already for tone shaping. Maybe? These modifications look fun and cool, but I would try them if it was a better preamp. EMG makes an external supply if I recall as well..

 

[Bob the bassist]

Good point, but I kinda like the phat tone, and the increased output. 'Course, maybe I'm just used to it, and it'll change with the passive junk removed. The idea, once it's on external power, is to turn it up and leave it. I'll have to see how it sounds with just the phat, but I'll leave enough slack in the pickup cables to run them to the jack, in case I want to yank the phat out after all. For power, I've got a third-party beefy 1A 9V supply for my Zoom, I'm just going to daisy chain it with the bass adapter. The filter cap in the adapter is extra anti-hum insurance for both devices.