L1500? enough lowend?

[marco1977]

Hi guys,

Just a small question. Being somewhat of a G&L fan (L1K/2K) i'm interested in buying an L1500.

But i've been reading up here and it seems to be the general opinion that the L1500 is a little shy on low end / bass (the kind you feel, in lack of better description).

Is this right? (if so, I might be better off getting another L1K)

Thanks a lot.

 

[Darkstrike]

Here, judge for yourself, I started a thread looking for soundclips of one, and Zuma was gracious enough to supply a variety of them.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=696787&highlight=

 

[Nedmundo]

An L-1500 was my main live bass for awhile, and it's definitely a little light in the lows relative to an L-2000 with neck or both pickups on, P-bass, or Jazz. It's more of a "bridge" tone than "neck" tone. But, for some reason, the L-1500 seems to vary more between rigs than other basses, and through some rigs it had plenty of lows IMO and sounded fantastic, almost like the nastiest imaginable P-bass. Unfortunately my rig was not one of those, which was a drag, but I could get similar results using an Aphex Bass Xciter. The beauty of the L-1500's lows is that they're always tight, never boomy, which is great in a live mix.

 

[Burlington]

With the right rig and EQ it's a nasty, face punching, mid heavy machine. With a bad rig and EQ is a nasally lame mess.

I have one up on the classifieds, and I wish I didn't, but I need a 5er. They are great basses. If you think it doesn't have enough low end, well, your amp has a knob for that

 

[GlennRH]

Make these mods to the circuit of an L-1500 bass and you might want to keep it forever; maybe even get another one.

1. Replacing the stock R7 resistor with a 22k resistor kills the treble boost when the preamp is on. This done, you should hear no tonal difference between active and passive modes. The signal strength will be higher with the preamp on, though. Plug a pair of headphones directly into your bass’s output jack and you'll experience that – a big difference in impedance (how much juice the signal has).

2. Replacing the stock capacitor on the treble-cut pot with a .1 uf capacitor enables more treble roll-off. This done, you should find no difference at all in the full-open position. When you roll off treble, you should find much more treble-cut available.

3. A .001 uf capacitor added to the bass-cut pot (center lug to back of pot) reduces the resonant frequency of the pickup, providing more low end all the time. This makes an L-1500 sound more than before like an instrument that excels in low notes, regardless of knob or switch positions.

Parts cost: under $5.

Time required: about 1 hour.

Expertise involved: better done by a technician experienced with musical instrument circuitry.