Low output from bass -- what's going on?

[thermodog]

I shared a gig with another bassist, and when he plugged his bass into my amp, he had to turn his volume pot way down to match my volume, even though my volume was all the way up.

I have a Fender Urge bass that I rewired, with DiMarzio Ultra Jazz (neck) and DiMarzio Area J (bridge) pickups. For the tone and volume pots, I used a stacked concentric 250K audio taper pot. His bass is a stock Gretsch Electromatic Junior Jet Bass II short scale with humbucking pickups.

What I'm wondering is, is this just the nature of the pickups, or is it my wiring? Should I switch to 500k for the pots? I like the sound I'm getting, but I'm wondering if I can take full advantage of the power of my amp with this bass (if I ever need to play that loud).

 

[fig]

I shared a gig with another bassist, and when he plugged his bass into my amp, he had to turn his volume pot way down to match my volume, even though my volume was all the way up.

I have a Fender Urge bass that I rewired...

Before the rewire, was the volume about the same as now, or was it louder?

 

[charlie monroe]

I would attribute this to pickups.

In a related manner, are your pickups raised as close to your strings as they can safely be?

 

[Slater]

I have a Fender Urge bass that I rewired, with DiMarzio Ultra Jazz (neck) and DiMarzio Area J (bridge) pickups.

Make sure you have each individual pickup wired in series (vs. parallel) for maximum output.
For Dimarzio pickups this should be - Red=Hot, Green=Ground, Black & White together.
Also, the Area J will have less output than the Ultra Jazz.

 

[thermodog]

Before the rewire, was the volume about the same as now, or was it louder?

I bought the bass used, and it was not in great shape. I removed the (noisy) active electronics and the old pickups, and replaced the pickups, pots, etc. all at the same time. So there's really no meaningful "before" to compare to.

 

[thermodog]

I would attribute this to pickups.

In a related manner, are your pickups raised as close to your strings as they can safely be?

I'll need to check this. I did have the setup checked by a professional guitar/bass tech after I set it up, but it's worth checking, thanks!

 

[thermodog]

Make sure you have each individual pickup wired in series (vs. parallel) for maximum output.
For Dimarzio pickups this should be - Red=Hot, Green=Ground, Black & White together.
Also, the Area J will have less output than the Ultra Jazz.

Thanks -- yes, that's how it's wired.

 

[fig]

I bought the bass used, and it was not in great shape. I removed the (noisy) active electronics and the old pickups, and replaced the pickups, pots, etc. all at the same time. So there's really no meaningful "before" to compare to.

Thanks for the reply.

If you feel the pickup heights are alright after checking, maybe temporarily wire the pickups directly to the output jack (bypassing the tone/vol pots). If the volume is only a little louder than when your volume knob was full on, that'd be expected and you'd seem to have low output pickups. If the volume is hella louder, I'd suspect something wrong in the tone/vol pot circuitry.

While you're playing with wiring, maybe connect each pickup individually to the output jack just to check the difference in output of each, as Slater mentioned. Just for your own knowledge.

For what it's worth, my bass had an uber trebly preamp. Hated it. I pulled it and rewired for passive and discovered the pickups were low output. Installed an adjustable gain/buffer preamp to boost the output. Just a small cube, half the size of a 9v battery with a trimpot sticking out of it. Output boosted and transparent.

 

[thermodog]

Thanks for the reply.

If you feel the pickup heights are alright after checking, maybe temporarily wire the pickups directly to the output jack (bypassing the tone/vol pots). If the volume is only a little louder than when your volume knob was full on, that'd be expected and you'd seem to have low output pickups. If the volume is hella louder, I'd suspect something wrong in the tone/vol pot circuitry.

While you're playing with wiring, maybe connect each pickup individually to the output jack just to check the difference in output of each, as Slater mentioned. Just for your own knowledge.

For what it's worth, my bass had an uber trebly preamp. Hated it. I pulled it and rewired for passive and discovered the pickups were low output. Installed an adjustable gain/buffer preamp to boost the output. Just a small cube, half the size of a 9v battery with a trimpot sticking out of it. Output boosted and transparent.

Thanks, I'll try experimenting with the output from each pickup separately.

I didn't mention in my original post that I also have a blend pot that precedes the volume and tone pots. It does have a path to ground, so there's got to be some loss of signal there. I'm going to replace that with a pickup selector switch. I find that I always use either one or the other pickup, or both together (there a center detent on the pot). I'm never using intermediate settings, so I don't really need a blend pot.