New guy with technical question

[pieterh]

Hi there,

Newbie to this forum though I've been playing for decades! These days using mainly a GIbson Les Paul Money (double-cutaway) bass and Ibanez MC940 fretless. Once upon a time before I went off to college I had an Aria Black n Gold II which I sold to help pay for study costs (yeah, I know, I've regretted that ever since...).

My question to you all is: my Ibanez hasn't been used much for years and the other day took it down to give it a try - I'm guesting on a bluegrass/country/roots gig next week and I thought fretless might be more appropriate.

The only trouble is I get more volume and a deeper bass from the passive pickups on the Gibson than I do from the active Ibanez. I changed battery with no change in signal strength or tone. It may of course be a dud battery, I need to buy a pack of 9v batteries anyway so I will check again later. Is this an issue anyone is familiar with? Does this model and era of Musician work, albeit not well, without battery?

The bass is from 1985 I think (I've had it as NOS just as the MC2940 came out) and has the active pickups with the electronics inside, with 2 volume and 2 tone controls.

Thanks in advance!

 

[MrLenny1]

If the Ibanez does not work out tone wise try compensating
with the EQ on your amp.
If not looks like Les gets the gig IMHO.

 

[pieterh]

Yep the Gibson is getting the gig, but I still want to sort out the electronics on the Musician. It's a wonderful fretless to play, the neck is fantastic - but just now it sounds very uninspiring.

Searching around I have found a couple of things to try: the connection from the jack socket to the electronics may have become "dry" and need sorting out; the other option to try is to use electronic cleaner in the volume pots - one user had this issue and though the pots were smooth to an extent (there was no intermittent coming- and going of the signal) the proper signal level came back once the pots had been cleaned properly. I'm at work at the moment but will give these a try later!

 

[adi77]

maybe you can raise the pickups slightly

 

[The Nameless]

Passive is not always quieter. Active isn't always louder. Those Gibson basses have tons of output. The Ibanez basses have never been thought of as loud or powerful basses. I am not sure how you run your amp. I use my gain to control input to my preamp section. How loud the bass I'm using is determines my gain setting. I believe the Gibson jussa stronger bass. And adjustments in input gain would be how I handled the different outputs.