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Not getting warm fuzzies from TBC

#24
I just got done putting a passive tone control in front of the stock preamp. The pickup is passive , so you can roll off highs off the hot side of the pickup before it gets to the preamp. So basically Im using the passive tone control as my treble control and the active bass control for bass. [Im finding out that blending the active treble and passive tone is giving me some nice tones but it requires putting another hole in the bass for the other pot or maybey getting a push pull pot.]
 
#26
eajacobs said:
Yep... I just put an OBP-1 in my AP 500-M. I'm happy with the results- I like their frequency selection a lot better than TBC's "Black Box."
Click to expand...

That is the one I was considering. I want to spend some more time getting to know this beauty before I go changing things. I restrung it with some Rotosounds from my local shop, but am really itching to try some flats or tapewounds.
 
#27
Do you guys think that the TBC is a bright sounding bass in general no matter what the electronics are? I heared the obp-1 only boosts treble and bass and you can't cut frequencies with it. [ don't know for sure] I would like to look into a preamp you can cut and boost with.[ What I did with mine is basically a bandaid for the stock preamp that has too much treble. ]
 
#28
I am thinking that the "brightness" has a lot to do with the ash body and the maple neck, it's not exactly a comination for deep notes. I think the combination will be excellent for note clarity though, but as previous posters said, a preamp with the ability to cut frequencies might be in order. Perhaps going passive with an outboard preamp would be good, like a Sansamp programmable bass driver DI? I always liked the idea of having a few presets that I could switch between...
 
#29
It is a bright body/neck wood combination, although the Preamp is definitely the part that makes it killer bright. The frequency centre for the Treble boost/cut is up in outerspace somewhere. The good thing about the OBP-1 is the Treble frequency (boost only) is at 4Khz which isn't too overly bright, the OBP-2 is boost/cut but the Treble frequency is at 6.5Khz which sounds brighter.

I'm very happy with how a standard Passive Tone control smooths it out, although one combination I'd love to put in this bass is an OBP-1 with a Passive tone control to cut the treble since the OBP-1 is boost only.

Also, totally passive with an outboard preamp as mentioned above would also be a great idea. One thing for sure is you need to ditch that stock preamp for something else ASAP! :D
 
#31
I put in a passive/active switch:

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=277600

and run my 500SS with my external Sadowsky preamp/di. I think it sounds great.

The pan pot in mine has always been scratchy (and this is a replacement pot that TBC sent me to fix the _first_ scratch pot), so last night I pulled out the pan pot and re-wired it to "volume-volume". Now it's very quiet, but I basically only get 3 sounds out of passive mode: both pickups on, bridge on and neck on. If I roll either volume pot back slightly it just goes straight to the "single pickup" sound. I'm probably using the wrong pots.

Anyway, it's fun to have an inexpensive bass to practice my wiring skills.

- Rob
 

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