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Official Tobias Club
- Thread starter magneezius
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Correct on all counts except the neck is walnut.
Ah, sweet! I was going to get an Signature originally but opted to buy two Tobias instead for the price of one Sig...
One day i will get a 6 or 7 string from Mike.
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You are correct, very warm and phat, with those glassy highs! Right now, though, it doesn't sound so great, as the dual buffer has died and the balance pot is barely working. I've got a spare pre-amp, so heading to my local luthier pretty soon, for a parts swap.
EG
I've learnt to be pretty self-sufficient, being down-under, Mike is too far away!
Easy enough to email him, though, if ever in doubt, he's always glad to help.EG
what preamp are you using?
I thought it was a Bartolini TCT in the Pre-Gibsons. Those had a single buffered input...
at least that's what mine had.
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That is a great question in general. Supposedly, these preamps were semi-standard?? Just how do you tell what is in each bass?
I am 100% positive the preamp in my Sig5 is significantly different from what Mike normally used. I have owned or played probably 7 or 8 of his early basses; and this one sounds absolutely nothing like any of the others. It is voiced much more like an early Warwick or something - lots more lower mids in it. But, these danged Bartolini circuits completely baffle me. Zero way to tell what is going on by looking at them.
I've often wondered exactly which bartolini preamp is in my pre-gibson. All I know is that it has 3 small black break out boxes and says bartolini on it...
I have yet to find another bass that has such a loud output signal. I've played many other high end active basses (9v and 18v) but none of them have been as loud as the old Tobias.
I have yet to find another bass that has such a loud output signal. I've played many other high end active basses (9v and 18v) but none of them have been as loud as the old Tobias.
Wow! See, that's exactly what I am talking about. My Sig5 has fantastic tone, but it's output is about 60% of what my Sadowsky preamps deliver. I agree with you about the Bart innards. There is no way tell what the heck they put in there. Big mystery.
So it is a Bartolini preamp then? Can you open her up and post a pic of the control cavity?
My two had a black box with wires running out of it to the pots, then another inductor coil for the mid range
wrapped up in shielding copper stuck to the inside of the control cavity...
It's not your typical Tobias, but here is my recently-acquired '82. It's pretty killer. According to Mr. Tobias, it was a prototype body for the Bassic.
Both that bass and my Signature came with a WTMB, which seems to be fairly rare, but sounds similar to a TCT. They look like a cross between a TCT and the later NTMB, and have a DTA 1.3 dual buffer. My Basic 6 FL has a TCT and the black Basic 5 that I sold, also had one. When I got the Sig, though, the WTMB had been removed and replaced with a modern NTMB, which sounded very ordinary, so I replaced it with a Pope Flexcore. (Wow!) I still have the WTMB, so I hope the buffer is still working, so I can put it in the wenge Classic. If it's stuffed, I'll put a new TCT circuit in it, maybe with switchable mid frequencies. (You can get them on eBay, now. They sound nearly identical to the original TCT circuits.)
Cheers,
EG
I had the same problem with my Sig, but it has the Bart Classic RT pickups, not the older, drop-shoulder Barts. I tried an Aggie OBP-3 pre in it, but the pickup output was so low that I had to max all the knobs to make it usable. The Flexcore has no such problem, heaps of gain. The bass does sound very Warwick-like, might be the oil-finish.
EG
Here are the guts. I can see it is a TCT circuit. There also appears to be some kind of potted sub-circuit on the mid-pot. It is also curious how the wiring to the treble control is coming off the mid-pot and bass controls.
Funny what you notice in pictures. There is also a hair from a yellow lab we lost a few years back in there. Shades of Marley. Must be the hair that is giving me that robust tone.
The box on the mid-pot determines the boost/cut frequency. The typical ones are 250, 375, 500 and sometimes, 800 Hz. My Classic has 250, which adds a lot of low thickness. The older mid-boost modules are wrapped in copper foil and can have a capacitor and/or resistors hanging off them, to modify the mid or "added" high-frequency a bit more. On the TCT, the very top range of the mid boost has a treble boost as well, you should be able to hear it, if you leave the normal treble boost flat. According to the spec sheet, the new TCT and mid-boost modules have this as well, not just the original ones.
Cheers,
EG
