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passive Sterling?

A

artiefacts

Sep 27, 2007
8
0
#1
Hello from Texas,

I love the way the MM Sterling feels and plays, but I'm getting tired of it's "active" sound, there's way too much brittle high-end for my taste, even with the tone controls in deep cut mode. Plus, I'm getting tired of replacing batteries.

So my first question to this forum is - if there's a good passive pickup that will fit the Sterling without additional routing or cutting? I'd like remove the existing PU and circuit board, battery, etc. and replace it all with a single PU, volume and tone control pots, and capacitor. That's all.

I'm told the existing MM Sterling PU is very low impedance, and will not drive a high impedance input like a Fender Bassman or other standard bass amp without the internal preamp.

So, I'm looking for a single, high Z PU that will fit in the Sterling PU cavity and work without an internal preamp.

Any suggestions?

Artie
 
#3
Its still an active thing, but I felt the same about the "brittleness" in my Sterling so I put a Nordy MM4.3 in to get a better Stingray sound. Worked wonders and I love it! It does have a lot of sizzle, but then again, Music Mans are regarded for that and reducing the treble pot helps to a point in a band setting where its unnoticable. I'm not sure what a passive one would sound like. I would aggree the output would decease since I thinks its dependant on the preamp in the MM's. Be careful in that cavity if you're gonna tweak....lots going on in there!

Don't let the boys in the Ernie Ball forum know what you plan to do....lots o' purists....but rightly so....the Sterling is a near-perfect beauty as is :D
 
#4
epoxo57 said:
Its still an active thing, but I felt the same about the "brittleness" in my Sterling so I put a Nordy MM4.3 in to get a better Stingray sound. Worked wonders and I love it! It does have a lot of sizzle, but then again, Music Mans are regarded for that and reducing the treble pot helps to a point in a band setting where its unnoticable. I'm not sure what a passive one would sound like. I would aggree the output would decease since I thinks its dependant on the preamp in the MM's. Be careful in that cavity if you're gonna tweak....lots going on in there!

Don't let the boys in the Ernie Ball forum know what you plan to do....lots o' purists....but rightly so....the Sterling is a near-perfect beauty as is :D
Click to expand...

Well, it's nice to know I'm not the only one put off by the brightness of the Sterling. I'm guessing that a lot of the brightness is because of the way the preamp is designed. That leads me to believe that simply omitting the preamp and going passive stright into the preamp in your "rig" - be it a Fender Bassman or some exotic Alembic preamp or sme such.

My question is about the factory PU in the Sterling. What's the output impedance and nominal output in millivolts?

And thanks for the tip on the Ernie Ball forum! I'm off to upset the purists..........;)
 

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