Pickups Too Loud

[Paulabass]

This sounds like the classic-solution in search of a problem.

 

[lowfreqgeek]

As soon as you start messing with trim pots and changing the load that the pickup sees, you change the tone. Worse still, you make the cable a more significant part of the tone equation. It might be a pleasing change, but it's a change, nonetheless. You can put in a bypass cap to retain some of the highs, but that also changes the tone in it's own way. Best bet it to install a buffer preamp into the bass with a trim pot so that you don't change the loading on the pickup.

Otherwise, you'll need a pad on the DI side, as has been mentioned.

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

The more I read this view, the more I agree. It’s ridiculous that the sound guy can’t be bothered to move a fader when you switch basses. You’re not paying him to sit like a beer-drinking lump, hunched motionless over the console the whole evening.

It’s hard to fix lazy. I don’t think I’m modifying any of my instruments to enable said laziness.

I’m re-thinking this from the perspective that perhaps the sound guy IS doing his job. At least in respect to trying to ride levels in the mix, if not working on “normalizing” levels coming into the mixer.

Just re-read this part to try to better understand why this is such a big issue.

Are you concerned about the fact that the sound person is readjusting your level?
That is what he is supposed to be doing. That is exactly his job.
Anyone who just sets a knob at some preset level and leaves it there no matter what, is not doing you and your band any favors.

I must, at this point retract everything I said previously about your sound person, until I know more.

 

[saabfender]

I have a hard time believing the level difference between the two guitars requires a trim adjustment to keep them in range of the fader.

 

[Paulabass]

^ They don't.

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

This sounds like the classic-solution in search of a problem.

Yeah! I don’t think this even meets the criteria for First World Problem.

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

I'm with ya. Turning down my bass sometimes takes up to 4/100th.s of a second, and uses muscles I didn't know I had.

Heaven forbid, you bulk up your digits.

 

[James Collins]

Summary of this thread premise:
My volume is too hot on a bass pickup. Is there any solution to make the volume lower on this one bass?

Summary of suggestions:
Multiple solutions, most free. Use the sound engineer. Adjust pickup height. Turn down the volume. Boost pedal. EQ pedal...

Summary of response:
Nah...

 

[mikewalker]

Padding down your bass's output level at the source would effectively lower your signal-to-noise ratio through your signal chain - why would you want to do that?

 

[Tedward]

So after reading what all has been said padding the bass in the control cavity is not the best solution. The pickups are bottomed out without any foam under them. Looks like my best bet is another pedal. The Boss LS2 looks like the best solution.

Thanks
Tedward

 

[Paulabass]

The best solution is at your fingertips. Literally.

 

[Jay2U]

Yeah but I’m not sure I really understand what it is exactly, that the OP wants?
To not have to turn the knobs on his bass?

Confuses me too. I once built an extra switchable resistor into my old Ibanez, which was way too loud for some effect pedals. This resistor allows me to switch to about half the output, featuring a nice volume control range.

 

[primusfan1989]

Lower the pickup height.

This would be my first step

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

Padding down your bass's output level at the source would effectively lower your signal-to-noise ratio through your signal chain - why would you want to do that?

Yep. The noise is there. It is a fixed amount according to external forces. Unless you do something to reduce the noise at the same time you reduce the signal there will be more noise relative to the signal. And when it all hits the output of the D.I. and eventually the mixer/PA, both will be increased by the same amount and added to the noise inherent in the mixer/PA.

The beauty of low impedance is that it is less subject to external noises on long lines, like instrument cables. Preamps mounted in instruments may boost the signal level but the real unsung hero of a pre is that you are running a lower impedance out of the bass than you would with a passive system. The closer you can put the pre to the pickups, the better your signal can overcome the noise. This is why EMG and other similar pickups are so “noise free”. The pre is built into the pickup case itself.

Funny that we talk about reducing “signal to noise” level, when the goal is really to reduce the noise. What we really mean is to reduce the outcome of the the signal to noise measurement, where a higher number is less desirable. This is really just reducing the noise at a faster rate than we reduce the signal. Or increasing the signal faster than we increase the noise. The former being the easier of the two to accomplish. One of those oddities of our techno-slang.

 

[pglaser01]

Are you not wanting to turn the volume down on your bass because that’s “your tone”?

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

Are you not wanting to turn the volume down on your bass because that’s “your tone”?

This is a very good question.
I might add on by asking how much of what your tone is, comes from the mixer/PA, and how important is that compared to your amp tone?

The D.I. (assuming an external one) takes your instrument, plus any affects between the instrument and the D.I. and what the D.I. itself might add, to both the PA and to your amp. The amp and the PA likely color that signal differently. You have more control of your amp tone then you do of the house mix. So if keeping your instrument at a certain level to achieve a certain tone (which is a valid reason) which tone are you doing this for, the amp in the stage, or what’s heard out front?

 

[Tedward]

I noticed when I roll the volume back on the guitar to around 3 ( to match the EUB) it sounds lifeless and dull. At 10 has more energy (if that makes sense).

I would like the tone in the PA to be close the tone from the amp.

When I get a chance I will measure the difference in volume with a DB meter and post the results.

Tedward

 

[saabfender]

I noticed when I roll the volume back on the guitar to around 3 ( to match the EUB) it sounds lifeless and dull. At 10 has more energy (if that makes sense).

I would like the tone in the PA to be close the tone from the amp.

When I get a chance I will measure the difference in volume with a DB meter and post the results.

Tedward

My experience is this perceived change in tone is not borne out by rudimentary comparison testing. If you record a sample at 3, then at 10 and level match them, they be very difficult to tell them apart in a blind A/B comparison.

Actual loudness effects how we hear tone. Fletcher-Munson and all that.

 

[Nashrakh]

Yes. BE the diva, make the sound guy shift faders. You'll earn your "hard to work with" reputation in a heartbeat.

 

[somebrains]

Irrc, those pick-ups sound almost micro phonic, tone wise, and will always be kind of hot.

Yeah, I know a TB members with those pickups and his bass will slam an input harder than my Fralins +10%.

I just play the Fralin bass all the time.