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Preamp Question for Celinder owners....

KJung

KJung

Supporting Member
Apr 9, 2005
44,588
1,570
Wisconsin
#1
I have a recent Celinder Update 5 with the stock Greengrove active circuit (bass cut and boost and passive treble cut). This circuit has four internal dip switches (bass EQ wide versus narrow band, hi treble boost, low treble boost, and +6db general gain).

The bass ships with all DIP switches in the 'on' position... which results in massive treble output (as Celinder Update owners know, Chris is a Marcus Miller fan).

I've very recently turned the 'hi' treble boost off, which to my ear results in plenty of treble response and more mid-punch, due to the fact that you can keep the passive treble filter (which affects freq's down to 500 hz) more open (i.e., less cut).

So, have any of you messed around with the DIP switches? What are your experiences and your favorite settings, etc.

Thanks :bassist:
 
#3
I'm happy with wide bass (more bass overlap), and lo treble boost. I tried narrow bass and noticed a subtle difference. Psychoacoustically, I like the idea of boosting more bass frequencies than just notching 40k. I leave the rest off. If I had higher output basses I might use the 6db boost, but I've just matched it to my other basses which are passive.
 
#6
Nice to see this old thread.

After much time, I have mine now set with both treble boosts off and the bass in the narrow Q. That passive tone control reduces treble and upper mids. The bass seems to punch quite a bit more if you leave the treble boosts off, and not have to roll the passive tone control back as much IME. Even with the treble boost off, those basses have massive 'Marcus sizzle' if you want it :D

I'll also say again that the 'active' blending of the volume/volume is just wonderful... pure, even, infinite blending of the two pickups at all ratio's. This is an exponential improvement over the standard passive blend or volume/volume. I guess the bad news is that it eliminates a 'passive' option, but you wouldn't buy a 'J on Steroids' Celinder Update if you were interested in vintage and organic!

The wide Q on the bass control is WAY too much for my very wide and full range cabs (Bergs and Epi's), but I could see the wide setting working with a sealed vintage type cab.

GREAT preamp and wonderful bass. It's cool to see that Chris is shipping his wonderful basses again, and that the rather frustrating delays and non-response issues seem to be at least somewhat attenuated at this point:hyper:
 
#7
Dang, looks like Peter had to dig pretty deep to pull this one out of the archives Ken. :hiding::cool::D

It'd be great to get more resonse this time around. I didn't know that Celinder had such a versitile pre.
 
#8
MacGroove said:
Dang, looks like Peter had to dig pretty deep to pull this one out of the archives Ken. :hiding::cool::D

It'd be great to get more resonse this time around. I didn't know that Celinder had such a versitile pre.
Click to expand...

It was a long time ago, but with these finally shipping in quantity to the U.S. again, it's a timely 'dredgiing up'!

Yeah, the Celinder/Greengrove pre is quite amazing. Whoever designed that was definitely not only a bass player, but a 'J on Steroids' lover. Pretty darn amazing!!!!
 
#10
MacGroove said:
Yup, great timing and glad to hear that they're available again. I remember hearing that there was a an issue with there availability or something to that effect.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Chris seems to have closed up shop for about a year, which resulted in a lot of anger and consternation among customers. It was never clear what the deal was (I assume some kind of personal/family issue).

While Chris is surely not stellar on his customer interactions, I would have absolutely no problem buying a Celinder at this point from Glenn at Austin Bass Traders. I wouldn't do a custom order, since just like Fodera, the demand is so high you will be waiting for years. However, ordering one that is spec'd by Glenn and on the way is a pretty safe bet. I've done it twice with no problems, other than the basses arriving a couple months later than originally promised (not a big deal at all IMO).

K
 
#12
Regarding KJung's post on both treble switches off. I liked this too for the same reason, but you can still get the same mid punch by dialing in the passive tone. The treble switches really "open" the sound. I'm continually surprised at how great a regular passive jazz bass 4 string sounds when compared to these high end basses. With both switches off, the Celinder sounds more muted; very humcancelling sounding, but you can get closer to the single coil "openess" or "air" of a passive j with both on.
 
#13
PeterChampagne said:
Regarding KJung's post on both treble switches off. I liked this too for the same reason, but you can still get the same mid punch by dialing in the passive tone. The treble switches really "open" the sound. I'm continually surprised at how great a regular passive jazz bass 4 string sounds when compared to these high end basses. With both switches off, the Celinder sounds more muted; very humcancelling sounding, but you can get closer to the single coil "openess" or "air" of a passive j with both on.
Click to expand...

+1... lot's of different subtle tweaks to the high end available with that pre, and I have not found a 'bad' tone in there. It just depends what tone you are going for, and also how 'bright' your rig is to begin with. When I have the Celinder going through a front of house system, I prefer the treble boosts off, since it can quickly get out of hand, and also you get a little too much 'scoop' in the upper mids if you roll that passive treble down too much. However, it all sounds good, and I'm with you on the single coil thing. Those Celinder/Armstrong split coils are the closest to true single coil tone in a humbucking J pickup that I've heard.

K
 
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#14
After reading this thread, I decided to mess around with my settings.. My Vintage 5 and the PJ-5 both have the CP-3A preamp.. 1 is for a rechargable battery, 2 for Bass Wide/Narrow Contour, 3 for "LO" treble boost at 4.0 kHz and 4 is "Hi" treble boost at 7.5 kHz..
I have both set for the Narrow bass which helps the B string shine alittle more and the "Lo" treble contour on, which adds a nice mid punch for both basses.. I have the "Hi" treble on for the Vintage 5, only because the strings are alittle dead and I'm sure once I change them, this will be turned off...
I checked these out using the amp in my music room, which is a Crate B160XL with a 15" EV speaker... It actually sounds good and I have to try it out on a small gig sometime..
The settings may change once I try the basses on my live rig, which is a Presonus Blue Tube DI for a preamp into my Berg IP-153..
 
#17
PeterChampagne said:
Actually, I've been thinking about bypassing this preamp altogether. The greengrove site shows a way to do this. While it sounds good, I don't like the sound of a preamp on all of the time.
Click to expand...

Let me know how that works out. I had originally ordered my J-Update 5 with a version of the Greengrove that had an active/passive option, but as the bass progressed, Glenn told me that this was not going to be an option (still kinda unclear as to exactly why). I agree, though, that sometimes, I prefer to play in passive mode (especially when kickin' through an all-tube head).

Tom.
 
#18
From what I understand, Chris has an active/passive preamp in the works. I was planning to just replace this preamp with the new Glock w/ the passive/active option, but was steered away from that when I heard the news of Chris' new one. If you look at the GP1 manual on the greengrove site, bypassing the preamp is really just a matter of moving a wire.
 
#19
PeterChampagne said:
From what I understand, Chris has an active/passive preamp in the works. I was planning to just replace this preamp with the new Glock w/ the passive/active option, but was steered away from that when I heard the news of Chris' new one. If you look at the GP1 manual on the greengrove site, bypassing the preamp is really just a matter of moving a wire.
Click to expand...

I think that this is the same preamp that I had originally tried to order back in 2005. It would be nice to see it actually come through as an option (provided that it worked to Chris' satisfaction).
 
#20
You can see that if you move the internal trim pot to unity, these pickups are very low output. Bypassing the preamp would probably also justify changing the pickups, which is fine except these pickups are longer than Fender style, and no company makes 5 strings this size stock. I'll probably just hold out. I've also heard that Chris is working on an Alnico magnet pickup to work with this new preamp.
 

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