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Preamps Question
- Thread starter nipplepie
- Start date
It depends on whether you want a transparent preamp that won't color the sound, or one that does color the sound?
bongomania
Commercial User
How does quality or brand affect anything? Is there a difference between a good car and bad car? Are all car brands the same?
Bass preamps may not be as varied as cars, but it's the same situation on a smaller scale.
Bass preamps may not be as varied as cars, but it's the same situation on a smaller scale.
Car brands vairy a lot differently to what pre amps do.
Unless you see a car as a box that gets you from A to B. Then again people that don't play guitar see people who do as playing A to B (note wise). so yeah....
I was just wondering how I could improve my preamps on my passive bass I put together. I got the Quarter Pound for P-Bass® SPB-3 pickups and the sound is great, just wondering how i can adjust it further.
bongomania
Commercial User
??? You can adjust it further by adding a preamp. If you want good quality, buy good quality. If you want a model that comes well-recommended, those recommendations will tell you what brand to buy. If you are just looking for someone to tell you that a $20 preamp is exactly the same as a $200 preamp, then good luck to you.
bongomania
Commercial User
Actually, as I re-read your original post, maybe I misunderstood. Now I suspect maybe you were asking what a preamp does, what a preamp sounds like, and whether you should bother with a preamp--not whether quality and price are factors. Yes?
bongomania
Commercial User
Wait, I'm sorry to be all over your thread like this, but I'm honestly trying to understand what you need help with.
When you say "improve your preamps on your passive bass"... What do you mean? What preamps?
A difference in Pre's from different brands in example: may just be the Q Points of each tone control on the pre amp. Some pre amps may have the mid frequency centered on 800hz, some maybe on 500hz. Another difference may be the way the pickup is wired. Series or Parallel? Also is it passive with an active pre? or maybe an active with an active pre?
I found that the pre in my warwick corvette (Treb/Bass no Mid) added some darker color, just the way they managed the current/voltage. (Even with the controls flat) so I removed it, I still have the Active Pickups and they are wide open with out any shaping. (Very clear) I use the balance pot and finger placement/attack to curb my sound and use my amp to fine tune it.
It's all voltage and how you regulate it. I hope this helps.
Sorry, this post comes off very uneducated sounding to me.
Perhaps there are some differences in the Q settings on various preamps, but I think the frequency centers will have a much bigger impact than slight changes in bandwidth. That is, unless the preamp in question has an exceptionally broad or narrow band.
The preamp does not regulate voltage or current.
The current of the signal is quite low, perhaps a few micro-Amperes.
The voltage is free to swing up and down as the signal gets louder and quieter, it should only become limited when you go over the transistor's ability to amplify it. (The headroom.)
The idea that a preamp would regulate the voltage is the very opposite of the concept of choosing a high-headroom preamp. You want your dynamics to pass through unaltered. If you need to compress, you can use a compressor unit somewhere else in the signal chain.
Also, the wiring of the pickups, series or parallel, has very little effect on the sound of the preamp.
Technically, since wiring the pickups series versus parallel changes the resistance of the coils, that also changes the impedance of the output, but the preamp pretty much doesn't care what the impedance is.
Most preamps will have a high impedance input, above 1M.
I'm curious as to how quality impacts a preamp. I have my Spectors/Smiths which have HaZ Lab pre's which if you were to buy one would cost you several hundered dollars, and I also have replaced a cheap preamp/pickups with an EMG pickup/pre setting. Recently I purchased a Artec preamp which looks like a chinese reverse engeneered EMG preamp. I have not installed it yet but a friend of mine said he tried one and it was garbage. So the question becomes= what is the voodo of the expensive preamp (ala Haz Lab board) vs chinese emg copy? at the end of the day its all coper wire, pots and basically and eq. Why is one $20 on ebay and the other $400 from Spector? I'm not arguing that there is a sonic differnce there is and I can hear it. the question is why and does a few better posts or higher quality of solder really necessitate a $$380 markup? Is there a preamp sold on the cheap that is wonderful? Looking at my EMG and my Artec the design and wiring look nearly if not exactly identical and the EMG is $180 whil the Artec was $20?
bongomania
Commercial User
Different components can actually sound different. For example a .047 uF generic ceramic cap and a .047 Vishay-Sprague orange drop will not sound the same when directly in the audio path, even though they have the same nominal capacitance. A germanium transistor will not sound the same as an opamp transistor, even with similar gain specs. But that's not to say the expensive one is always "better"--just different.
Also with a well-built circuit, the designer will spec parts for their performance (especially in relation to each other) rather than their cost; and the assembler will actually test the components to make sure they meet the spec. This adds a considerable amount of labor cost. Compare against any cheap circuit, where the components are spec'd for low cost regardless of performance, and where labor is cut to an absolute minimum.
Another thing is some consumers want "the real thing" (an American or European brand-name product, for example) rather than a generic Asian knockoff--even when the knockoff might perform identically. So those customers are willing to pay a premium for the brand, the country of origin, and the assumption of better quality; and since there is a paying market, manufacturers continue to make their more expensive preamps in high-labor-cost facilities, so that means there are higher-priced preamps on the market. IOW the higher cost is justified by the marketplace, with no direct correlation to different performance quality. And the difference in retail price is not all markup (though certainly the markup is higher on any product that moves in lower volumes).
Also with a well-built circuit, the designer will spec parts for their performance (especially in relation to each other) rather than their cost; and the assembler will actually test the components to make sure they meet the spec. This adds a considerable amount of labor cost. Compare against any cheap circuit, where the components are spec'd for low cost regardless of performance, and where labor is cut to an absolute minimum.
Another thing is some consumers want "the real thing" (an American or European brand-name product, for example) rather than a generic Asian knockoff--even when the knockoff might perform identically. So those customers are willing to pay a premium for the brand, the country of origin, and the assumption of better quality; and since there is a paying market, manufacturers continue to make their more expensive preamps in high-labor-cost facilities, so that means there are higher-priced preamps on the market. IOW the higher cost is justified by the marketplace, with no direct correlation to different performance quality. And the difference in retail price is not all markup (though certainly the markup is higher on any product that moves in lower volumes).
bongomania
Commercial User
99% of all the P basses I've ever seen were passive.
Unless you mean the American Deluxe P bass? That would be a Fender preamp...
bongomania
Commercial User
I don't know, did you actually solve it or are you just bailing? I'll spell it out for you: passive means no preamp (in almost all cases). Your passive P bass doesn't have even one preamp, never mind plural "preamps" as you said. Check out the article about preamps in the FAQ in my sig. Try out some active basses in a store, to find out what a preamp can do to the sound. And read some of the many threads about preamps in this forum (including in the stickies) to see what people are discussing and describing. Good luck!
