I have a Warwick Thumb 6 Bolt on. It has the function with the volume knob that will make the instrument go "passive" if you pull the volume out. Does that cut off the use of the batteries? So that if I leave the bass plugged in but just pull the knob out, I won't be "draining the battery"??
It definitely puts it into passive mode, so the battery is bypassed. I'm not sure whether the battery gets drained in passive mode or not, but it seems like it would be stupid for it to be, and besides, where would the voltage go? I assume it won't drain the battery...but how hard is it to unplug?
Well, I play mostly in church, and it's a lively Gospel church, where even after the Praise & Worship team is supposed to be fininshed, and before the actual sermon for the morning, the spirit is likely to descend and on the fly, I'm being asked to get up and start playing. Unplugging the bass means unplugging the cord from the amp as well. And that is confusion and time wasted to get plugged in on both; whereas, if I was already plugged in, all I'd have to do is put the bass on and go. I'd prefer to do that. That's all.
I don't think that changing into the passive mode will cut off the battery. AFAIK only unplugging would do this. There will be still a quiescent current like in a calculator that you didn't turn off.
pulling the "passive" knob wont help you. the jack is a stereo jack and one leg is connected to the battery. whenever you put the plug in it closes the circuit and thus the battery gets drained. look at it as an on/off switch: when the plug is in its on and when its out its off. btw the Thumb, I belive, has active pickups so when you pull the knob it only bypasses the preamp and the pickups still need voltage to operate so anyway you look at it you must keep the battery in and the cord out. I'm baseing the above on my Streamer LX5's being active-active, you should however e-mail Warwick or dana b. goods and ask if you're pups are active or not, if they are passive you dont need the battery to be full if you play with the preamp bypassed.
The battery in my Warwick died, and it wouldn't work in active or passive mode...so be safe and don't forget that extra 9-volt.
if you have a real passive setup (i.e. passive pups a' la' Fortress and Corvette) you can play in bypass mode if the battery died, but you'll need the dead battery to be connected in order to close the circuit (unless MEC went far enough as to make a real passive circuit in addition to the active one which I dont belive the case to be).
i had the battery die on my in my old thumb NT once and i could pull it into passive and still use the bass. jason
I'm pretty sure that it's just an EQ bypass, because the output level is the same between active and "passive" mode.
I have a Warwick Thumb 4 with the 3 band EQ and it takes two 9 volt batteries. With the batteries out of the bass you cannot hear anything UNTIL you pull up on the volume knob i.e. put the bass into passive mode. As for whether or not the battery will still be drained with the chord in and the knob pulled up, only a schematic will know for sure.
I have a Fortress-one active 4 string (98)..I take out the battery,pull the volume knob bypass the active mode and there is still that warwick sound..think mEC went far eough just wanted to inform.
I often play in church and have had no problems with my Thumb (oe and Alembic pups/preamp) and EB Musicman re batteries and sermons. I get a year + from my batteries the Thumb was changed August 2001 and thats my 'church bass'.
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