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The John East preamp club

#281
Man, great overview, thanks! I have a fender am dlx that has fralin single coils that has the j-retro dlx and my main bass is a Gadow 5 that has Nordy big singles with the u-retro dlx. That passive tone is one of the best that I've dealt with on an active circuit. I totally know what you mean about the upper mid snarl, man I love that!! I think I may have to give that a shot, totally respect your thoughts on that. Appreciate that.
 
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#282
Thanks Leo, good luck with it! I cant say enough good things about the Uni. If you can get one with the mid curve of the Retro, that would be my suggestion. I think the passive tone is actually improved upon in the Uni Pre from the Retro circuit if I remember correctly.

I'm in the process of trying to get a custom UNI for my Erizias 6. Such a great circuit.
 
#283
Pssst, looking for pickup recommendations. J-fretless with all maple, old and now oil finished with flat wounds. I currently have EMG pickups which have been working fine since I acquired the bass in 1987. But they are pretty dated and pots are worn so I want to replace the whole cavity. J-Retro from John East sounded so good when I tried it, but not sure the best pickups for a very heavy, very tone-rich, very resonant fretless.
Would love some help.
 
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#284
Killing Floor said:
Pssst, looking for pickup recommendations. J-fretless with all maple, old and now oil finished with flat wounds. I currently have EMG pickups which have been working fine since I acquired the bass in 1987. But they are pretty dated and pots are worn so I want to replace the whole cavity. J-Retro from John East sounded so good when I tried it, but not sure the best pickups for a very heavy, very tone-rich, very resonant fretless.
Would love some help.
Click to expand...

in my experience Nordstrand pickups pair wonderfully with my East preamps
 
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#289
The four knob Uni-Pre is in, and it is a perfect complement to the pickups/bass. I'm using it with a pair of Bartolini XXP25M Original Splits. This setup is dead quiet, and as I explore the possibilities, I'm finding that there are many useful setting combinations. The buffered blending is what makes the difference for me, but the "tweakability" of the eq ranges makes it so easy to bring out the desired qualities of the Barts.

I spent about an hour tweaking the frequencies, jumper presets, levels, etc. I settled on: no pre-shape; treble frequency at the center of the range; cut & boost bass controlling roughly 30-80 Hz- a narrower range than I was expecting to use.
68EADB08-EAAE-43D9-9F8D-334B4849448C.jpeg
 
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#290
Hey guys, Im looking for some advice. I have a Stingray 4H with a piezo in the bridge. 5 knobs- the fifth knob is a pickup blend.

For whatever reason, the stock preamp just doesnt sound very good. May have a blown capacitor? I think just dropping in a replacement is a good idea.

Seems East doesn't make a replacement for this setup, but there is a piezo mixer module (MPM 02)on the East website.

Any advice would be helpful. I really dont know much about active circuits.
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#291
Honestly, while not the cheapest option, the one I think most likely to result in your satisfaction is to give John an email explaining what you're looking for. He can make custom stuff, and I would guess the upcharge would be modest.
 
#294
chris70x7 said:
I sent him one a couple of months ago, but no response. Ill try again though!
Click to expand...

Ah, okay. Conceptually, I think I know what you need:
  • The MM already has an onboard piezo buffer, shown in your second photo, right?
  • If so, send that to one side of a (buffered) blend
  • The other side of the blend gets the signal from the MM preamp of your choice - since you have five knobs, I'm assuming you'll want a 3-band preamp, so the controls would be V/T/M/B/Bl
  • Alternatively, you could blend the mag and piezo before the preamp, so that the T/M/B worked on either source
The issue, of course, is getting this circuitry packaged in a way that drops in to your existing control cavity layout.
 
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#296
The stock pickup arrangement has them both before the preamp. Id like to keep it that way.

Thanks for the responses, thats good info. Its true, there's not much room under the boomerang. I also have to take the relative locations of the knobs into account. The spacing and angles might be different than a 4 knob arrangement.

Ill try bestbassgear.
 
#299
chris70x7 said:
You know, I also have a 06 Sterling 4H with a rear cavity. 3 band EQ and 3 position selector switch. Its got an amazing neck. If I wanted to upgrade that, what would you guys suggest?
Click to expand...

Every Sterling I've played, I wouldn't change a thing.
As far as I know, the only drop-in pickup.option you have is the Nordstrand MM4.3, so that's an Alnico option.
But for the preamp, to balance the levels, the Sterling preamp has different input gain staging for the various coil combinations. I don't know of any aftermarket preamp that does this, so you might end up with some strange level mismatches...
 
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