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The John East preamp club
- Thread starter datsaxguy
- Start date
Is there any difference between the J-Tone and J-Retro when everything is set flat? Does one have a different "baked in" or built-in tone compared to the other?
Im trying to voice the MMSR using the UniPre 5. How would I do that? I have not been able to find an answer. Or should this be done by your team when buying the preamp?
I just had a Uni Pre installed in this bass. It originally had a Pope preamp (which is also a great pre) but with this particular bass and its pickups, it seemed like the EQ points were just not where I needed them. The East pre with the adjustable bass window, treble frequency and semi-parametric mids has been an even bigger improvement than I hoped.
At the moment, I'm jonesing for a J Retro Deluxe in standard pre-shape and gold plate and knobs.
That is unavailable for the time being. John sez that the gold hardware is unavailable at the moment and he doesn't know when he'll get any more.
The standard thing would be to get a J Retro Deluxe with different hardware and simply get a gold plate and a set of gold knobs.
But there's something really nice about the gold hardware he supplies. There is a certain "luster" or richness to those. And I really like the beveled knobs. I had a J Retro Deluxe in gold a while back. I sold it like a dummy and now I want another one.
So I guess I'm holding out….
That is unavailable for the time being. John sez that the gold hardware is unavailable at the moment and he doesn't know when he'll get any more.
The standard thing would be to get a J Retro Deluxe with different hardware and simply get a gold plate and a set of gold knobs.
But there's something really nice about the gold hardware he supplies. There is a certain "luster" or richness to those. And I really like the beveled knobs. I had a J Retro Deluxe in gold a while back. I sold it like a dummy and now I want another one.
So I guess I'm holding out….
I just ordered my fourth East pre. I guess I'm a fan boi. I've got a P-Retro and DJ-Retro in their repetitive basses, a 3 knob Uni Pre in my MTD fretless and the one incoming is a 4 knob for a Zon PJ. Not to mention I've got an East STMP-01, although it's not working. I need to do some surgery.
John East
Commercial User
The original Pre EB voicing has the lowest lows and the highest sizzly highs of virtually anything out there. (My experience)
Setting the Frequency Wheels in the UNI-PRE to mimic that:
(ACW = anti-clockwise / backed off, CW = clockwise / maxed)
Set both Bass Freq Wheels ACW, and set the Treble Wheel Fully CW.
I'm sure I've checked this in the past by overlaying both frequency plots using our tech test gear. I will check this again next time I have a UNI-PRE hooked up for a tech test.
I'm joining the club - ordered a Uni-Pre 3 for a custom bass a luthier friend is going to build for me.
Has anyone done a 3 pickup build with the Uni-Pre 5? I am trying to get one done using 3 volumes (instead of volume / balance), but I have not heard back from John East. Maybe there is a better way to build it
I do. I made it work by having the preamp always see 2 pickups, so having for instance two pickups in series in one input ("bridge" pickup), and the third pickup in the second output (neck pickup).
How are you going to run your 3 pickups? All in parallel? Different combinations of series and parallel?
Also, have a look at the latest Dingwall" Nashville" edition, which if I remember correctly, has 3 pickups, a traditional arrangement volume/blend between bridge and neck + a switch to incorporate the third pickup.
So friends... I just received and installed a J-Tone in my 2007 (or 2008?) CIJ Geddy Lee Jazz Bass. Now that it's in, it sounds fantastic. Thank you John East for delivering a fabulous product. Forgive me if it's already been discussed, but I had a dickens of a time getting into the control cavity. Now, let me start by saying that the supplied documentation makes mention of the fact that while the J-Tone is a drop in replacement for MOST jazz basses, that it can't account for every configuration. So the rough go I had of it in no way is an indictment on the John East product. I'm only sharing my experience so others can hopefully learn from my experience.
1) Ultimately I needed to increase the depth of the cavity a bit (used a forstner bit to create an extra few millimeters of clearance down the length of the cavity).
2). Additionally, I needed to do a bit of wire management. I've got 4-wire DiMarzio Model J pickups (red and green act as hot and ground, black and white are wired in series and essentially just taking up space in the cavity). As I don't intend to ever use those pickups in any other fashion, I shortened the black and white wires as much as was reasonable and relocated them to their respective pickup cavities (which took a bit of planning in itself as the pickup cavities were already pretty light on extra space).
3) I added a tiny square of foam tape to the 9V battery to sort of hold it in place as I lowered the preamp into place. Essentially when I change the battery I'll do my best to have a bit of tape handy just to help me guide everything into place, but it's possible that now that the wires are moved I might be able to sort it without the tape.
I will say that even with the wire and battery management, the preamp circuit board itself was too tall to really fit into the GL control cavity. There is a grounding strip in the bottom of the cavity and I did consider moving it to the side wall to free up precious height clearance, but in my case I had to resort to removing a bit of material from the cavity.
As someone who doesn't consider himself a woodworker (at least not on something like a guitar), it was definitely a bit of a head scratcher as I reasoned my way through it, but in the end it was a good undertaking and getting it installed makes the sound all the sweeter to my ears.
Thanks again John for making such a great product - my GL is my new favourite bass!
1) Ultimately I needed to increase the depth of the cavity a bit (used a forstner bit to create an extra few millimeters of clearance down the length of the cavity).
2). Additionally, I needed to do a bit of wire management. I've got 4-wire DiMarzio Model J pickups (red and green act as hot and ground, black and white are wired in series and essentially just taking up space in the cavity). As I don't intend to ever use those pickups in any other fashion, I shortened the black and white wires as much as was reasonable and relocated them to their respective pickup cavities (which took a bit of planning in itself as the pickup cavities were already pretty light on extra space).
3) I added a tiny square of foam tape to the 9V battery to sort of hold it in place as I lowered the preamp into place. Essentially when I change the battery I'll do my best to have a bit of tape handy just to help me guide everything into place, but it's possible that now that the wires are moved I might be able to sort it without the tape.
I will say that even with the wire and battery management, the preamp circuit board itself was too tall to really fit into the GL control cavity. There is a grounding strip in the bottom of the cavity and I did consider moving it to the side wall to free up precious height clearance, but in my case I had to resort to removing a bit of material from the cavity.
As someone who doesn't consider himself a woodworker (at least not on something like a guitar), it was definitely a bit of a head scratcher as I reasoned my way through it, but in the end it was a good undertaking and getting it installed makes the sound all the sweeter to my ears.
Thanks again John for making such a great product - my GL is my new favourite bass!
Such posts are pure 'evil' lol. I just got my JB62 fretless, fretted. The bass is almost ready. Its got Ultra Jazz pickups in there but am toying with the idea of the J-Retro. The J-Retro is truly tempting.
Hello. I am curious if anyone here has or has heard of a J Tone being put in a G&L Fullerton Deluxe JB, and how it fit.
I've done it on two Fullerton jbs and it fits great.
Attachments
Thanks a bunch! Did you swap out the pickups too or keep the originals?
Sure thing man!
I kept the originals.
I put a Fralin Split Jazz in another bass, but prefer these single coils to that.
That's interesting. I keep going back and forth on whether or not to swap the stock pickups for noiseless, but I do really like the sound of them. Maybe the preamp is the thing.
Your bass looks awesome. Gotta love those matching head stocks.
Mine is an "off the rack" model in Vintage White with the rosewood fingerboard. No matching head stock, but I still love it.
The noiseless thing is real attractive, but to me, the split Fralin jazz sounded modern, whereas the original G&L single sounds vintage, which I prefer.
I got the fretless for a good deal and the purple on a decent sale from a big retailer on Reverb, located in Florida.
Vintage white with Rosewood is totally classic. Im sure that bass looks cool!
It's the one on the left in my avatar pic. I got it from Sweetwater (no affiliation) when they were still $1499 new. The J Tone Volume/Volume/Tone with the black knobs is really reaching out to me for this. I like going through Best Bass Gear (no affiliation) for these sort of things. They're an authorized John East retailer, and it will save me some shipping costs. They're back ordered right now but I don't mind waiting a little bit.
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