thanks, so far aside from needing some minor set up tweaks, its perfect for me. Will give it a workout on the gig friday night. 
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The Valenti Megathread Part IV
- Thread starter smperry
- Start date
I emailed Nino last night about a new build to go with my whiteburst Jazz 5.... A blackburst P5!!!
I am thinking about a Precision style body with either P or PJ PU config. Black to natural burst for sure and am leaning towards alder/rosewood but am not discounting either an ebony board or an ash body.
Here's where I need some help.... I want classic old school P tone but I am adamant that the bass be active. Any preamp and pickup ideas that will get me there?
Thx!
I am thinking about a Precision style body with either P or PJ PU config. Black to natural burst for sure and am leaning towards alder/rosewood but am not discounting either an ebony board or an ash body.
Here's where I need some help.... I want classic old school P tone but I am adamant that the bass be active. Any preamp and pickup ideas that will get me there?
Thx!
My Valenti Jazz 5 is 34" and the B is as good as most 35" basses. It is also 19mm and I wouldn't expect tighter spacing to change the tone at all.
Oh, below are the specs for my current bass..... Super modern sounding and I love it, but really looking for something at the other end of the tonal spectrum.
S24FJ5
Swamp Ash Body
Maple neck
Birdseye Maple board
Nordstrand 3B preamp. No VTC
Nordstrand Big Singles in 70's locations
Awesome! My thoughts, if you want old school, go for a duncan or lull pickup. Stay far away from the nordy. Also, passive is not a bad thing and lends itself to a p bass imo. Your amp does have knobs!
Now that's a pretty bass. Is that a standard pup or some sort of noise cancelling model?
Honestly, my opinion is that the active PJ sounds kind of weird. I really thnk you lose some of that P bass magic with a preamp. My green Valenti 4 (ash/maple) was originally a PJ and it was so bright and aggressive that I couldn't really dial in a decent tone and had it rerouted for a J bass pickup. It's Nordy NJ4s with a Nordy 3 band and it's awesome. The new 5 I have coming is Nordy big singles and Nordy 3 band on ash/ wenge.
Since you have an ash/maple J with big singles I'd go with an alder/rosewood for the PJ. Other things being equal, alder/rosewood has a bit different vibe than ash/maple and is classic P-bass. I love that P-bass tone but found myself wanting that bit of extra bite you can dial in with a bridge J so I got a P/J. I have an alder/rosewood Valenti PJ5 (#65) equipped with a Nordy PJ5 set and Aguilar OBP-2 with VTC, active/passive switch, and two pickguards for regular or reverse-P. LOVE IT! Duncan and Lull were suggested for that old school tone. I'd agree but also consider the Aguilar P/J set. The Zon Moziac comes with them and Ed Friedland, who normally doesn't care for P/J, liked these quite a bit.
I also like the flexibility that active/passive provides. The VTC with active/passive switch that Nino uses is all you need with the right set of pickups for a great passive tone. There are a number of good preamp choices but a Darkglass tone capsule with 500 Hz lo-mid and 2.8kHz hi-mid bands should integrate nicely with that VTC rolloff at 6.7 kHz. Good reports coming back on that one. I'm waiting for mine to come in.
Two caveats with the P/J configuration are that 1) often the bridge J sounds thin and doesn't balance well with the P and 2) the bridge J interacts with the P and changes its tone even when soloed. Making the bridge J split coil so it's hum-cancelling and overwinding it 10% or so to better match the P output has made P/J sets better so this shouldn't be an issue. Placement of the bridge J matters because of its effect on the phase alignment of the P and J. It's said that regular-P with bridge J in the 60's position is a bit nasal. The 70's position is not supposed to be as nasal in the mids but the J sounds thinner. Mine is setup reverse-P with bridge in the 60's position and I like that quite a bit. It might not satisfy the P-tone purists but it's a very useable alignment with a big sound and nice focused punch. This also seems to be the setup on the new Ibanez SR755NTF.
That being said, optimum placement of the bridge J a little closer to the neck which provides that extra bite without altering the P tone and doesn't sound thin when soloed, seems to have been arrived at independently by Sheldon Dingwall and Pat Wilkins. I think this might be worth considering. Here's a quote from that post:
"I found this response in the Dingwall forum about a Super P/J:
"Will the addition of the FD3 have any effect on the soloed P tone? I assume the FD3 will be balanced in output with the split P?"
"The pickups balance very well. We moved the bridge pickup quite a bit closer to the neck. Way more than I anticipated, but we just kept moving it until the tone fell into place. The solo P tone is not affected."
I'm a big fan of the PJ configuration but the traditional "J" location sounds a bit thin for my liking when soloed and others have commented about the presence of the "J" bridge pickup in the traditional location altering the solo P tone. Pat Wilkins seems to have come to the same conclusion with his 'Cayenne' (Roasted) PJ5."
Dingwall Owners Club Part 7 | Page 168 | TalkBass.com
For a good picture of this P/J pickup placement, see Post #16 by JIO in this link:
Why PJ, Why Not Precision and Big Split or Soapbar | TalkBass.com
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Great info, thanks,for posting it.
And to those that mentioned that an active P isn't really a traditional P, I get it. I just strongly prefer active basses these days AND Nino has no problem doing active/passive either. I have active passive control on almost all of my basses and it is very useful. I also may consider a big split or similar or just go straight P only.
Not completely sure what I want beyond a P5 body with a P PU, 19mm spacing, 34" scale, 1 7/8" nut, asymmetrical neck profile with 16" FB radius. Likely alder/rosewood.
Baird I can tell you my experience. I had a 57Av fender and I have a 58av I converted to a PJ. To me that alder maple passive combo run passive with Labella DTFs is the quintessential P bass tone. I know other opinions differ but that's it to me. If the incoming bass I have coming in doesn't surpass that I am going to have Nino do that combo in a 5 for me.
Thanks.
My other Valenti has a BEM board, so I want a dark board on the P5 build for purely aesthetic reasons. Not that I wouldn't go with a maple board if it made sense, but I find that ebony and maple boards sound pretty similar. Rosewood is a different beast, but ebony to me is about as close tonally as one is going to get to maple in a dark wood.
mark beem
Wait, how does this song start again??
Maybe the person that ordered this bass follows the thread? What is the difference in spacing between a Wootens Fodera (PJ) and a standard Fender? Visually it is hard to tell with the 33" scale, jazz body and 24 frets. It's gonna be a long week waiting.
Chef
In Memoriam
If you want old school P tone; you do not want a preamp. Trust me on this. I've been thru three Sadowsky, two Valenti ( I think) and several other active P and PJ.
Don't do a preamp.
I like the Nord pickup, but, I like more treble and more edge than a "real vintage P tone," so. There's that.
I also prefer ash/maple; but if you want "real vintage P tone," you want alder, and, real rosewood. Not pao ferro or anything else.
Nord make a "vintage P" pickup now, but I haven't tried one.
You don't need 35" for a great B string.
You need good wood, good parts (tuners, nut, bridge), a tight neck pocket, the right strings, and careful attention to assembly and setup.
Nino can do all that.
Here's mine. Ash, Pao Ferro (which looks like rosewood, but is hard and dense and acts like maple) NP5 and hum canelling J; no preamp.
It's a metallic sherwood green, but it takes a lot of light to bring that out.
I get the point about Pre amp or not and that 18 or 19 mm spacing doesn't make a tonal difference but when I asked about 34 or 35 in scale, I wasn't thinking about the B string, I was thinking more about whether or not it would make a difference with getting "old school P" tone. Also, I'm wondering which pickups. Fender? Noddy? Aguilar?
Chef
In Memoriam
Well; Fenders have always been 34"
The Fender American Standard P5, which is a perfectly nice bass is 34. The pickup in that does "sound geniune," so, you could get one of those.
I have no experience with the Nord Vintage, or aguilar.
I think I remember Kirk Powers (user svtb15) saying he always swapped the Nord P5 for Duncan P 5 in his Sadowskys, or, ordered them that way or something.
The Fender American Standard P5, which is a perfectly nice bass is 34. The pickup in that does "sound geniune," so, you could get one of those.
I have no experience with the Nord Vintage, or aguilar.
I think I remember Kirk Powers (user svtb15) saying he always swapped the Nord P5 for Duncan P 5 in his Sadowskys, or, ordered them that way or something.
