Tone Monster SBK preamps? Anybody here use them?

[jimmykicker]

Fantastic preamps. My #2 bass is a DeArmond Pilot V. Had a weak preamp. Put a TM in it and Bartolini Brights in it. Wow. What a bass now. I got another one but neck thru I’m about to do the same to.

ps. My #1 is a Pedulla Rapture V with all Bartolini electronics. The DeArmond is every bit as good tonally.

 

[J Posega]

USPS took their sweet time delivering the replacement, but I got it installed and this one is working this time. The amount of gain available on the trimmer is kind of ridiculous. Mine is turned all the way down and is still just a bit louder than passive. I might put one in another bass that has really crap stock electronics.

 

[dbunny23]

Has anyone tried using one of these as a replacement for preamp in MIJ Jaguar bass?

george

 

[jimmykicker]

Just received one for my neck through DeArmond Pilot DLX! Got the 4 knobs with stack on one and a mini mid toggle. Stacked knobs for treble and bass make a lot of sense to me on multi knob configs. Can't wait to see the improvement. On my bolt on neck Pilot Plus V, the results have been incredible. Over the years this is my #2 bass in sound and playability. I gig it and a 2005 Pedulla Rapture V most of the time. Occasionally I will rotate my boat paddle Yamaha RBX-765a in. That is the one bass I will not mess with. I like the tone as is. And that's RARE for me. No Tone Monster for you....

 

[HowieD72]

Thread resurrection!

I just bought a TONE MONSTER SBK-2D to install in my Cort "Jeff Berlin Signature" Rithimic. I already replaced the Barts in it with Kent Armstrong soap bars, but the passive harness isn't doing it for me. I'll update once it arrives & is installed.

 

[HowieD72]

Thread resurrection!

I just bought a TONE MONSTER SBK-2D to install in my Cort "Jeff Berlin Signature" Rithimic. I already replaced the Barts in it with Kent Armstrong soap bars, but the passive harness isn't doing it for me. I'll update once it arrives & is installed.

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UPDATE:

The Tone Monster SBK-2D definitely livened this up. And talk about bass! Heavy bass with this preamp. The passive/active switch is a good mod. Unfortunately, the tone still doesn't sway me to keep it. It's like it has this baked in tone that no matter how I EQ it or change strings, it just doesn't appeal. My jazz with single coils & my Precision with the Aquilar pup is much sweeter to my ears.

 

[Malak the Mad]

On another thread, someone asked me to compare my Bartolini B-Axis pickups in both active and passive modes. Since I'm using a Tone Monster SEB preamp (specs below), posting my findings here seemed appropriate. But, rather than re-typing everything, I just copy & pasted my earlier post.

Now that the assorted holidays are over, I was finally able to give the one, B-Axis armed bass that was ready to play a good once over. Fair warning, though, I don't gig or play in live settings, so take all of this with a grain of salt. Different amps and/or settings might yield different results. In other words, your mileage may vary.

First, some specs;

• Sixties-style Jazz body cut by Warmoth, solid alder construction, rear routed.
• Aerodyne Jazz neck.
• Tone Monster SEB2-ABPA+ preamp with a TBDV control pot. (18-volts, 2-band EQ + passive-only tone control, independent dual-volume pickup pot...yeah, I kinda went all-out on this one )
• Rotosound 66 Swing Bass strings.
• And, of course, Bartolini B-Axis 4-string pickups.

I noodling around on it for a while, with no backing music or drum tracks, tweaking pickup volumes and tone/EQ settings as I went.

1. It's fair to say they retain a lot of it's Jazzy "growl" in both modes, but with a good amount of bottom end. In other words, I'm happy with these noiseless Jazz pickups.
2. Passive mode was quite usable. I would have no problem using these pickups in a passive-only bass.
3. Active mode did bring out a little bit more "definition", for lack of a better word, when the EQ was set flat.
4. With both pickups and passive tone at 100%, the active settings that were the most indistinguishable between the two was to turn both treble and bass down a slight amount. Call it -1, I guess? I'm pretty new to active basses, so sue me.

A funny thing I noticed about the Tone Monster preamp...the volume between modes are pretty much the same when the module's trim pot is set all the way down to zero. Since I wanted my active mode to have a little more "sparkle" or "oomph", I turned the pot up to somewhere between ⅛ to ¼ of a turn above zero.

 

[dinghy]

Resurrecting this again to ask about people's experience with the PAT2 switch. Considering adding it, how would you describe the two passive positions? I'm hoping one is basically tone off and the other one isn't all the way on but on enough for slap to sound good.