Very quiet passive bass

[lz4005]

Yea that's just my preference. I know I could just as easily turn down the volume on my bass or amp or turn off the amp altogether. I'm not talking hours here, like 10 minutes tops. I'm not too worried about the battery in my bass because I have an endless supply of free batteries.

That's not how active basses work. Turning down the volume knob is irrelevant to battery life.

I have both gain and volume knob as high as it will go in order for the westone to be at almost the same volume my other basses would be with the gain at 10 o clock and the master at 12 o clock. I'm going into an ampeg svt450 which is going into an old carvin 15".

That's useful information you should have included in your first post. And it only took 19 posts to get it out of you.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

That's useful information you should have included in your first post. And it only took 19 posts to get it out of you.

Here it is, in the OP:

I have to crank my Ampeg SCR-DI preamp pretty much all the way up and still have my amp turned up pretty loud to even hear it at any sort of decent volume.

 

[DanAdams]

that bass should be plenty loud if it's wired right. BTW, join the Westone geeks here Electra/Westone club

 

[SirMjac28]

On the Warwick Thumb I owned the difference between the passive and active volumes is almost non-existent but on my 93 Jazz Bass Plus with the Kubicki Preamp the difference between the two is pretty noticeable.

 

[physics]

I have a Thunderbird with passive pickups and the output from them can easily overload a preamp's front end, so passive pickups aren't necessarily weak. The pickups on my bass were once set too low by an incompetent tech and the output from my bass was very weak as a result. I would suggest checking the manufacturer's recommended pickup height.

 

[BonesawMcgraw13]

That's not how active basses work. Turning down the volume knob is irrelevant to battery life.

Jesus dude you're confrontational. I wasn't referring to the volume knob so much as the fact that if you leave an active bass plugged in it will drain the battery slowly.

My OP was mainly to find out if passive basses are usually this quiet since I've never owned one and I believe I've learned the answer to that question.

I'll see if one of our full time bench techs can take a look at it. I really just wanted to find out if it was something I'd be forced to live with before sending it maintenance.

 

[BonesawMcgraw13]

I would suggest checking the manufacturer's recommended pickup height.

I'll try and check this once I get home. Not sure how easy it will be to find since I'm pretty sure they don't make these basses anymore.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

dude you're confrontational.

Welcome to Talk Bass!

 

[MDBass]

So I was just wondering if it's common for a passive bass to be super quiet. I've only every owned active basses. I haven't actually done this intentionally, it's just always worked out that way. Anyway I just picked up a westone electra fretless bass for free off of a friend of mine. Anyway I know it's not active like my other basses. This thing is super quiet when I plug it in. I have to crank my Ampeg SCR-DI preamp pretty much all the way up and still have my amp turned up pretty loud to even hear it at any sort of decent volume. It's a little ridiculous. I was just curious if this is a normal thing with passives or if there is something amiss with this bass. It seems like it shouldn't be normal because I know there's plenty of people who don't use active and it would seem crazy to prefer passive if every bass was like that.

My highest output basses are passive.

Something is wrong with that bass, whether it's a bad pickup, the pickups are out of phase or something else entirely.

 

[lz4005]

I wasn't referring to the volume knob so much as the fact that if you leave an active bass plugged in it will drain the battery slowly.

Why did you start talking about batteries at all when the topic was your decision to use the -15db switch on your amp instead of turning the volume down when not playing?

I know I could just as easily turn down the volume on my bass or amp or turn off the amp altogether. I'm not talking hours here, like 10 minutes tops. I'm not too worried about the battery in my bass because I have an endless supply of free batteries.

 

[bassbrad]

Older basses will sometimes have a lower output for many reasons, I have a Gibson G-3, Harmony H22 and a fretless that have a low output. I use an EQ or booster pedal to balance with my main passive bass that has a high output.

 

[Kukulkan61]

Active and passive basses are not louder than each other...

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Why did you start talking about batteries at all when the topic was your decision to use the -15db switch on your amp instead of turning the volume down when not playing?

I thought I was the nit-picker around here, but I think the OP would probably consider his nit properly picked by you.

 

[Snaxster]

...unless I have a very slow day at work where my boss wouldn't mind me spending time in my office recording a bass, I don't have the means to record.

 

[Growlmonkee]

The SVT450 into an old Carvin 15 is part of a different problem, making most comparisons near impossible...that head cranked up as high as it will go into that cab would make the performance of the speaker questionable (permanently). the SVT450 doesn't like to be run "all the way up'....ever, the resulting distortion would most likely change that speaker ...for good. Many bass amplifiers have control knobs that can be turned nearly 360 degrees, it's a bit of an industry quirk, but many , like that Ampeg "lose it" when gain, and volume are past 3/4 of a turn, ..some (even some expensive ones) are functional only to about 3/4 on gain, and just over 1/2 on master, after that they become destructive to even a large high capacity cabinet, and possibly the head too. Sort of like a car that will rev way past it's redline if you want it too, with comparatively similar results. It's possible, with what you described, that you can't really tell just how loud that bass is, or isn't. One easy check you can do, to see it the bass is working poorly, without using an amp, ..plug it into a pedal tuner, if you can tune the bass, and the pedal tuner works, with the bass volumes on 2, it's probably ok, if you have to turn the volumes to 10 to get a reading on the tuner, there's something wrong with the output on the bass.

 

[sunnycal]

Sounds like a good reason to me for them giving the bass away for free

 

[BonesawMcgraw13]

.that head cranked up as high as it will go into that cab would make the performance of the speaker questionable (permanently). the SVT450 doesn't like to be run "all the way up'....ever, the resulting distortion would most likely change that speaker ...for good.

I only ever did that once when I first got this bass. I was just trying to get it to be audible enough to play a little at home. I would never make a habit of that. When I'm practicing normally I have the gain structure set the way I mentioned a few posts back. The carvin is an old PA top that I got from work for $25 because its like 20 years old and we finally retired it from rental inventory. I got a spare driver as part of the deal too, so if I did damage the speaker i still have a backup.

The cab is rated for 800W at 8ohm. The SVT450 is rated at 250W at 8ohm. I still use it with my other guitars and it doesn't sound distorted or anything like that, so I know I didn't damage it. Even when I had it cranked like that it was hardly as loud as it could have been. Also it wasn't clipping at all with the gain that high. Usually I start to see it clip with the gain between 9-11 o clock. Either way I don't think the speaker is the problem. I tried playing the bass through my SCR-DI using the headphone jack and I had to have the master all the way up and the overdrive engaged with both knobs all the way up to be able to hear it well enough to practice through some headphones. Even with the distortion and blend as high as they can go it wasn't what I would call overdriven, just louder.

I think the problem is the bass itself, I just wanted to be sure this wasn't a common things with passives. The closest thing I've had to a passive bass was an old hohner 5 string maybe 13 years ago which had a switch to make it go between passive or active. When it was in passive mode it was noticeably quieter but not so quiet it was unusable.

plug it into a pedal tuner, if you can tune the bass, and the pedal tuner works, with the bass volumes on 2, it's probably ok, if you have to turn the volumes to 10 to get a reading on the tuner, there's something wrong with the output on the bass.

I may try this. I don't have one but i need to get one anyway. I've been using a snark tuner or a while now ever since one my guitar players lost my real tuner a few months ago when I let them borrow it.

 

[BonesawMcgraw13]

Older basses will sometimes have a lower output for many reasons, I have a Gibson G-3, Harmony H22 and a fretless that have a low output.

This was my first assumption. I thought it was just because it was old. I'm starting the think there's an issue with the wiring.

 

[BassBrass]

Westone Electra's are not low output, the PUs are pretty hot. My spectrum GT barks like a Stingray.

 

[BonesawMcgraw13]

Yea. I'm going to bring it in to work and have one of our bench techs look at the wiring. I'd like to be able to play this thing. It bums me out that it's the first fretless I've owned and it's not really usable the way it is right now.