what is your reason for using an onboard preamp

[_One//Man//Mutiny_]

I use it for getting the most out of whatever bass I'm using that has one. You can get a whole lot more out of a bass by using it's tone shaping capabilities. Very rarely do I touch the EQ on my amp. I find myself using my fender deluxe jaguar as my main bass playing with other people. Having the bass and treble roller knobs at the top of my bass is a breeze to get me in or out of the mix on the fly. As the band I play with down tunes dramatically sometimes I need a little more bass or I need to back it off, sometimes add more treble for the higher strings as it isn't cutting through enough or too much and one roll of the finger gets me right back to where I need to be. As a 3 piece with a lot of overdriven parts it's really the best bass for what I'm doing.

 

[brett adams]

i have one bass with an onboard eq/gain and i never use it.

 

[Element Zero]

Onboard preamps are really helpful if you need to make shotgun adjustments to your sound that you'd rather do on your bass rather than at your amp. And they give you a lot of opportunity to really fine tune the way your bass fits into the mix without being too disruptive to your playing. And, if you're playing a gig that requires a lot of different tones and voicings, preamps give you fingertip control.

Exactly this.

 

[juancaminos]

I use am onboard preamp because I like a bright sound COMING OUT OF MY BASS that I couldn't get otherwise.

 

[2tonic]

Just another tool for tone.
It's all about the tones!

 

[Samatza]

Allows you to make tone adjustments on the fly, especially if you say want to go from a both pickups on slap sound to a bridge pickup fingerstyle sound.

 

[Passinwind]

I am new to the onboard preamp world and am not really up on the usefulness of it.
I get when I sit in, open jams.. nice to have control over the tone, but when I'm playing with my gear I get a sound and thats that.. stay passive. NO need for preamp into preamp..

How do you all use them?

All my basses are active only. Since I design and build both my onboard preamps and my amps I leverage the onboard preamps' lower output impedance for a lower overall system noise floor and hopefully very low distortion when appropriate. I also try to make the tone controls quite interactive, and to avoid a lot duplication of EQ frequency response parameters between the basses and amps.

Beyond that, I play a lot of jams and open mikes and not having to care too much about what rig I'm plugging into is kind of liberating.

 

[somebrains]

I buy preamps for the baked in tone and interaction of the eq stack.

 

[beaglesandbass]

I am new to the onboard preamp world and am not really up on the usefulness of it.
I get when I sit in, open jams.. nice to have control over the tone, but when I'm playing with my gear I get a sound and thats that.. stay passive. NO need for preamp into preamp..

How do you all use them?

Tweaking tone if I need a boost or cut in something on stage. Much easier than going to the amp countless times.

 

[The Rage]

Onboard preamp is my first choice for tonal variations.
My basses have a pre without center detents and I'm used to shape my sound with this preamp (using amp for room adjustment). Plus it sounds great plugged straight into a mixer.
The other one have center detents and it stays flat most of time, but just beacuse it have some internal dip-switches for shaping the sound in 4 different ways...

One thing about onboard preamps is (I think) they act as a buffer, which should prevent interferences and signal degradation (but since I do know nothing about technical stuff, wait for someone who knows what is talking about on this subject ^^ )

 

[dBChad]

I like to set everything flat and dial in what I want to hear on my amp. Then, if the sound guy buries you in the mix, boosting mids on the bass can usually fix that pretty well; if he turns your bass parts into a muddy mess, cutting the lows can usually clear that up too. I prefer the set-it-and-forget-it convenience of a passive bass, but anyone who's ever been unhappy with their live mix can appreciate the value of getting some control back.

 

[Nephilymbass]

I am new to the onboard preamp world and am not really up on the usefulness of it.
I get when I sit in, open jams.. nice to have control over the tone, but when I'm playing with my gear I get a sound and thats that.. stay passive. NO need for preamp into preamp..

How do you all use them?

Most of the time I’ll either run the eq flat or if it’s an option I’ll even run the bass in passive mode. I don’t really buy basses thinking “I want a active bass or a passive bass.” It’s not a big deal to me either way. If the bass sounds good I don’t care if it’s active or passive.

 

[pappabass]

I play both passive & active. I can play my nicely set up passive fender p with emg's, amp tone controls close to center. Sounds good. Then plug in my ESP/LTD B205 active eq and it blows the fender away. Guitar controls close to center.
My reason? Better sound.

 

[kulit17]

for some basses - thats where the magic starts

 

[leavetheconnoli]

All my basses are active only. Since I design and build both my onboard preamps and my amps I leverage the onboard preamps' lower output impedance for a lower overall system noise floor and hopefully very low distortion when appropriate. I also try to make the tone controls quite interactive, and to avoid a lot duplication of EQ frequency response parameters between the basses and amps.

Beyond that, I play a lot of jams and open mikes and not having to care too much about what rig I'm plugging into is kind of liberating.

Yes thats a huge thing, I plug into any rig and always have a great sound.
I'm looking forward to spending more time with my own gear and exploring the options I have now. This Sadowsky preamp sounds great, but so does passive into my head lol!

 

[MCS4]

Three primary reasons:

(1) I prefer for at least one of the two basses I bring to a gig to have active electronics, because my habit is to adjust the volume trim pot on the active electronics (pre-gig) to ensure that the volumes of the two basses will exactly match if/when I swap out the basses during the set. We play short sets in a loud environment with often questionable PA support, so I'd rather not fiddle with the volume knob mid-gig and hope it works out.

(2) Depending on the basses, I might also use the active EQ on one bass to ensure that the same amp and pedal setup will sound equally good with both basses. In particular, one of my two main live basses has a lot more bass presence than the other, so I'll sometimes slightly decrease the bass knob on that one or slightly increase the bass knob on the other.

(3) Generally the active EQ on a bass is going to hit at least slightly different frequencies than the EQ on an amp, so I every once and a while I'll find that adjustments to be onboard EQ produce a better result than adjustments on the amp. In particular, on one of my basses I find that a touch of extra treble from the onboard EQ sounds nice, especially once the strings start to lose a bit of high end.

 

[Sid the Kid]

I basically use the treble knob as one would a passive tone control and the bass control is only used to boost the solo’d bridge pickup.

I don’t like to boost midrange, so I use the pickup blend to control the midrange voice.

Pretty easy stuff if you use it simply and know where to purchase 9v batteries. I only understand active bass hate because I was broke for a while and know that cheap active circuits can sound pretty cheesy. Ie anything with a PHAT knob.

 

[fishdreams]

Basically, I dont like and use them. In principle, I find a passive tone to be richer in natural harmonics and more transparent (when not using overwound pickups and the like). 2 exceptions: I have an all purpose Abasses that has a very clean Mike pope preamp in it, for those plug-into-whatever-rickety-amp-you-encounter NY cases.

I also have an older Yamaha BB1100s that comes with a highly coloring preamp. In that case, that is the tone of that bass, and I kinda like it. Similarly to a Stingray, it wouldn't be that tone without that pre.

 

[Passinwind]

Yes thats a huge thing, I plug into any rig and always have a great sound.
I'm looking forward to spending more time with my own gear and exploring the options I have now. This Sadowsky preamp sounds great, but so does passive into my head lol!

I'm all for using the right tools, no more and no less. The luthier I primarily work with sells a lot of passive basses and I never push anyone to go active unless they initiate. I've never been a very good salesman...and that's OK.

 

[ColonelZulu]

On a passive bass, you just have a tone pot.
That passive tone pot doesn’t boost anything. It just cuts the treble.

If you have an active preamp, it can boost and cut the bass and treble (and often mids) independently.

That gives you more tone control for sure. However, it can also result in more output into your amp or pedals (if that is what you want).