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Which active basses have true bypass, passive tone control etc?

Stagelab

Stagelab

Dec 26, 2015
1,705
1,014
Queens, NY
#1
Ibanez offers EQ bypass but your signal still runs thru the pre. It just disengages the EQ. So there’s a passive tone control but you still need a battery and there’s some color from the pre affecting your tone. Not true bypass.

Which basses offer true bypass where you don’t need a battery, you have a passive tone control and your signal isn’t affected by the pre?
 
#2
Sire Marcus Miller Basses that are active have a active/passive switch and a passive tone control.

V7 Control Layout.jpg
 
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#6
Stagelab said:
Ibanez offers EQ bypass but your signal still runs thru the pre. It just disengages the EQ. So there’s a passive tone control but you still need a battery and there’s some color from the pre affecting your tone. Not true bypass.
Click to expand...
Depends greatly on the model. The Soundgear line is all over the map: Some models do not allow any kind of EQ bypass, some do exactly what you want. I believe models in the BTB line are uniformly active-on all the time -- this is true of current models but BTB has been around for a couple decades so there are bound to be exceptions. Everything in the EHB line has active-on all the time.

Broadly speaking it's not so much the preamp tonally coloring the sound (assuming EQ is disengaged), it's that it isolates the pickups from the rest of the signal chain, so you're not getting the variations in sound that comes from the interactions pickups have with the rest of the signal chain in a passive bass. The extent to which this matters depends on what you've got and are trying to do -- fuzz pedals are usually more interesting with passive pickups for example because the effects circuit and the pickups influence each other. If you're plugged directly into a digital effects pedal it might not matter. Some people don't want EQ but want their pickups buffered, so keeping the pre engaged with a passive tone control is their jam. There's no wrong configuration, only differences in approach.
 
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#8
I have John East preamps installed in several of my basses. The uni-pre has independent active and passive signal paths which I read to mean that when you switch to passive mode, you are completely bypassing the active pre-amp. Not sure which, if any, basses come from the factory with it installed. I've installed all the ones that I have myself.

You also might take a look at G&L. The L2000/L2500 preamps are basically the same thing in active or passive mode with just a bit more zest when in active mode. I've read about people running them without a battery and just using the active/passive switch as a mute. They are very unique electronics.
 
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#9
Bringindafunk said:
I have John East preamps installed in several of my basses. The uni-pre has independent active and passive signal paths which I read to mean that when you switch to passive mode, you are completely bypassing the active pre-amp. Not sure which, if any, basses come from the factory with it installed. I've installed all the ones that I have myself.

You also might take a look at G&L. The L2000/L2500 preamps are basically the same thing in active or passive mode with just a bit more zest when in active mode. I've read about people running them without a battery and just using the active/passive switch as a mute. They are very unique electronics.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's not an inexpensive preamp, but the East Uni-Pre is both the most flexible active system I've ever used and it has a completely separate signal path when you run it passive.
 
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#10
Stagelab said:
Which basses offer true bypass where you don’t need a battery, you have a passive tone control and your signal isn’t affected by the pre?
Click to expand...
I get this with my Guitar Fuel/Tone Monster SEB2-ABPA+ preamp. In passive mode, it's volume, blend¹ and tone only...no batteries required. When it's running active, the tone control is bypassed in favor of the 2-band EQ.

5xymd0q.jpeg


¹: I modified mine to have independent volume controls by way of their TBDV pot, but that's just a "Me" thing.
 
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#12
Those with the Glockenklang preamp as mentioned above and also Sadowskys with the VTC (vintage tone control) preamp. I have a bass with the Sadowsky pre and it works fine passive with no battery installed. I like having the passive tone which works in both modes, particularly as on the Sadowsky the active EQ is boost only, so the passive roll off can be really helpful.
 
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#14
Stagelab said:
Ibanez offers EQ bypass but your signal still runs thru the pre. It just disengages the EQ. So there’s a passive tone control but you still need a battery and there’s some color from the pre affecting your tone. Not true bypass.

Which basses offer true bypass where you don’t need a battery, you have a passive tone control and your signal isn’t affected by the pre?
Click to expand...
Harley Benton Enhanced. I have one for the practice space. Battery failed, took it out, switched to passive, carried on.
 
#15
I have an Ibanez SR 2605 that has an active passive switch, now I’m curious as to whether or not it will work about the battery.

I bought a preamp from Nordstrand for one of my other bases. When I bought it, I asked if they could make the exact modification that you are asking about, and it works with no issues. So it definitely can be done.
 
#16
I’m considering an active Ibanez bass with EQ bypass and passive tone control but it’s not a true bypass so you always need a battery. That’s not a biggie for me but what I don’t like is that the pre is always buffering the signal even when I’m EQ bypass mode. It’s subtle but it’s not going to sound quite like a purely passive bass. Curious how involved it is to rewire the circuitry so it’s true bypass when you flip the EQ bypass switch. I’ll post in the repair forum.
 
#19
Trick J Core and IPA both have volume, balance, and passive tone control when in passive/bypass mode.

I checked out the passive mode just so I would know because the only time I’d use the passive mode of the preamp would be in the very most likely event there is a battery failure.

Which has happened only once. A few years ago, I installed a brand new pair of batteries and one of them was defective right out of the package. It worked for two hours, not only failed, but swelled up and overheated a lot.

Never saw that before or since.
 
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