I finally got to play Doug's bass through my live rig!

Ever since I have wandered into fiver territory, it has been me using Doug's bass that Andy built for our recordings. Last Saturday was the first time I had a chance to run the bass live into my rig with the whole band blowing. This was therefore the first time I got to hear the EMG active pickup for my clean lows, and the custom eight-string humbucker Andy built and then threw into Doug's bass for the dirt channel.

If I ever had any doubts about using actives in a bass, they were literally destroyed in the first few seconds I fired up my live rig. DAMN!!! My rig has never had the volume and low-end it had that night! The clean lows were literally blasting out of my 2x15, and the walls were on the verge of rattling! Normally, using the old DiMarzio Model J, I used to have to turn up the volume control on my QSC to 9 or 10 to keep up with Andy. Saturday, the highest I got to was....get this....only 4! The amp was quieter, the tone was crisp and clear, all of the notes read, even when we detuned down to low A, meaning, the low string on the bass was down to an octave below what a normal A string would be, and I highly recommend this!

The custom pickup of Andy's driving my distortion was exactly as I expected it to be. I might not ever got back to buying a commercially-made pickup again! It literally screamed! It made the DiMarzio X2N-7 sound weak in comparison, which isn't surprising, since the X2N-7 measures at 13.97K ohms, while Andy's monster creation measures at 18K ohms!

So there we were getting ready to go into our songs, and I fired up my amp. I kepy having the double-check my voume control since it was only on 4. "4? No....that can't be right. Andy? Are you turned down? NO??? But....but....my amp is....well....listen to this!!!"

Everyone in the room was like "WHOA!!!" Andy and Doug just smiled and said "see? we TOLD you so!" Linda told me that it was the first time she truly heard my low/clean channel in that room. And I couldn't' stop laughing and smiling as we played our songs, my ears not believing for a second the tone, clarity, and output they were hearing. It was so good, my arm hair was standing on end!

For years, I flew the flag of "no batteries in guitars, ever!" But no more. Consider me a convert. The difference was literally that overwhelming. I'm sold! And these pickups will be the exact same electronics that will go into my new Davison bass.

End of story.

Nice!!!

EricHaven wrote:

I might not ever got back to buying a commercially-made pickup again!

Except for EMGs?

Good catch, Martin.

What I meant was that I might only use Andy's pickups for my distortion channel. But yes, I think that I might very well have become a diehard fan of EMG's for my clean lows, unless I ever find an even better pickup.

oh thank god you weren't gonna say "F*** the actives" because they suck....

when I use my passive bass, my preamp is up all the way to make up for the difference, nothing wrong with that but it does introduce some hiss if it is pin-drop quiet in the room...

all my actives will overdrive the preamp so quick, I always have to remember to check the gains if I was using my passive the day before...and like you said, that much signal heading out of the bass = less noise less gain and more volume

cheap goodness....

I think you know me well enough by now Mike to now that I won't ever say that anything "sucks", because someone else might like something that doesn't work for me.

Although....I am tempted to say that the current pickups in my Davison suck, because, well....they do. Noisy as Hell, and lousy pickup of the B string. I was thinking of throwing them on eBay, but I'm not sure I want to subject some other poor soul to them. I might take the two coils and see if I can't create some sort of humbucker out of them. Just for laughs, mind you.

They're probably 4 string pickups in covered shells, that happened me with a bass before, and I showed you the outcome(the humbucker in my red P).


Heh, still funny to see you praising active pickups, after all this time.


FWIW, most active basses actually have passive pickups, and an active equalizer, outside EMG, actual active pickups are pretty rare.Something to keep in mind in the future.

Darkstrike wrote:

Heh, still funny to see you praising active pickups, after all this time.

I totally agree, Bill. It's a strange place to be after feeling the way I did for so long, but I will admit that my bias against active electronics had everything to do with the stories I heard from players who had batteries die on them while onstage, and nothing to do with practical experience. Even then, it always made me think "well then, change your batteries before the gig!", but still, I wasn't totally OK with the idea. It took some personal experience with actives for me to finally realize their merits. Honestly, now that I've heard the difference, I'm beginning to wonder why more players don't use active pickups.

At least I can say that, for an old dog, I can still learn a new trick or two.

rules for equipment with batteries ............

1) unplug all 1/4" jacks from all 1/4" females when done playing.

2) unplug all 1/4" jacks from all 1/4" females when done playing.

leaving the 1/4's plugged in drains the batteries, just like the battery in a pedal.

playing an active bass for 8 years, i've never had a battery go "dead" onstage, or at practice. maybe it was just the ibanez system i was using but a battery going dead was a gradual decline i usually wouldnt notice until i was playing after the music was turned down at a lower volume, day after the gig, end of practice, etc. it wansnt "no" sound ... it was just flat ... no harmonix ... no life ... pfft. this would happen maybe once every 14 or 15 months. i was more worried about the old battery leaking than going dead. changing the battery took 2 minutes. most of the time, i would change the battery with a new set of strings.

in other words ... not an issue.

glad you dig the new equipment eric!

well as long as you don't look in the TB thread called "I'll never play an active bass -- ever"

those fools will tell you battery horror stories, but the honest answer is they are just lazy and stupid....

"I never thought it would happen to me"
why do rechargeables only last a month?
You "NEED" to change the battery when?
which battery lasts longer?
why do I only get 6 months out of a fresh battery, all I do is play 4 hours a day every day?
or the best one yet for some moron who only plays a show once a year:

"I never take a chance, I bring 3 spare batteries, a full wrench and screwdriver set, some strings, and a spare amp, guitar and cabinet"... ( you know..just in case ) ???

oh GOD, the list goes on and on.....

my first real bass is active and playing 4 shows a month back then I was hard pressed to see less than 7.5v on the meter after 4-6 months of constant use!!!

I hear you, Mike. Again, I admit that my concern about actives was based on what I had heard, instead of what I had experienced.

In fact, Andy runs active EMG's in almost all of his guitars, and he told me last night that he changes the battery about once a year. I reckon that shouldn't be too much of a strain!

unless you want one of those goofy Fenders that has the battery under the pickguard....lol
I even saw someone who cut the guard to make it easier to take the battery out.
you know.... "I'm not ruining my 399.99 Fender MIM with a battery box" crap ------

( because they did not want to cut a square hole in the back for a battery box because if they did their 399.99 MIM unit would be worth 298.50 and all some of these people are concerned about is resale value )....

I hear you, Bro.

Andy doesn't use those little battery compartments in his guitars, simply because he changes batteries so infrequently that it's easier to just keep it in the components pocket. But if he's building a guitar for someone who wants the compartment, then of course he'll throw it in there. But based upon his experience, I think I'll be fine with not having one. Not that I'm at all concerned about the resale value of the bass, and to be honest, I never have been before anyways. It will just be one less thing to route, since we're already going to be routing new pickup holes, as well as the pocket for the trem.

you'd probably do whatever everyone does and when you change the strings you change the battery.

LOL! If I did that, I would be changing the battery every two weeks!

you know what i meant

lets say this about battery life..on my example "stored" bass --- the tbird, that battery has an expiration date of 2007 and it still had 8.254v in it the last time i pulled all the basses out to check batteries this summer....

and getting back on your original topic...I would like you to ship doug's bass over here so I can also try it out on MY rig, and while I am testing his out, he can fumble on my lefty playing it flipped because for a righty the E is on top

LOL! I doubt very seriously that Doug would permit me to ship his Big Purple Beast to you, but if it were mine, I might consider it!

Could you snap a pic of that thing for us sometime, man?

okay, first you start Using five strings...now you like actives....

What's next? conversion to ************?

Probably not, TK.

Did you mean the Big Purple Beast, Martin?

tekkentool wrote:

okay, first you start Using five strings...now you like actives....

What's next? conversion to *****?

if I found a lefty 5string jackson, I would never use a 4string again....

( well maybe not never )

and several starred out letters can't spell "guitar" so tone the word down and what was it?

Let's just say that it was the name of a particular religion, and since I don't wish to offend anyone by either endorsing or slamming any faith, I starred out the letters.

hahah ok no big deal but you left your f-you pic posted...I love that stuff but isn't that offensive to some people?

Um....that's probably a good point.

Still, I tend to view a gesture as less harmful that an issue of faith would be. Maybe I'm whacked in this line of thinking. I dunno....

amimbari wrote:

hahah ok no big deal but you left your f-you pic posted...I love that stuff but isn't that offensive to some people?

and sometimes i've seen normal words like "Guitar" censored. You're not telling me that guitar is THAT offensive?

ya to me a guitar with a fender sticker on it is offensive.........

so Eric will jam on it for a bit, then he will find the pups he wants and it will be out of service for a bit, then he will jam on it, then he will get the kahler put on it and it will be a stage guitar finally...

end of story right?

Are you serious, TK? When have you seen the word "guitar" censored? My apologies, as that must have been a typo on my part if it's true! Let me know when and where so I can fix that.

Actually Mike, I think Andy and I will do all of the routing in one shot. So I think that we'll wait until I have the trem before we start ripping out wood. Not a biggie, as we are going back into Doug's studio tomorrow to do our final round of recording our demo for Zakk. After this, we'll go back to jamming to refine our live set. So I will finally have some breathing room.