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rewiring active to passive?


lachupakabra361

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ok in an earlier thread i was talking about how my ibanez SR800LE was very very weak. like cant even hear it weak. i was trying to figure out what was wrong. Billystrat suggested maybe rewiring it as a passive bass. which began to sound better and better the more i thought about it. i prefer passive basses. anyway, what would i have to do to do this? do i gotta get all new pickups, pots output jack and such? or is there a way i can do it with the existing electronics?

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THe pickups in your bass are passive. Only the electronic are active. Check the FAQ for a better explanation.

It will surely affect tone. It's impossible to tell in which way before trying though. Some basses react very well to this mod and get fuller and beefier, other will be dull and lifeless.

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THe pickups in your bass are passive. Only the electronic are active. Check the
FAQ
for a better explanation.

It will surely affect tone. It's impossible to tell in which way before trying though. Some basses react very well to this mod and get fuller and beefier, other will be dull and lifeless.

 

ok cool. thanks. well it could only be better than how it sounds now! guess ill mess with it a bit more... if its not easily repairable as an active ill change to passive!:thu:

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Here's what I did with my SR406:

 

control-cavity.jpg

 

I left the wires long on purpose so I can replace any component without a whole lotta fuss.

 

On an SR406 the pickups are pretty good but the preamp left a lot to be desired. I replaced the pickups anyway with a pair of Kent Armstrongs and replaced the preamp with a pair of 5-way coil select switches. The switches are wired like this -

 

1. Series in phase (normal humbucker)

2. Single coil (north coil)

3. Parallel in phase

4. Single coil (south coil)

5. Series out of phase

 

I also made a no-load tone pot with a drop of clear fingernail polish. At RR's suggestion I replaced the nut with a graphtech graphite nut. Here's a pic of the finished bass - you can see the stock preamp sitting next to the coffee cup in the picture. Folks who know the bass will see the knobs aren't laid out the same as stock but that's okay.

 

sr406.jpg

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I'm also in the passive camp. If I went active, I'd much rather have active pickups with passive controls, rather than the ubiquitous passive pickups w/active preamp. On all my basses configured like that, I've always left every single knob (save the volume, which was maxed) at center detent, basically defeating the purpose.

 

If you want more output, experiment wiring the pickups in series. Connect them to a single 500k volume pot and see how that setup works for you.

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