Ken Baker wrote:
I do have a question. What effect does this have on the timbre of the instrument in series mode? Does it still have that characteristic bite & boom?
Ken...
It certainly does not seem to affect the tone when played normally, I spent quite some time going back and forth to see if there was a drop in treble due to any capacitive loading of the preamp. I could not detect any and (later) looking at the G&L schematic it does not present any capacitive load so should not suffer any loss of treble (as the pre Ernie Ball MusicMan EQ did). I deliberately did not check the schematic first as it may have biased my perception.
Aftermarket preamps may be different but I would have thought that they should be pretty well behaved so should not be a problem.
I am pretty sure the bite and boom is still there when you dig in, it sounds pretty similar to what it did before. Plenty of bass and aggressive middle without too much top in series. Switch to parallel and it looses some bass and gains quite a bit of top and so clarity.
I have just had another testing session, this time specifically for boom and bite and all seems well both active and passive.
Overall I am happy with it, I would have removed it if I were in any doubt.
I have had this circuit running on my project bass (MM clone - with treble compensation) for some months and played it to a few minor gigs and lots of rehearsals and have been very happy with it.
mgward is using it on his passive Yamaha Jazz copy and he reported that the treble was fine on that without compensation, the last thing an amplifier would do is present a capacitive load.
What I should have done was record a before and after. Isn't hindsight wonderful. If I get chance I will do some recording with and without.
fred
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