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Bass buffer?

Started by markr04, October 22, 2005, 01:09:39 PM

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markr04

I'd like to build something for my bass-playing friend. I'm thinking "buffer" because he has little use for effects. In your opinion or experience, would a bass benefit from a buffer like the discrete one over at GGG? I'm don't know if his bass is active or not.

Thanks!
Pardon my poor English. I'm American.

bwanasonic

You might want to determine if he uses an active setup first. A buffer would be less useful with active pickups, and other builds might behave differently with active pickups. The Bazz Fuss might convince your friend to have more use for effects :icon_wink:

http://www.home-wrecker.com/bazz.html

Kerry M

petemoore

 Â I think any decent opionion on the question
 In your opinion or experience, would a bass benefit from a buffer like the discrete one over at GGG?
 Is dependant on knowing this:
 I'm don't know if his bass is active or not.
Convention creates following, following creates convention.

Gabriel Simoes

The idea behind the buffer is that, if his bass is active (active pickups or active onboard pre) it already has a preamp and then his signal has already a lower impedance, so there's no need to use an other buffer in the chain before the amp ...
As a bass player who likes effects a lot, I can tell you there are a lot of choices that he may like. and since he is not an effects guy distortions may be the first thing to think about, maybe a nice transparent compressor too.
You could go with an overdrive and a paralooper .... or someother sistem to blend clean and processed signal, ok?
So, thats my tip, I hope he likes it and change his mind about effects!
Good luck,
Gabriel Simões

bwanasonic

I just bought a bass (passive) and was trying various effects. I found my Nobels ODR1 works really well with bass. You might want to try some form of overdrive. I found I could get a nice range from *warmed-up/thickened* to full-on distortion. There is info in the archives about *tuning* a tubescreamer circuit for bass. The Nobels has a lot more going on than just a few different cap values from a TS, but I imagine the basic idea should apply.

The bass I got came with an extra set of pickups, the original EMGs. I tend to despise EMGs, but I might put them in at some point to see how various effects respond to the actives.

Kerry M

seanm

Quote from: markr04 on October 22, 2005, 01:09:39 PM
I'd like to build something for my bass-playing friend. I'm thinking "buffer" because he has little use for effects. In your opinion or experience, would a bass benefit from a buffer like the discrete one over at GGG? I'm don't know if his bass is active or not.

Thanks!
If he does have a passive bass and you do want to build a buffer, I would recommend mine! Seriously the Clean Input Buffer is actually a mild boost or buffer that was designed to work well with bass. Extremely low parts count. For bass I always leave out C3.

I built this circuit with a trim pot for the 100k output resistor and used it as a "heater" to heat up a low output bass. Worked well and IMHO with no loss of bass.

But really, if he is not into effects, he probably won't use the buffer. I love messing with effects, but 80+% of the time I gig with no effects. I will use OD or distortion for rock. But even then only 15% of the time at most.

A passive P bass straight to the amp is a beautiful thing  :icon_mrgreen: