Bass Preamp Circuit?? anybody??

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Here's a simple preamp with 2 band EQ which works great for bass or guitar (change the EQ points). The gain can be set to drive a power amp just fine.
 

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DolbyR said:
I am thinking about building this preamp cable http://www.till.com/articles/PreampCable/index.html for my bass...but is the 3db gain too low?
I'm usually connecting the bass to my PC but the signal is a bit on the low side, so would this preamp cable be enough or should i just go for Albert Kreutzers JFET preamp?

The JFET version would give you full controls, just like a poper preamp, if all you want is some extra gain just use a simple opamp to give you the gain you require.

The PreampCable isn't really designed to give 'gain' as such, just to help prevent possible losses in the cable.
 
hi i m tryin to build a bass amp for myself too .. i m not w cable preamp .. i built the albert kreuzer preamp .. but i wanna to build a tube pre amp for for my amp ,, u can find the "REAL McTUBE" pre amp at www.tonepad.com ... it s a very very simple tube preamp w just one 12ax7 ( or at7 or au7 ... ) and i m tryin to change the marshall guitar tone control circuit and use it for bass preamp , ... i built the tube pre amp but i didn t test it yet ,, i ll test it soon , and ll tell if it the sounds good ;)
 
thomgun_lc said:
:smash:
I think, tube preamps aren't suitable for bass guitar, because it will produce a lack of bass sound. Tube can't produce a good low freq sound


Nonsense. Tubes can reproduce all frequencies and all signals, given the right tubes and circuitry are used. And I find my ultra simple starved plate 12UA7 preamp to be miles ahead of any digital overdrive in terms of sound quality.
So I kinda disagree with ya, I think :cool:
 
Well, I'm pretty sure the decoupling issue is not all that ponders the people who wish to design a bass preamplifier. There's a lot of information about the basic principles of designing guitar amps but not that much about bass preamps.

What I have always wondered is that what are the general design rules for bass preamplifier tonestack - is flat frequency response (when controls in middle position) preferred or should the tone control circuit present similar magnetic pickup compensating "dips" as guitar amp tonestacks? If the latter, is there a preference for the scoop frequency? Many designs seem to use some variation of the Baxandall circuit - is the reason for this the decreased interactivity between controls or the fact that it lends itself better for linear response?

The implementation of graphic equalizer seems to be pretty common these days. Is there a rule-of-thumb for selecting the frequencies it uses.

Compressor/limiter circuits are pretty common as well. I will skip their basic design issues and just enquire whether they are generally preferred as "slow" (ie. LDR-based) or fast and transparent (ie. FET-based)?

Is the overall high frequency bandwidth limited more than in guitar amplifiers? Some bass amplifiers use high frequency elements in conjugation with the low frequency driver. Guitar amps roll-off at about 5kHz - I assume bass amps don't, so what are cabinet simulation principles for DI-circuits of bass preamps? Should they even have one?

Generally bass is preferred as clean but in some occasions some distortion is preferred as well. Now, am I completely wrong to assume a bass distortion unit must operate whole differently from guitar amp distortion unit: I assume that the sought distortion is mainly some soft clipping and I also have a feeling it should have more effect on higher frequencies than on the lower. Is this principle correct? For a bass player the next question might sound stupid: Aside "limiting distortion" why would a bass need distortion effect anyway?

Being a total newbie when it comes to bass preamplifiers I have also wondered are there any other special effects or aspects of design that an ordinary person might not be aware of?

Are there some good websites about bass amplifier design or has anyone written a good book about it? This doesn't seem to be as "sexy" topic as designing guitar amplifiers although I believe that bass amplifier design is a lot more demanding in every respect. What sources of information you people recommend for those that would like to learn more about the topic?
 
Imho bass is a much more versatile instrument than a guitar. Different combinations of technique and equipment can render totally different tonal requirements. I mean, compare the sound of The Beatles, some punk band and say a hardcore slapper playing funk grooves.
In some cases you don't even want the deep bass response. After all, plucking near the bridge results in a harmonically rich sound with little or no fundamental freq - which is preferred by many.
And yeah, slight tube overdrive does sound nice.
 
Need Help...

Hi,
I have a RBX 360 Yamaha bass with a passive tone control featuring volume, pan and tone. I recently modify the circuit by an active one I built myself. The circuit features a mosfet (2sk30) in the first stage followed by a 3 band EQ. I also replaced the original pick-ups by active Basslines Seymour Duncan. The result is enough good with a neat and clean sound probably because of the high input impedance of the mosfet and a little hiss on full treble boost. The only black spot is the low output may be half the value of a strong passive single coil pick-up. The pan control is 20 kilo ohms (ganged) followed by a high value 500 kilo ohms for volume. May be the output from the active pick-ups is too low...
Can someone help me please or send me an active circuit shematic bass, mid and treble with enough output but with no mid sweep.
Thank you in advance.
 
I am looking for a simple IC based Bass Pre-amp circuit to use with a commerical power amp.

I am looking for a schematic or if someone in the US has an old dead bass amp that i could steal the pre-amp section out of. please let me know. it will be used for a cheapo practice rig.

Rod Elliot at ESP sells at least two circuit boards that work well for bass and are pretty simple. One is based on the Fender tone stack (Project 27), the other is Ampeg-ish with a Baxandall stack (Project 94).

I have built both and gigged extensively with them for a few years. I have posted build threads at Talkbass.com here and here. I also posted a tube line driver/preamp thread here on an Aikido build from a Glass Audio board using 6SN7s .

Good luck to anyone this helps, and have fun! I know it's a zombie thread, but...:cool:
 
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