The Last Bass Outpost

Why once in a lifetime? You may find playing in front of an audience addictive

That's really great Mark!! You're almost as famous as Bill Whatshisname now!!!

Do SVT, Orange Little Terror and Markbass 500 have multiple pre-amps?

Multiple pre-amps, not really. Multiple stages of amplification yes. I'm no expert on this so maybe someone who is can chime in. Heck, I'm just the bass player; one step above a drummer.

Here are some hints from previous page of this thread:

The SVT (even though it's a CL) only "sorta" has an active preamp. In most tube amps, the preamp gain stages are just straight voltage gain and the tone controls are all passive cut only after that stage except for the midrange, which is a band pass filter with its own separate gain stage to allow boosting the mids. Most tube amps work this way sans the active mids, which is why tube amps are so much more sensitive to pickup tonal differences (and generally brighter overall BTW) than s/s preamps. The pickups are directly impedance-coupled to the first half (most preamp tubes are dual triodes) of the first preamp tube and the passive tone controls come AFTER. There are exceptions: the Fender Super Twin/Studio Bass actually has an active EQ for its tone controls and Mesa's bass graphic EQ's split the difference: the knobs are a normal passive filter network, but the graphic EQ is a completely separate split band active gain stage after the fact.

Onboard (or pedal) preamps also provide a more robust current/power drive. Dig into a passive pickup and its electronic resonance starts getting VERY prevalent and low end starts dropping off: pickups magnets are simply too small to provide an equally induced current at extreme voltage swings (transients) and current is where low end comes from. There is a very real difference in the type of signal put out from a passive versus an active bass.

Note the talk about stages and where different parts of the EQ come in. I don't doubt the veracity of the last sentence in the above quote. I just don't quite understand the disdain some people have for active basses when any electric bass is wholly dependent upon amplification. Certainly when you're hearing a recording of any electric bass, the signal path goes through much more than an amp, some speakers and a microphone even back in the olden days before 5 strings came to be. Personally I think I strive to get close to the classic bass sounds of my mis-spent youth; P's & J's & Bassmans and SVTs. But the sound in my head came from recordings. Back in those days many basses sounded like crap live, I think it's easier to recreate those classic sounds in a small club on a realistic budget with an active bass.

Never understood that preamp thing, on or off board

This I can believe 

never done it.

This I do not believe. Because...

On any bass amp I generally dial in bass full or a little less, mids about half, treble 3/4.

Those are the control knobs of your pre-amp. All amplifier systems have preamps  or they woulda make a no sound. Even if they have no EQ at all they need to have a premp

You are using that preamp to alter your tone, Pretty drastically too I might add. I've no experience with SVTs or Oranges but the Mark Bass has an active preamp. That means that all the tone knobs straight up are doing nothing. Turn the bass knob to the left and you reduce the volume of the lower frequencies. Turn the bass knob to the right and you get more volume to the lower frequencies.

Then there are passive preamps. I am most familiar with the Alembic F1X which has a passive Bandaxall tone stack like many a guitar amp (I believe it is basically the pre-amp of a Fender Showman). It has bass, middle and treble controls that are really more like filters. When you boost the bass, you're really filtering off some of the mids  & highs so that the bass notes get relatively louder.

Active or passive the end result is more or less the same. It's all about the relative boosting/cutting certain frequencies. On an active pre, you can get a similar result in different ways: for example: Boost the bass & treble, leave the mids flat - or - leave the bass and treble flat and cut the mids. In the second option you have to also boost the volume off course. Both ways are going to give you a basic "scoop"/smiley face EQ setting. That's more or less what you're doing with your "bass full or a little less, mids about half, treble 3/4."

Personally, I prefer the active method. It's more intuitive but it usually has more unnecessarily drastic capabilities. I can't believe that people can play a Stingray live with the bass & treble maxed. I loved the F1X but it was hard to get a decent sound in a crappy sounding room.

Meanwhile, your passive bass with a single tone knob is again a kind of filter. The "pure" sound of the pick-up is with the tone maxed out to the trebley  side of things. Turn it down and you're cutting some upper frequencies.

I like active basses for playing live. I can potentially fix an acoustically crappy room a little easier because I can at least hear my EQ changes at the end of my patch cord. I also like saturating the input into the amp,sorta poor man's compression like an old toob amp. But I think I play with a relatively light touch too.

Basses are not guitars. Guitars don't have some of our issues sound wise. Your basic 4 string is of course one octave lower than a guitar and those low frequencies are hard to control and can easily get out of hand in a live setting. I think an active bass gives you some more control of the situation.

A lot of "good bass sound" in a live setting involves not reproducing the lowest frequencies that a bass guitar makes. You don't really want to hear the lowest fundamental too much because it will turn into pure mud in all but the best of rooms. Active pre-amps in the bass or out of it let you more precisely remove some of what you have too much off in a particular situation.

As an interesting aside, the bottom octave of a Hammond organ does not have a fundamental at all. What you hear/perceive as the low part of those notes is the first harmonic and a fifth. An old organ trick is to play a low note with the fifth that is perceived lower than the fundamental. Hammond organs are even more of an abomination against god & nature than electric guitars.

As for integrated bands... Duh

Their best album was Yessongs. It impresses me that that such a band sounded better live than in the studio. Saw them twice at the Spectrum in Philly, 73 & 74. Their sound system was fantastic; sounded great even in the nose bleed seats. Certain substances might have clouded my memory however.

I've mostly been in blues/soul bands for 30 years or so. Are those cover bands? We certainly did nothing note for note and often strived for more obscure tunes even in that genre. .

For the last 6 years I've been in a ... ?? Classic Rock Band?? I'm not sure what that even means anymore. I never used to think the 80's was classic anything. Our repertoire consists mostly of stuff from the 60's to 70's. It's not my favorite music to listen to but it is stuff I grew up with on AM radio. This band doesn't play anything note for note either (I sure don't). We argue sometimes about wanting to add more "modern" songs and I always fight it. I don't like that stuff at all and I don't remotely know it or connect to it in any way. No way would I study them either.

We try to be pretty eclectic and we do no originals but we throw in some fairly obscure tunes and do some different versions/arrangements of some of the more popular ones. Used to play out almost every Fri/Sat but now it's down to 3 Saturdays/month by choice (of some members). Don't make a fortune but enough to support the habit and then some. It's a good balance for me. I think we sound pretty good and most importantly, I enjoy doing it.

Maybe rock was dead way before anyone ever heard of Gene Simmons.

I remember some guy saying years ago that Sgt Pepper was the death of rock & roll. Didn't understand that statement at the time but now I do.

I lament the death of live music in general more than any file sharing issue.

Everything in the world seems to be more & more form over function. Kiss was a shinning example. Remember their brief experiment with not looking like circus clowns?