Gigue's bass pickup/preamp test page Tests : DiMarzio - Sadowsky - Aguilar - Fender - Lindy Fralin (last update : Feb 2004)

I'm an amateur bass player who discovered only recently the importance of the pickups and onboard electronics in a bass sound. I wrote this page to share my experiences and my opinions on bass pickups and onboard bass preamps. French is my mother language and I apologize for my bad English. Feel free to email your corrections, questions, comments, ...

NEW :
Note that the new model of Aguilar OBP-1 preamp is now as tiny as the OBP-3 : very good news !
I will soon receive a Bartolini preamp : I'm looking forward testing it !!!

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Tests

To avoid making bad or nonsense comparisons between samples I have sorted audio files into different sessions : you should only compare audio files belonging to the same session if you want to be objective in your judgement. Every session contains links to audio files, comments, various tips and pictures. I didn't want to alter the sound using audio compression like .mp3, that's why I just compressed the sound files (.wav) in self-extractible .rar files (don't be afraid of the .exe extension : these files don't contain viruses. I only wanted not to force you to have WinRar installed !). Learn more about audio files below.

Tips / Miscel.

- Build Aguilar OBP-3 preamp in a Fender American Deluxe jazz bass (more...)
- How I have turned an old Marshall channel footswitch into a custom Aguilar preamp stomp box (with LEDS and true bypass FX loop) (more...)
- Importance of pots values : compare the sound using 250K instead of 500K pots with Lindy Fralin pickups (more...)
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About audio files

The most valuable things I can share with you are the sound files I recorded with my Fender American Deluxe 1996 jazz bass and my custom 1972 Fender jazz bass using various pickups and preamps configurations. I recorded my basses direct through a BYPASSED SansAmp BassDriver DI connected through XLR to a Mackie1202 VLZ linked to a RME DIGI96 PCI internal soundcard (in 16bit and 44.1khz format) using Steinberg Nuendo or Cubase SX. EQ of bass preamp and console were flat, all humbucker pickups were wired in serie (standard wiring). Except if specified, both pickups are wide open. (All the .wav files have been normalized, because I think that it is much more useful to compare tones than volumes (it is very difficult to compare tones of sounds that are not at the same volume. Even if normalization doesn't guarantee te same loudness for every sound, it attenuates differences). I didn't want to alter the sound using audio compression like .mp3, that's why I just compressed the .wav files in self-extractible .rar files (don't be afraid of the .exe extension : these files don't contain viruses. I only wanted not to force you to have WinRar installed !).

A recorded bass sound depends on many factors (levels of the gains on the console, age of the strings, recording level, mood of the player...). For that reason, I only compare sounds that where recorded during the same day (mostly during the same hour) with exactly the same settings (on bass, on console and computer) using the same strings.

Links

Your comments/questions/English corrections are welcome : gigue.bass@subsonicfamily.com.

(Cats are fond of the DiMarzio J pickups...)
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