# Making an active bass passive



## lava (Nov 20, 2014)

I have an Ibanez SR500 bass that feels really good to play, but I'm not a fan of the active preamp in it. So I am considering converting it to fully passive (the pickups are passive). 

However, the thought of having filled holes where the knobs and switches are kind of offends my cosmetic sensibilities. I can easily use up four of the existing knob spots with two tone and two volume knobs, but that leaves me with one unused pot hole and a switch hole. Do you have a recommendation for what to do with those? Is there some other functionality I can tap in my Bartolini Mk1 pickups? Or perhaps there is a cosmetically cool method of filling the holes that I'd actually like? Any recommendations are appreciated.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Nov 20, 2014)

If you didn't like the pickups in a guitar, would you get rid of them or replace them?

You don't like the preamp in your bass, why not replace it? The preamps Ibanez use haven't historically gotten alot of love, especially on the cheaper series. You might find that a preamp upgrade is just what you need.


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## FretSpider (Nov 20, 2014)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> If you didn't like the pickups in a guitar, would you get rid of them or replace them?
> 
> You don't like the preamp in your bass, why not replace it? The preamps Ibanez use haven't historically gotten alot of love, especially on the cheaper series. You might find that a preamp upgrade is just what you need.



+1

I'd look into probably an Aguilar or Bartolini system on that bass.


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## lava (Nov 20, 2014)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> If you didn't like the pickups in a guitar, would you get rid of them or replace them?
> 
> You don't like the preamp in your bass, why not replace it? The preamps Ibanez use haven't historically gotten alot of love, especially on the cheaper series. You might find that a preamp upgrade is just what you need.



That's not really a valid comparison - if I got rid of the pickups in a guitar, the guitar wouldn't work!  There are a few reasons I want to go passive. As I mentioned above I don't like how the Ibanez preamp sounds, but I also generally like a passive bass tone and want to see how these pickups sound in a passive configuration. I also don't have the money to upgrade the preamp. Going passive is only the cost of a few pots, so it's within my budget.

So given all that, what would you do with those extra holes?


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## FretSpider (Nov 20, 2014)

The best possible answer would be to keep a dummy knob in there, just to keep the aesthetic.


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## TemjinStrife (Nov 20, 2014)

The Bart MK1s in the SR series are not my favorite pickups. I'd rather switch to a system that could do active/passive and change pickups at the same time.


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## lava (Nov 20, 2014)

TemjinStrife said:


> The Bart MK1s in the SR series are not my favorite pickups. I'd rather switch to a system that could do active/passive and change pickups at the same time.



I may not like the MK1s. If I don't, I'll probably try a different set of passives.


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## Baelzebeard (Nov 20, 2014)

If they are 4-wire pups, you could do series/parallel or coil-splitting switches.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Nov 20, 2014)

TemjinStrife said:


> The Bart MK1s in the SR series are not my favorite pickups. I'd rather switch to a system that could do active/passive and change pickups at the same time.



This right here.

If nothing else, keep the electronics it has for now, but replace the volume pot with a push/pull and use it to bypass the preamp. Then you can still use volume, blend, and master tone (if there is one) in passive mode, but have the option to turn the preamp back on. Then later down the road when you've got more money freed up, replace the pups and/or preamp.


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