Does the Axe make an onboard preamp for bass totally unnecessary?

bassface

Member
I've been considering getting an active bass, and then I wondered: if I plan to always play and record through the Axe, is there really any need to have an onboard preamp, aside from the ability to make active changes directly from the bass?

Is there anything an onboard pre can do tonally that my FX-II can't do?

Thanks !
 
Although I own and play a bass, I don't consider myself a bass player.

That said, I guess you could do almost the same tone sculpting with the tools in the Axe-Fx. BUT the onboard preamp might add a certain color or taste you like and you don't recreate easily, just like with different pickups.
I'd probably take a bass with active or switchable electronics for the sake of easy use, as you don't have to edit your patches all the time.
Just IMHO.
 
Thanks for your reply Sebastian.

Why would having active electronics involve less patch editing than passive electronics?
 
To me, no. All of my basses have a pre in them, and I still use it. On my Bongos, for instance, sometimes I just want that little more low-mid content, and instead of having to go back to the FAS and edit my preset (and all presets, since I use several a gig), I can just dial up the low-mids right on my bass.
A lot of preamps, even with all pots centered, still slightly color the sound. You may or may not like that. But, not all preamps are alike, too. If you use ACG's filter preamps (which are similar to the Wal preamps), you'll have a different outcome than your standard EMG preamp.
Just as EQs on amplifiers don't make on-board preamps unnecessary, having a "do it all" processor doesn't, either. You may like the tone of the preamp, the center points and Q (which you can't easily figure out in most cases), or the way they load (or don't!) the pickups, the way the filters engage and move that you just can't really do easily on the Axe.
 
Thanks for your reply Sebastian.

Why would having active electronics involve less patch editing than passive electronics?

What selta wrote (and explained everything else much better than I did).
If you need a bit more treble or want to trim the mids, you just reach for the knob on your bass within a second, instead going to the Axe-Fx, navigate to the desired page, edit, press save, play, edit & save again, ...
 
To me, no. All of my basses have a pre in them, and I still use it. On my Bongos, for instance, sometimes I just want that little more low-mid content, and instead of having to go back to the FAS and edit my preset (and all presets, since I use several a gig), I can just dial up the low-mids right on my bass.
A lot of preamps, even with all pots centered, still slightly color the sound. You may or may not like that. But, not all preamps are alike, too. If you use ACG's filter preamps (which are similar to the Wal preamps), you'll have a different outcome than your standard EMG preamp.
Just as EQs on amplifiers don't make on-board preamps unnecessary, having a "do it all" processor doesn't, either. You may like the tone of the preamp, the center points and Q (which you can't easily figure out in most cases), or the way they load (or don't!) the pickups, the way the filters engage and move that you just can't really do easily on the Axe.

Super clear, thank you!

I've been playing passive-only basses for a while, thinking about trying some pres, so long as they have a passive option as well...
 
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I'm not sure I would "limit" myself to pres that have a passive optons, as that'll keep you away from some of the best pres out there for bass - ACG, Delano, Glock, Mike Pope and so on. To me, the very typical EMG, Aguilar and so on pres are not so great - they use some of the lamest opamps possible, and I don't find their EQs to be very musical in a lot of cases. My absolute favorite preamp is the ACG EQ-01. It has dual low pass filters for each pickup (so, 4 low pass filters in total), stacked highpass filter (one for each pickup) and a passive tone control. With the filter approach, you can actually change the resonance frequency of each pickup itself, lending to a crazy amount of possibilities.

But, this is just my opinion as well. Obviously, thousands of people rock the EMG, Seymour Duncan and Aguilar stuff and like it. Some people never like preamps at all and stick with passive entirely. I would just lightly caution about limiting yourself out of the gate.

Good luck on the hunt, though.
 
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