18 volt mod!!!

[doc_backmask]

Okay, so I got bored and tired of my old bass tone. So I decided to upgrade both of my main basses to the 18V mod. Not too terribly difficult of a task. All it took was some light soldering and creative battery positioning.

More to the point, the tone screams. There is an insane difference in everything here. Much less break-up coming out of the guitar, much cleaner silence, and very powerful low-end!

Brutal!!!

[JBroll]

Yeah, funny how that stuff works.

Wouldn't go to 27 unless you heard from EMG that the pickups could handle it, but 18 usually winds up fine.

If the battery positioning is a problem, a few setup tricks will allow you to have *no* batteries in the guitars - using a stereo cable and input jack allows you to power the guitars remotely with either console phantom power or a battery box. I'll draw something up if you're interested.

Jeff

[doc_backmask]

Originally Posted by JBroll

Yeah, funny how that stuff works.

Wouldn't go to 27 unless you heard from EMG that the pickups could handle it, but 18 usually winds up fine.

If the battery positioning is a problem, a few setup tricks will allow you to have *no* batteries in the guitars - using a stereo cable and input jack allows you to power the guitars remotely with either console phantom power or a battery box. I'll draw something up if you're interested.

Jeff

So I would simply have to switch out the input jack and use a new cable? Does this in any way affect the recorded tone? I could see where using a battery box would be nice (only have to pay for two batts at a time instead of four).

Also, all bass pups are rated from EMG to handle 27V, but they say the difference between 18V and 27V is not nearly as dramatic as 9V to 18V. I'll stick with what I've got. But, if I switched the basses as per what you say, I could build an 18V and 27V battery box. Hmm.... the idea seems to be interesting.

[JBroll]

You already have a stereo input jack - the difference is that now you're using a mono cable and what would be the 'ring' (the difference between a stereo cable and a mono cable is that the stereo cable has the 'ring' instead of just the 'tip' and 'sleeve') is also the 'sleeve', and since the sleeve goes to ground you're using it to complete the circuit. We'd be using the ring to close the circuit, again, but instead we're using the 'ring' line of a stereo cable to carry the + of the power source (here +18V) and both the audio and power can share ground.

You don't need to change anything in your guitar, all you need to do is have a stereo cable between your guitar and the 'battery box', which shoots the battery power back to the guitar and sends the audio out as normal.

I'll doodle something up shortly.

Jeff

[doc_backmask]

Damn, that's a lot simpler than I thought. I knew I was using mono inst. cables, but for some reason I always thought the input jack was also mono. Now that you mention it, a mono input jack doesn't make too much sense when you need a ground. Have you done this to any of your axes? Would the battery clips need to be removed, or just unplugged? If I'm thinking about electricity correctly, I would need to pull them out of the loop? But, I haven't delved too deeply into the wiring of these things.

Oh yeah, I'm glad the mod I've already done only costs a few pennies for each bass, because I'd hate to have wasted $10 that I could use toward new strings.

[JBroll]

I don't need batteries for anything but my bass, which will soon be getting this treatment.

The battery clips are just pulled out of the circuit, what you do with them is your call. You're running what would be the battery's ground to the circuit ground, as usual, and the battery's +V through the 'ring' of the stereo cable to the guitar jack's ring.

Jeff

[Kazrog]

Craziness, can't wait to hear it!

[doc_backmask]

So theoretically, could I leave the battery clips in as long as I bridge them so the circuit is completed? This would leave available the option of using batteries for live purposes (less boxes to bring/lose at gigs).

[JBroll]

Yeah, just don't put anything in there and the circuit is closed, but depending on how you want this done there may be a couple of changes you have to make.

Jeff