Hi everyone.
Long story short - some months ago a bought a passive Jackson Kelly Bird as my first bass and very quickly began to think that I'd be better off with some passive to active conversion kit. This is the version I bought:
The Kelly Bird turned out to be a very good choice for such a conversion because Jackson had already routed the electronics cavity with extra pots in mind, since this bass has an active version too and they apparently made all basses with the same routing. The only thing that I was missing was a place for the battery. This is the active version:
I was initially drawn to Seymour Duncan Blackouts preamp (Blackouts Bass Preamp)
But I kinda wanted to get the same setup that the active Kelly has. All the reputable brands' preamps come with a price tag that's a bit to much for a DIY experiment, so I decided to try an aliexprex no-name conversion kit.
I was acually surprised at how decent this thing is. It has a 3-band EQ, balance and master volume. Price: ~10$.
Now, here's the problem I have with this particular bass...
The Kelly Bird is designed for looks, not for playability. It likes to nose dive, the body shape isn't very ergonomic and overall the bass is too big and too heavy for me and I'm looking for a replacement for it.
I'm looking at the Sire Marcus Miller M3 which has loads more cool features and overall should be much more comfortable. That would be basically swapping one entry level bass for another entry level bass. Or should I save up a bit and buy something one step higher in the bass range? A decent Yamaha perhaps?
Long story short - some months ago a bought a passive Jackson Kelly Bird as my first bass and very quickly began to think that I'd be better off with some passive to active conversion kit. This is the version I bought:
The Kelly Bird turned out to be a very good choice for such a conversion because Jackson had already routed the electronics cavity with extra pots in mind, since this bass has an active version too and they apparently made all basses with the same routing. The only thing that I was missing was a place for the battery. This is the active version:
I was initially drawn to Seymour Duncan Blackouts preamp (Blackouts Bass Preamp)
But I kinda wanted to get the same setup that the active Kelly has. All the reputable brands' preamps come with a price tag that's a bit to much for a DIY experiment, so I decided to try an aliexprex no-name conversion kit.
I was acually surprised at how decent this thing is. It has a 3-band EQ, balance and master volume. Price: ~10$.
Now, here's the problem I have with this particular bass...
The Kelly Bird is designed for looks, not for playability. It likes to nose dive, the body shape isn't very ergonomic and overall the bass is too big and too heavy for me and I'm looking for a replacement for it.
I'm looking at the Sire Marcus Miller M3 which has loads more cool features and overall should be much more comfortable. That would be basically swapping one entry level bass for another entry level bass. Or should I save up a bit and buy something one step higher in the bass range? A decent Yamaha perhaps?
