My cheapo bass is too loud.

[He's Dead, Jim]

I bought this bass: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/sterling-by-music-man-s.u.b.-sb4-bass-guitar

I know it's not high-quality, but it does its job and actually sounds pretty nice.

BUT,

It has active humbuckers so it comes into my Line6 UX1 a little hot. It's tuned to B-E-A-D and when I pluck a string while monitoring in Reaper, it registers at about -6 db at the loudest, and I'm sure it might approach 0 when I'm playing hard.

It has onboard eq knobs, but I find that when I turn them down it takes the sub-lows out too much. I was wondering what your guys' thoughts are: should I just stick it out, decrease the decibel level a lot in Reaper while I'm recording using the fader, and deal with it? Use the onboard EQ and try processing to get the low end back? Or buy a pad? I've never used a pad before and I worry that it will do the same thing as the fader and take some of the attack out of the humbuckers.

Thanks for your input.

 

[egan.]

If it isn't clipping it isn't an issue. Turn it down in you're DAW or use a trim plugin if needed for proper gain staging. Just a point of clarification, that bass has a single passive humbucker and an active 2-band preamp.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

It's definitely clipping when I leave the EQ on the bass up. I'll see what I can finagle in Reaper to minimize it.

Thanks for the clarification also. I've been playing guitar for upwards of 12 years now but honestly, my knowledge of the more technical aspects of instruments is piss-poor, as you can tell hahah.

edit: at least I think it's clipping. Technically I suppose it's not, but once I start to put any effects on it it, the distortion becomes more pronounced.

 

[egan.]

Well, that's a different story then. From your OP it sounded like it was hotter than you wanted but not necessarily distorting. You need to figure out where in the chain the distortion is occurring. Try dialing back your master volume on the bass. If the distortion still makes it to your daw then it's likely that your eq settings and playing are asking more than the active circuit is capable of and you are distorting before you leave the bass. Many active pre circuits have a trim pot that allows you to drop the output a little. I have no idea whether your bass does. Worst case you can just EQ in the extra lows you want in your DAW.