Quick question about recording bass...

Thanks for the replies!

Marcus, ah, now I get it. Yeah, I'd say having at least one knob maxed out is definetly a good idea. I always had both on max on my GSR200. The tone-knob, for metal, is IMO, a deal like with guitars. Who plays remotely heavy stuff with their tone down and still gets a good tone? JMO, of course.

I've always been under the impression the balance knob itself is not active. What's active is the EMG EQ. Never known for sure, tho. I NEVER use the EQ, so I've always thought about just yanking it out of the circuit so that perhaps I could get a slightly better tone. Not a master with soldering, tho, so I've never gotten around to it.

Razorjack, yeah, I generally used the bridge pickup myself. I like the fact that it's got a grittyier midrange and tighter lows. I've always wanted to try a lower-output, less dominant kinda pickup in the neck, tho. Something tighter and with a grittier mid-range sorta like a J pickup. In fact, been thinking about replacing the EMG HZ's for quite a while, but never gotten around to it.

JBroll, that's cool! Having a stereo jack for the bass was definitely something I wouldn't have thought of. The two outputs was also a good idea. So did you leave any controls between the pickups and the jack at all? Volume maybe? Or do you mean 'straight' as in STRAIGHT?
 
A balance knob can be active or passive.

If the EMG EQ is set up properly, I believe it'll be true-bypass - yanking it out won't help. You don't need to be a master at soldering - I'm sure as hell not, but I manage to survive and wind up with usually-working instruments (on that note... Mike, if you're reading this, is the Thunderbird still working?) - to take things out, especially when it's just a matter of following a diagram.

Jeff
 
Oh.... The EQ is actually been doing some weird stuff if I turn the knobs, so I just leave it at noon at all times. Maybe it needs new pots or something.
 
If you disable it and still get changes when the knobs are turned, take it out - that directly contradicts what I assumed. It's not too hard, just figure out where the EQ's input and output are and tie them together.

Jeff