Having Thoughts About Burner Electronics

[Roger Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

Never compared them all that much. It's just the Pickup design I chose for the Bass when I was in Japan finalizing all the details. The Burner is the Burner. I don't know the condition of your circuit or battery now and without seeing it, can't tell you if it's even working right or our circuit to begin with. When you buy an old Bass used, more often than not it needs a trip to the shop to be put back on track and sound like it's supposed to.

I'm there with the trip back to the shop, you're definitely going to see it as soon as I can pull up the scratch.

There seems to be, for me, a lot of mystery concerning the sound that comes from a circuit and what components or combination thereof make that sound. Eq is eq... is eq,... in that a freq or bandwidth is really an objective idea. But we come up with a circuit to give us a 'pre-shape' eq curve, and that circuit also often adds a 'color' of it's own. Examples: Joe Meek, Trace-Elliot, Ampeg... Honestly, the stupefying number of preamps (both inboard and outboard), amplifiers, rack-mount systems, processors and pedals available is enough to put a knot in my head. And of course now we're talking about pickups...

For years I've steered clear of active stuff just to avoid the clutter of too many items in the gain-chain! But I now have 2 active basses. So the moral is that if it sounds good, it is good- and that's where the thinking stops. Thank God.

Glad to have the bass, we'll get 'er fixed up. Thanks for the banter Ken, folks!

Edit: Oh, and about my previous post above concerning the sound of the Burner "passive", I don't know what strings are on it. Maybe it's the strings...