SR4 active electronics not working

[carbohydron]

Hi

I've tried a few batteries and it seems my active electronics are not working as i cant get any tone out of it. It's working without a battery. Volume is fine but absolutely no tone. Time to take it to the repair guy?

Is this common?

It was a brand new 2011 model i think. E

 

[Soulkeeper]

Just to clarify: Are you saying that the bass outputs a powerful enough signal, and the volume knob works as expected, but there's no change to the sound when you twist the EQ knobs?

Does the bass behave the same without a battery as with a battery? Or is there a difference?

 

[MrMusashi]

id suggest making sure the metal pieces that are supposed to make contact with the poles on the battery are actually making contact. sometimes these can be bent so they dont make contact. bending them back a little bit usually helps

if this doesnt work i suggest contacting eb customer service. internet diagnostics is a hard task to do and you will get very good help from the ones that knows most about eb basses

details in my signature

hth!

MrM

 

[carbohydron]

Just to clarify: Are you saying that the bass outputs a powerful enough signal, and the volume knob works as expected, but there's no change to the sound when you twist the EQ knobs?

Does the bass behave the same without a battery as with a battery? Or is there a difference?

yes it behaves the same. it's as if there were no electronics at all. tried with a brand new battery.

 

[carbohydron]

thanks. i think ill take it back to the shop and get them to check it out. strange. all of a sudden stopped working

 

[Freddels]

id suggest making sure the metal pieces that are supposed to make contact with the poles on the battery are actually making contact. sometimes these can be bent so they dont make contact. bending them back a little bit usually helps

if this doesnt work i suggest contacting eb customer service. internet diagnostics is a hard task to do and you will get very good help from the ones that knows most about eb basses

details in my signature

hth!

MrM

^^^^This and also check to make sure you install the battery correctly with the + and - the proper way. If not, then contact customer service.

 

[Golem]

`

Something is real screwy here cuz it's not
spozed to work at all without the battery,
except for a tiny, faint, useless signal ....

 

[carbohydron]

`

Something is real screwy here cuz it's not
spozed to work at all without the battery,
except for a tiny, faint, useless signal ....

yeah thats what i thought too although i never got around to checking that when it was behaving ok. granted the signal seems weaker but it's strong enough that i dont have to move my gain on my amp. weird

 

[carbohydron]

found the problem. i took the battery housing out and the wiring has come away from the housing. both sides. pretty disappointed as it's a lousy soldering job and this bass has never been bashed around. from what i can see, when you open the carrier, the wires have an excessive amount of movement and eventually they will just give way. taking it back to the shop.

so i guess thats why i have signal thru as the pickup becomes totally passive when these wires arent connected to the battery carrier.

 

[TWISTEDSTRINGS]

`

Something is real screwy here cuz it's not
spozed to work at all without the battery,
except for a tiny, faint, useless signal ....

While reading this post I was really surprised to see you write this, my new SR4 HH has tons of volume without the battery in. It has no tone control at all but there is a lot of tone change with the selector switch, which I assume it would because of the all the different pup configurations when using the selector. Definitely enough volume to get you though a gig in a pinch...

 

[Golem]

While reading this post I was really surprised to see you write this,
my new SR4 HH has tons of volume without the battery in. It has
no tone control at all but there is a lot of tone change with the
selector switch, which I assume it would because of the all the
different pup configurations when using the selector. Definitely
enough volume to get you though a gig in a pinch...

Must be differences over time. A while back someone wanted to
know how to check out the passive tone before doing any mods.
Before putting-foot-in-mouth and suggesting to "just remove the
battery" I figgered I'd better test that idea. On my own ax I got
no useful signal.

Sorry I can't helpfully say which model, as I've got more than a
few [see sig] and I only tested one, believing that all models will
have the same result. Now, you've got me curious !

 

[strummer]

Is it the soldering that has come loose? Did you buy it new? How far do you open the battery compartment?

Try the store, or EBMM customer service, the best in the business!

 

[MrMusashi]

golem: our forum member oli@bass did record basses without battery in them..

check it out here:
http://forums.ernieball.com/music-man-basses/42214-stingray-sound-examples.html

MrM

 

[TWISTEDSTRINGS]

golem: our forum member oli@bass did record basses without battery in them..

check it out here:
http://forums.ernieball.com/music-man-basses/42214-stingray-sound-examples.html

MrM

Great find, I guess we now have something to back the thought of passive/no battery play that we can all hear. I had recorded some stuff last night without the battery but could`t figure out how to post it. Wanted Golem/others to here the tone and how easily it was heard in a live situation. Was wondering if mine was the fluke ? Guess not, cool

 

[carbohydron]

Is it the soldering that has come loose? Did you buy it new? How far do you open the battery compartment?

Try the store, or EBMM customer service, the best in the business!

Yeah the soldering came completely apart. note to self: dont open it up all the way. this was mainly due to the wiring catching on the body. i showed it to the repair guy and he is going to give it some more slack.

 

[andreabass]

Hi

I've tried a few batteries and it seems my active electronics are not working as i cant get any tone out of it. It's working without a battery. Volume is fine but absolutely no tone. Time to take it to the repair guy?

Is this common?

It was a brand new 2011 model i think. E

Hi, it seems like I have the same problem with my stingray 4, the the bass behave the same without a battery as with a battery, I checked the battery housing but the wiring is ok. any tips?

 

[tbonesullivan]

What year is it? I thought that the active EQ stingrays usually don't make any sound if there is no battery.

 

[andreabass]

What year is it? I thought that the active EQ stingrays usually don't make any sound if there is no battery.

the year is 2004

 

[andreabass]

What year is it? I thought that the active EQ stingrays usually don't make any sound if there is no battery.

I think the bass sounds like a passive bass

 

[Randracula]

golem: our forum member oli@bass did record basses without battery in them..

check it out here:
http://forums.ernieball.com/music-man-basses/42214-stingray-sound-examples.html

MrM

I tried this last night with my SR4HH and it worked great. No tone knob but still a great range of tones with the 5-way switch. The reason this interests me is because I play with quite a few effects pedals these days. Many of them, mainly dirt/fuzz pedals, just don’t sound right with active basses. Some of them, like the Zvex Wooly Mammoth, are completely unusable. I’ve been looking for a passive EBMM SUB Stingray for a long time, for this very reason. I had previously tried this with my with my SR4H and it didn’t work. It had way too little output to be usable. The SR4HH has plenty of output to work with in passive. It does need a little more input gain from the amp versus active mode, but not much. What impressed me is how great the pickups sound without the preamp. Amazing tone either way.