Bongo 4HH question.

[JayDawg]

Hey all,

Believe it or not, tonight was the first night I actually was able to hook up my Bongo 4HH to my cab after buying it last month. I absolutely love the tones I am getting out of this thing. It is absolutely amazing but I do have some questions. About 15 seconds after I turned on my wireless system and started playing, I got this wicked hum through the cab like I was standing directly in front of the cab intentionally causing feedback. Problem is, I was in the other room playing. I turned off my wireless and then turned it back on again only to still have the problem continue. I then shut everything off and hooked up my Stingray Classic and the problem went away. I played it for a while and then switched back to my Bongo. When I did, the noise was not there the second time so that is good. I did however notice though that my low end notes are very distorted and the volume level on this bass is much louder than my other Music Man basses. My Sterling and my Classic are each 4H configuration though. I am kind of stumped though because even at really low levels, the low end notes on the E and A strings sound distorted like I have distortion effects on or something.

With the Bongo 4HH configuration, I have heard before that they play louder than other basses but I have also heard the same thing about Bongo's in general because they have 18 volts instead of the regular 9 volts. My question is could the distortion on the lower notes be caused by a bad battery or batteries? I bought the Bongo new but it is almost a year old because it is an 09' Dargies Delight II model. I love everything about this bass but with the two problems, it made me wonder if it is simply a bad battery or batteries? I unfortunately am out of all 9 volt batteries right now so I have no way of testing it and thought I would ask the opinions of the experts.
Thanks all!
Jay

 

[syciprider]

Batteries will be a good place to start. I too have to change my gain structure when I plug in my Bongo and Big AL because they seem to clip my pre earlier (sounded glorious through my old SVT though!).

Less onboard volume and more amp.

 

[projectapollo]

Dr. Bongo says take two 9 volts and call me in the morning.

 

[five7]

Switch batteries out of your other basses for a test.

 

[Aussie Mark]

Does your wireless transmitter have an input attenuator or pad? (many do) Sounds like the 18v circuit of the Bongo is too high gain for the input of your transmitter.

Or, you can try the Bongo with the volume pots on something less than "10"

 

[oddjob]

The volume on the Bongo is a picky thing - treat it like a line level rather than a straight forward volume. Dial in your signal strength and let the amp do the work for you (took me a ton of time to get my head wrapped around this). Also, like mentioned above try the wireless pad (if there is one) - it does squash the signal a bit but helps out a bunch. last look at the pickup heights if they are too close to the strings some rumblin will be heard (and pups are a bit tempermental to height). Good luck with it - they are awesome basses!!!

 

[JayDawg]

Does your wireless transmitter have an input attenuator or pad? (many do) Sounds like the 18v circuit of the Bongo is too high gain for the input of your transmitter.

Or, you can try the Bongo with the volume pots on something less than "10"

The wireless system that I have is the Line 6 XDR95 that is the rack mount version. I don't see any volume controls on it? Also I did turn the volume down on the bass and the amp both but still it had a distorted sound which is what was leading me to believe it could possibly be the batteries but I wanted to double check first. Maybe I'll do a run to Waliworld tonight and grab some more. If the problem still exists, then I will call customer service tomorrow.

 

[JayDawg]

Well, I think I may have found the culprit and now I feel kind of stupid. My head has a switch for passive basses and active basses. Someone apparently switched the button and with the 18 volt Bongo running through it, it was completely overpowering everything. As soon as I switched the button back, everything went back to normal.

 

[five7]

All right!!!

 

[JayDawg]

I was wondering if someone could explain something to me. On my head, when the active/passive switch was switched causing the distortion, why was it doing it even at lower volume levels? On all of my other basses, all it did if the switch would accidentally get pushed in was boost the volume but not distort it. Maybe the Bongo truly is a bass full of uber power?

 

[five7]

too much, too many. What type of amp?

 

[JayDawg]

I have a Crate BX 440H Thunderbass head from the mid 90's running through a Crate BXE 2X15 Thunderbass cab also from the mid 90's.

 

[projectapollo]

On my head, when the active/passive switch was switched causing the distortion, why was it doing it even at lower volume levels?

If by volume you mean that the master volume lowered still resulted in distortion, that would be the amp's input pre-amp getting overdriven by the Bongo, making it distort no matter the output volume.

 

[JayDawg]

I actually did both. I turned down the volume pot on my bass and on the head. On the head, I turned down the master volume and the gain even though both the gain and the master will turn the volume up or down. Never really figured out why that is either? But then again, I am kind of technology dumb. Very embarrassing too.

 

[bovinehost]

I actually did both. I turned down the volume pot on my bass and on the head. On the head, I turned down the master volume and the gain even though both the gain and the master will turn the volume up or down. Never really figured out why that is either? But then again, I am kind of technology dumb. Very embarrassing too.

I believe "gain" is what you want to pay attention to here. Leave the Bongo at about halfway up on the bass volume, leave the (head) master at wherever you want it and THEN adjust the gain. You want to drive the preamp without overdriving it - and gain lets you make that adjustment.

 

[JayDawg]

Ah okay. Thanks.