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Help! Sterling distortion!

L

leftyguy81

Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2005
Messages
14
Location
California
Hello folks, i just got a new EBMM sterling, and when i dig in at band volume it gets an aweful distortion. i just changed the battery and it did not solve the problem. i have been playing around with the EQ for awhile and just cant get it to go away ....any suggestions?
 
leftyguy81 said:
Hello folks, i just got a new EBMM sterling, and when i dig in at band volume it gets an aweful distortion. i just changed the battery and it did not solve the problem. i have been playing around with the EQ for awhile and just cant get it to go away ....any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Check the gain on your amp. You may be clipping the front end.
 
maddog said:
Check the gain on your amp. You may be clipping the front end.
Click to expand...

That is true, the Sterling more than likely has a hotter pickup/preamp then your previous bass, so you may need to adjust your input gain. If that doesn't help then your pickup may possibly need to be lowered as well.
 
smallequestrian said:
That is true, the Sterling more than likely has a hotter pickup/preamp then your previous bass, so you may need to adjust your input gain. If that doesn't help then your pickup may possibly need to be lowered as well.
Click to expand...
Could the bass EQ be too much at the ax? Is the bass knob on a Sterling cut/boost or boost-only? As we are mostly accustomed to cut/boost [centered = flat EQ], a boost-only knob that we mistakenly think is just slightly boosted over flat, like an 1/8 turn up from center, is really at 3/4 turn up from flat [cuz on a boost-only knob, flat is at "fully off" or '0'].

Some boost-only knobs are so sneaky as to have a center detent, but it doesn't mark 'flat', it marks '50% boosted'.
 
Last edited:
I thought this was gonna be about BP :D

Back to the question at hand… yeah, what they said. What was your other bass? Sterlings have boost/cut tone pots with a center detent (flat). Set everything flat, including the amp. Make sure you're plugged into the active input of your amp if you have one. Turn the gain down on your amp if it is so equiped. You can also turn the volume down on the bass itself and turn the volume up on the amp. If it still distorts, I'd try lowering the pickup. But try EQ first.
 
My guess is that you are clipping, with aggressive EQ settings, you have to roll back the input level on your amp.
 
the Sterling is a hot bass and it is very possible to get distortion if youve got some knobs set to 10.

like most people said:
1) make sure youre plugged in to the active input on your amp
2) make sure the knobs on your sterling are set to "flat"

that's the best place to start. now depending on your amp etc you can crank up certain knobs and not get distortion. from there the gain on your amp is gonna be a major player and you're gonna have to play around to find the balance between amp's gain, eq on the bass and master volume.

just tweak around for a while and you will find a good setting ... it does take time. but the thing is the Sterling has hot output so if youre coming from a passive bass kinda world this will take a little bit to get "right"

good luck. i know how frustrating it can be ... ive been there. but in the end you'll be happy as hell :)
 
P9170139.jpg
 
Well, when i got the bass the pickup was pretty much attatched to the strings; i figured that this wasnt a good thing, but only lowered it a little bit. It seems that my jazz bass has alot more space between the string and the pickup than the sterling does, what would you guys reccomend for the pickup height?
 
leftyguy81 said:
Well, when i got the bass the pickup was pretty much attatched to the strings; i figured that this wasnt a good thing, but only lowered it a little bit. It seems that my jazz bass has alot more space between the string and the pickup than the sterling does, what would you guys reccomend for the pickup height?
Click to expand...


the factory specs for that stuff is up at:
http://www.ernieball.com/site/faq_bass.php
 
Yes, please read the factory setup specs. That will really help you dial it in.

For my pickup height, I fret the string on the last fret (E and G, one at a time) and set the pickup to be right about 1/16" to 1/8" below the bottom of the string.
 
Hello Knuckleheads

Herre is the deal

It still suprises me to see how little understanding people have regarding active basses.

Your distortion is a combination of the pickup being WAY too high...check the spec faq, the gain set wrong on your amp and probably your tone on the amp tweaked and I will venture a guess that you are playing the bass with all of the tone controls wide open

We de-engineer all of our basses because of the "pretend its passive and turn the tone controls full onsyndrome with players" With a active bass always start FLAT! Cut and boost from there. If we knew that the general public understood EQ you would be suprised at how much more eq we could deliver. The bongo proto was unreal but sounded like a summer dog turd with the volume and all four bands full on......I still get it at dealers where the guy says"I prefer a sting ray the bongo just doesnt sound good." I then asked him to plug it in and he sits down and boosts the bass and treble on his amp turns all four bands full on and says " Dude, you see what I mean". I grab the bass return the amp to flat and the bongo to flat and then start tweaking and blending and cutting and boosting and the guy always is blown away.
 
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