Rockbass Upgrade Dilemma

[martisanma]

Dear friends, I'm here with my first post. I need some advice.
Last summer I bought a new old stock Rockbass Corvette Active from 2002 (solid bridge and Rockbass on the headstock).
I could compare it with several German WW's and it was one of the best basses I tried in the shop. Super vibrant body and outstanding low B.
In real life as a gigging bass, it failed twice on stage (I had a spare bass luckily) because of the very high power consumption of the all active. So for the current season it is a serious concern to me.
Now I've got a few options in mind.
1. Selling the bass and buying something else with passive option.
2. Buying passive pickups and put a push pull volume to bridge the preamp
3. Permanently bridging the preamp assuming only the active pickups won't eat so much battery
4. Changing batteries every 2/3 weeks (cheapest option, I know). In high season they lasted no more than 3 gigging weeks.
5. Emptying the whole electronics and redo the whole thing to my taste (but putting 500€ on a 600€ bass...).
Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[Stainless]

1.Selling the bass and buy something else with passive option

 

[jester]

Dear friends, I'm here with my first post. I need some advice.
Last summer I bought a new old stock Rockbass Corvette Active from 2002 (solid bridge and Rockbass on the headstock).
I could compare it with several German WW's and it was one of the best basses I tried in the shop. Super vibrant body and outstanding low B.
In real life as a gigging bass, it failed twice on stage (I had a spare bass luckily) because of the very high power consumption of the all active. So for the current season it is a serious concern to me.
Now I've got a few options in mind.
1. Selling the bass and buying something else with passive option.
2. Buying passive pickups and put a push pull volume to bridge the preamp
3. Permanently bridging the preamp assuming only the active pickups won't eat so much battery
4. Changing batteries every 2/3 weeks (cheapest option, I know). In high season they lasted no more than 3 gigging weeks.
5. Emptying the whole electronics and redo the whole thing to my taste (but putting 500€ on a 600€ bass...).
Thanks a lot in advance.

Hello @martisanma and welcome to the forum!

Keep the pickups by all means, getting them new is something like a third of the price of the whole bass. You are right in that they alone consume much less battery than a preamp. It is quite possible that this specific preamp is particularly power hungry too. So you can go for a 25k volume, 25k balance, 25k tone (with an appropriate capacitor for active pickups/low impedance) which will mean you will lose one knob. Alternatively you can try replacing the preamp with a different model that hopefully is not as power hungry. I'm 90% it's your preamp and if I were you I would go preamp-less with just a passive tone (but I am not you). Let us know what you did after all.

 

[schlobodan]

Dear friends, I'm here with my first post. I need some advice.
Last summer I bought a new old stock Rockbass Corvette Active from 2002 (solid bridge and Rockbass on the headstock).
I could compare it with several German WW's and it was one of the best basses I tried in the shop. Super vibrant body and outstanding low B.
In real life as a gigging bass, it failed twice on stage (I had a spare bass luckily) because of the very high power consumption of the all active. So for the current season it is a serious concern to me.
Now I've got a few options in mind.
1. Selling the bass and buying something else with passive option.
2. Buying passive pickups and put a push pull volume to bridge the preamp
3. Permanently bridging the preamp assuming only the active pickups won't eat so much battery
4. Changing batteries every 2/3 weeks (cheapest option, I know). In high season they lasted no more than 3 gigging weeks.
5. Emptying the whole electronics and redo the whole thing to my taste (but putting 500€ on a 600€ bass...).
Thanks a lot in advance.

problay the pre is always on aka not wired correctly.Check the soldering on the jack

 

[DiMarco]

Super vibrant body and outstanding low B.
Sounds like it is worth fixing no matter the market value.

 

[Hardy]

Super vibrant body and outstanding low B.
Sounds like it is worth fixing no matter the market value.

These were my thoughts too.

 

[martisanma]

A million thanks to everyone. I got the wiring checked and it was fine. As long as I always play the eq flat, I'll bridge the preamp. I didn't know I could put a tone pot with active pups. An option would be wire vvtt or vbtt and use the four knobs. Am I wrong?

 

[jester]

A million thanks to everyone. I got the wiring checked and it was fine. As long as I always play the eq flat, I'll bridge the preamp. I didn't know I could put a tone pot with active pups. An option would be wire vvtt or vbtt and use the four knobs. Am I wrong?

You can certainly have such a setup, in fact I never thought about two tone pots which is way cool and could offer tonal flexibility without a pre. The passive tone works the same way as in passive basses, the only difference is the value of the capacitor!

PS. reading about dual tone pots I'm getting the impression that it is doable, but not exactly straightforward. I apologize for my impulsive excitement.

 

[Stainless]

problay the pre is always on aka not wired correctly.Check the soldering on the jack

That could be also a possibility, but i thought he checked this first before asking here.

 

[Florin]

A million thanks to everyone. I got the wiring checked and it was fine. As long as I always play the eq flat, I'll bridge the preamp. I didn't know I could put a tone pot with active pups. An option would be wire vvtt or vbtt and use the four knobs. Am I wrong?

You know what to check? Ground should be wired to sleeve, and black wire from battery to sleeve. Sometimes those two are switched, the bass still works fine, but it eats more battery.