Active Basses and Fuzz Pedals

[Muffit]

Hi,
I just built me a BAT Black Sheep and it sounds great on my passive Bass.
Though with my Active (18V) Bass it I got the problem that unity gain is pretty much the volume pot maxed out which sucks, while with my passive Bass I got plenty of headroom on the Volume Pot.

I know that the Output Impedance of active Basses is way lower than on passive Basses, therefore the Signal is hotter.

How can I manipulate my Signal so that I have more Volume reserves on the fuzz?
Should I just implement a series resistor at the Input of the Pedal?
Should I even get rid of the Volume Pot and place a Booster after the circuit?

I have the same issue with a Idiotbox Blowerbox that I built. Even though I put a series resistor at the Input, though this was because it just sounded like crap without :D

I would appreciate any help.

Ciao

[2liveis2die]

I had the same problem with my blower box, i replaced the clipping diodes with leds (orange/green) and it got silly loud. ive never tried it with a passive bass though.

[Muadzin]

I wonder if the same also applies to active guitars and fuzz pedals?

[rocket88]

Hey man. That's really odd. Personally, I've never had hat problem with any of my basses, active or passive. What I have happen is that when I've used one of my basses that had an active/passive switch when active there's so much output that it makes the fuzz kinda gated and there's more output the volume pot in the same position. What you may want to do is build a stand alone buffer to place infront of the different fuzzes and see how they react to it and if that fixes the problem.

[Muffit]

Thanks, I try the Buffer and switch to LEDs in the Blowerbox.

Thanks a lot

[Muffit]

The Buffer Thing didn´t work. It sounds better (cause of the Buffer), but there is no differents in Volume.

In the Blowerbox I took out the Diodes (I had one LED in there), now there is a tiny bit Headroom, so that one will work.

Weird thing.

[rocket88]

What chip do you have in the blowerbox? What ic's do you have in the black sheep?

[Muffit]

Hi,
the chip in the Blowerbox is an random Chinese LM 308N.

The Black Sheep is Transistor based and has 2 MPSA18 and one 2N5089 for Q3.

Cheers