More of The Secret Sounds Inside the Peavey T-40 Bass

A very informative and interesting video my friend :) Thumbs up of course !!

Would you be kind to summarize your sets in a table? Thanks! Szilárd

Nice hair cut!

That would take some time, and my idea of what the sounds are like may be different to other folks. What I'm trying to promote is for folks to learn how to use the circuit and use their ears. But perhaps I will do a chart some time to help...

Please do. I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for posting, very interesting vids on an iconic bass! I once read that Journey bassist Ross Valory achieved his distinctive haunting midrange heavy 80's tone with a T-40, tunes like Who's Crying Now, Don't Stop Believing and other hits from that era.

By everything open, do you mean cranked all the way

That's right!

Hey Emac, good thing this second video! One question: Can you explain how the volumes and the capacitors work and what do they do? Untderstood everything about the tone knobs, but I thought the volume controls were just that: volume controls.

The volumes pots have a .01 treeble bleed capacitor fitted to retain clarity when the volume is reduced on the 250kohm pot. But if both pickups are selected and one volume is rolled off, not only does it shunt the pickup to ground but the .01 cap gets shunted as well which becomes a psedo tone cap for the pickup that has its volume fully up. I'm sure Peavey never intended this to work this way but it does add so much variation to the sound options...

Thanks for making these videos. Been looking into one for a long time to satisfy my "other" bass tone needs.

I picked up my t-40 two days ago. After fiddling with it for a day I've gotten what I can only describe as a 1980s geddy lee style wal sound. It's not as bright as it could be due to the fact that line is rosewood and not ebony, but it is really close. These instruments are amazing.

Emac, could you provide tabs for the riff you were playing with it getting the Thunderbird sound? I'd like to use that for a punk song.

Two sounds which I was able to get out of my T-40s (I had three of them during the 1980s) were a sound which had some of the characteristics of an acoustic upright (let's just say the resonance) and a sound which, played hard with a touch of overdrive sounded pretty much like a tuba!

Great video man! I have a t40 too, but someone in the past change the 2-way phase switch to a 3-way switch with a unknow characteristics. I was trying to figure out the different combinations to get different tones and I notice something... this is like a safebox haha, every time when you get the correct combination the bass sound louder, I'm right? greetings!

YES! A chart or table similar to what TECH21 does for their SansAmp BDDI, VT, Leeds, and others would be great!

A pretty good jazz bass:

all knobs at 10
turn the neck volume down to 8
flip the phase switch on.

not 100%, but the closest i've come across while experimenting. cheers.

also with both pickups selected.

Great stuff on both videos. I'm buying one on Saturday!!!

Excellent job with both videos and thank you.

Man, that L2 type setting for the T-40 sounds awesome

I owned one of these years ago. Pretty incredible tonal versatility from a passive instrument! For those wondering about the control functionality: The volume controls are totally independent circuits for each pickup, but that is about it. However, it is the TONE controls that contain the real voodoo. Rotating the tone control of either pickup fully to "10" splits the pickup and makes it function as a SINGLE COIL! Roll it down from there to 7 or so, and the second coil engages and it becomes a HUMBUCKER! From 7 down to 0 it functions as a normal tone control on a full-range humbucker. The phase switch reverses the coil polarity on the bridge pickup only … so it will only really effect the tone with the pickup selector in the bridge or middle position. and the tone control for that pickup set for humbucking mode. It is a little odd, and no other instrument to my knowledge ever used these tricks, but it does offer some VERY cool tones!

recently bought a T-40, but had to mount the electrical part from the beginning. The sound of the isolates pickups are very good, but the two together does not sound like a jazz bass. Do you have a photo of the electrical part of your bass so I can copy the configuration? I do not speak english very well, sorry! hehehe. Thank you very much! [email protected]

What settings would get close to a Gibson Grabber?

E...had seen your first vid awhile ago, spoke with Jeff Scott on TalkBass, reminded me of the video, came back and found your second video. I'm been restoring two T-40s forever, a video on explaing the controls and how they work together would be great. Please keep them coming! Btw, the short hair looks much more distinguished :)

Massive and Roots (y)

Thanks for the videos.. I just picked up one of these a few weeks ago.. needed a new pickup & a setup... should have it back in a week.. I can't wait to play it

THE BODY ELECTRIC!!

Good range of tones. The weight probably not for the over 50 yo. A little bit of fret buzz there that wasn't an intentional part of vintage style. A good bass but it needs a fair bit of effort.

Brilliant bass. Had one since '79. Heavy, yes - but just grow some and pick it up. Well worth it.

I personally love the thunderbird sound

The perfect bass for someone who only plays requests

Super vid. There one on its way to me now :)

Thanks for doing this video, many people still don’t believe how good these things sound!!!

I painted mine metallic gold. Now at least it looks like the weight makes sense.

A pick players dream, must sound great for slap too.

Nice. Detune a whole step and throw a capo on the second fret and you got a eb2-3. But why would you want to? Lol

Absolutely brilliant. Wish someone would do it for a T60.

Thank You !!! Great Mate.

To my ears it doesn't really do the different basses sounds, perhaps just a mere nudge. And it doesn't do the mellower or midrangy tones either, plus there's always that slightly annoying hard edge...

No way you're the same guy who had the long hair in part 1 ! What a transformation...
Still a killer bass and wonderful video. That Hofner sound is spot on to me.