Firstly, I wanted to try adding coil pickups just below the fingerboard. I read a few posts on this and it sounded a cool idea as the Palatino does suffer from resonance issues, especially when you get it on a stage with a large PA. So, I first looked at mounting some cheap P style coils on a plate I was going to glue onto the fingerboard, but ran out of depth for the pickup magnets. Then I thought I'd make a mounting bridge which didn't connect to the fingerboard. This had the advantage of hiding the output wire down to the preamp. Which leads into the next mod. That preamp had to go! Too basic for my liking. I got a Guitar Fuel preamp, with pickup balance and parametric mids. Much more control
I made a mounting plate for the 5 pots (including one stacked) and cut the body to fit. Initially I used the Palatino preamp to feed into the new preamp, and replaced the full pots with trimpots. After reading the Guitar Fuel specs, it seemed like it would handle the piezo bridge pickup directly, so removed the Palatino preamp completely. One less item for the battery to power up! Sounds ok, although the piezo has more output than the coil. No prob, with a bit of balance and volume control, you can blend the two nicely. The last mod, was a contact tuner built into the body where the support rod went. I never used this anyway, so no great loss. It sounds very cool and even the bridge pickup alone has much more body. The neck coil pickups give a unique and very solid sound. Different to a regular fretless bass, so great for original stuff as very few could emulate that sound. Oh, and one more - I found it a pain to leave the Palatino resting anywhere on stage, so built a small support stand that tucks into the body while you're playing. Sorted! And the cost - all up about NZ$75! Will post some pics if anyones interested.