I've had my basses for approaching 9 and 7 months respectively and still have their factory batteries in them. I checked both yesterday and they are still not dead yet. What are the symptoms of a low battery? I caught that the whole bass wouldn't work with out it but will the sound degrade first or will other things start happening?
My Ibanez 5 string is active, and what I have experienced is that the bass is just dead (no sound) when the battery goes low. That said, I usually play a passive four string; I pull out the five string when I need a low B. I might, as a result, have missed a stage where the bass sounds wonky as the battery goes from good to too low a voltage. But again, my experience has been the bass is just dead - no output. Cheers
I knew a guy with an active. We were both playing together. His bass sounded good but sudenly started to get a distorted tone with degrading volume. A few seconds later it completely died. He liked the battery and it was dead, so I guess it just goes from working to deaf, the distortion lasted very little time.
Your tone will start to sound horrible. Just buy rechargeable 9 volts, I usually recharge it every week and it keeps my guitar sounding great and I don't ever have to worry about when it will die! Plus it will save you money.
First thing I did when I got my active thunderbird was to change out the factory stock battery as I had no idea how long it had been in the guitar and was concerned about corrosion/leakage I've never let it get to the point of the battery failing and probably fit a new duracell every 3 months or so and keep a spare in my guitar case if you've still got the original factory battery I would definitely be changing those out for peace of mind at least
