OK I kinda wanted to capture all the different things electronics-wise that are being done out there.

So tell us what the control is called, and whether it is a pot switch, slider or other thing. Tell us what it does to the sound of the bass if it's not obvious, and what it's doing inside the bass to change the sound if you know. Also give an example of where you can find the control (it could be on one unique bass such as your own... or it could be on all G&L L2000s, or most active basses etc.)

I am going to get all the standard ones out of the way:



Bass Pot - EQ to cut and/or boost low frequencies - Usually on most active basses (2 band EQ)

Mid Pot - EQ to cut and/or boost middle frequencies - Often on active basses (3 band EQ)

Parametric Mid Stacked pot - Selects actual mid frequency from a range and then cuts/boosts mids as above - Found on some active basses such as USA Peavey Millennium

Treble Pot - EQ to cut and/or boost high frequencies - Usually on most active basses (2 band EQ)

Tone Control Pot - High frequency rolloff - Uses a capacitor and variable resistor (pot) to take away high freq (different value caps have different results) - Found on most passive basses

Neck Volume/Bridge Volume Pots - 2 seperate volumes for controlling each pickup - Neck pickup usually sound thinner with more upper harmonics, bridge sounds thicker/deeper with more fundamental - found in most passive 2 pickup basses

Master Volume/Pan Pots - a volume to control the whole volume and a pan to vary the balance between neck and bridge pickup as described above - found on most active 2 pickup basses

Hopefully someone will come along and cover the controls on a G&L L2000, the 2 pickup Stingrays, Wal basses, Alembic basses, Ovation etc. as well as people who have had their own custom electronics done. I am gonna cover a few of my favorite controls in the next post. I know I have seen basses with tubes in them, piezos, dipswitches on the pickups, and someone once had a custom switch that was labeled funk (some kind of filter.) I want to hear it all.

Some of my favorite other controls:

Varitone Pot - Similiar to the tone control on passive basses but this one allows you to select different capacitor values, which affects which high frequncies will rolloff - this is usually not on stock basses

Passive/Active Switch or push/pull pot - Allows you to activate or bypass the electronics (and battery) - A bass will sound slightly different passive compared to active - found on some custom basses like Matt Pulcinella

Series/Parallel switch - takes 2 pickup outputs (could be 2 coils within 1 pickup or 2 seperate pickups) and put them in series or parallel - drastic sound change usually - can be done multiple times on the same bass bass depending on how many individual coils are in all the pickups - Example G&L L2000

Villex Mid-control (not a mere mid-cut; only to be used with Villex "Classic" pickups)
Villex PRTB (Passive Rotary Tone Booster). Can be used with any pickup really
They both are Passive.

4 Position Rotary Selector

g&l l2000&2500 has V/T/T control with bass and treble in both passive and active modes

for pickup selection there is a 3way switch neck, both and bridge
another switch for choosing between series and parallel
and a last 3way switch for passive - active - active with treble boost (slap-me-hard) options.

I have a few basses with mid booster switches. They come on a lot of Corts.

I have a 2 position switch on my 4 string jazz. Up is normal, down is tone control bypass. It's pretty subtle, but I really dig it. Seems to fatten the signal a bit...


shawn

I am re-doing a Jazz wiring to accommodate DiMarzio Model Js. It'll look like this:

Volume with push/pull to switch from series to parallel on neck PU
Pan
Tone with push/pull to switch from series to parallel on bridge PU

I have a Jazz with Noiseless JBass pickups, push/pull Master Vol/Varitone on, Pan, Varitone.
I never used the tone control on my original JBass so I left it out.

Hmmm maybe I am confused but you can't do series/parallel on most single jazz pickups (unless it has 2 coils inside.)

But you can do one series/parallel push/pull between 2 regular jazz pickups. A second push/pull would only do the same exact thing.

But maybe I misunderstand. Explain please.

I am re-doing a Jazz wiring to accommodate DiMarzio Model Js. It'll look like this:

Volume with push/pull to switch from series to parallel on neck PU
Pan
Tone with push/pull to switch from series to parallel on bridge PU

Hmmm maybe I am confused but you can't do series/parallel on most single jazz pickups (unless it has 2 coils inside.)

But you can do one series/parallel push/pull between 2 regular jazz pickups. A second push/pull would only do the same exact thing.

But maybe I misunderstand. Explain please.
DiMazio's do indeed have two coils, if I remember correctly.

DiMazio's do indeed have two coils, if I remember correctly.

You remember correctly...you can do series parallel individually with ea. pup

ah cool ok i understand. Thanks

Varitone Pot - Similiar to the tone control on passive basses but this one allows you to select different capacitor values, which affects which high frequncies will rolloff - this is usually not on stock basses

A real Varitone circuit is a LC (L= inductor, C= capacitor) network... besides the caps it has an inductor coil. What it's actually doing it notching out a particular frequency, usually in the midrange area.

Besides the well known Varitones with the 6 position switch, Gibson also used a version with a single cap, and a knob, like a passive midrange control. They had this on the L6-S guitar and the L9-S Ripper bass.

The Baritone switch on the Gibson EB-2, and Epiphone basses is yet another variation, this time using a single frequency circuit and a push button switch. My old EB-2 did not have a cap in the circuit, just the inductor. This cut out the low end.

The Lawrence L and Q filters are also LC networks.

Some people call anything with a rotary switch a Varitone, and that includes rotary pickup switches and there's a tone control on the market that uses a bunch of cap values. Gibson called this a "decade" switch when they used one on the Les Paul Recording guitars.

Hopefully someone will come along and cover the controls on a G&L L2000

They list them as:

G&L Tri-Tone active/passive electronics, 3-way mini-toggle pickup selector, series/parallel mini-toggle, preamp control mini-toggle (off/on/on with high end EQ boost)

The knobs are volume, treble and bass.


Alembic basses

The Series basses have a 4 way pickup switch (neck, both, bridge, standby) volume for each pickup, low pass filter knob for each pickup, and either a 3-way mini toggle or a potentiometer for each filter to control the resonance or Q or the circuit. That adds a small hump at the cutoff frequency.

Some of the newer basses forgo the filters and have bass/treble controls.


as well as people who have had their own custom electronics done.

I once had about 10 knobs and 12 switches on a Rickenbacker! That was 30 years ago... but I seem to remember I had 3 pickups... a Carvin humbucker at the neck, a DiMarzio Model P in the middle, and a Hi-A (Bart) at the bridge. Each pickup had series/parallel, and two had phase switches. I was also able to link the neck and bridge in series. I had a 6 position Varitone, Stereo master volume, bass and treble controls (first passive, and then with a Hi-A preamp). What else it did I'm a bit fuzzy on... probably had a built in distortion circuit...

It got some cool tones, and a bunch of really unusable ones too! I keep things a lot simpler now.

Here's the Ric here from a newspaper photo from 1977. You can only see some of the controls. It looks like at this point I removed the Carvin pickup and put the toaster back in, but the hole in the pickguard is still larger. This let me move the pickup closer to the strings. It had some little aluminum brackets. My band mates called it the Space Bass. In the back you can see a vintage Peavy bass amp!

This was the band Dreamer, which later on had Vito Bratta on guitar before he went on to form White Lion. That was way after I quit the band.

http://www.david-schwab.com/images/dreamer-77.jpg

This was my inspiration I think... knobs! :D

http://www.hollowbodybass.com/wp-content/uploads/original-alembic-starfire.jpg

I have my "drone" switch on one of my basses that switches between a nomal 0.047 microfarad cap to a 0.47 microfarad. It sucks all highs and leaves just a big droning sound.

low pass filters, they open up and allow additional frequncies through rather than cutting or boosting x frequency, although all the two filter based pres I've seen have a boost for the cutoff frequency.

low pass filters, they open up and allow additional frequncies through rather than cutting or boosting x frequency, although all the two filter based pres I've seen have a boost for the cutoff frequency.

Low pass filters pass frequencies below the cutoff frequency, but not above.. they pass the lows. The Q control will give you a sharper slope at the cutoff and introduce a hump, making it sound more like a wah pedal, which is a band pass filter.

Here's a little thing I recorded one day to demonstrate a low pass filter being swept, and then a high pass filter, which as the name implies, passes the highs. I have the Q set about half way.

Lowpass/Highpass (http://www.sgd-lutherie.com/media/lp-hp.mp3)

You can use a low pass filter sort of like a regular shelving bass control, if you also have a high pass filter running in parallel.