balancer to 3 way switch for pickup slection

[swankfrank6]

my favorite basses are the ibanez sr series.
but they all have balancer knobs for the pickup slection.
when i'm playing i've found that i would rather have a switch like a les paul.
without losing sound quality or anything like that, how hard would it be to replace all my balancer knobs with 3 way switches?

[line6man]

Very easy to do.
You will be re-soldering three connections.

Keep in mind that it will change the instrument though.
There are three problems with blend pots:

1. Passive blend pots never seem to have a nice clean sweep from neck to bridge. If you are going to be doing a blend pot, I would suggest an active one.

2. You usually get a noticeable change in volume at the center position.

3. Adding a blend in place of a selector switch adds resistance from the signal to ground which will reduce the output and treble.

A 250K blend puts 125K resistance from signal to ground, and a 500K blend puts 250K resistance from signal to ground.

Apparently walterw has a solution, though I have not tried it.

Quoting him:

+1 to all of this, but i think i've found a solution.

first, you must use good "M/N" blend/balance pots, which will have a near zero resistance in the middle setting. (allparts has good ones.)

wire them up in standard blend fashion, except don't connect any of the "ground" lugs! each ganged pot will have a pickup hot on its center lug and its output lug jumped to the other pot's output lug and on to the volume pot as normal, but that's it. (the pickup grounds go to the back of the volume pot or wherever.)

now, turning the pan pot just adds series resistance to one pickup, turning it down without sending anything to ground. no extra ground path means no extra loading. i think of it as "dimming" one pickup or the other.

in the center, it's exactly the same as a switch in the center, so no loss at all, and no more volume dip than a switch would have. (it's two pickups in parallel, so there's still a little dip.)

it seems to "dim" each pickup less quickly on the turn than normal, making for a more controllable sweep through the blending range.

the only drawback i've found is that all the way over, i can still hear a little something if i tap on the "off" pickup with a screwdriver. when playing though, all i hear is the "on" pickup.

i modded my bass player's jazz this way ( 500k linear volume, 250k M/N for my"no-load" pan, 500k audio tone, fralin stock jazz pickups), and it sounds freakin' great, with no volume loss and a perfectly linear panning taper from end to end.

it's definitely brighter than your average jazz, since it has one 500k load instead of the normal 125k (two 250k loads), but he's coming from a lifetime of playing stingrays and is used to the "zing" on top. he says it sounds so good it makes him "want to play bass"!

[swankfrank6]

oh wow thanks for the information.
i've never tried my hand at being an electrician so i might get some one to do it for me.

i've noticed that about volumes being different in the middle than with either pickup

[swankfrank6]

also could you suggest to me a good 3 way switch to buy to fit and wire easily into the empty blend pot space

[line6man]

Originally Posted by swankfrank6

also could you suggest to me a good 3 way switch to buy to fit and wire easily into the empty blend pot space

I would suggest a Gibson style toggle switch.
You may need to re-drill the hole a bit larger though.

[eastcoasteddie]

I too found that I'd rather have a switch than a blend pot. I never "blend" anyway. I like the pickup either on or off, that's it.

As Line6man suggests, a les-paul style switch is probnably your best be when replacing an actual pot. I the hole size is pretty close.

I bought one from Carvin along with a pair of pickups
http://www.carvinguitars.com/product...uct=S1B&cid=62

but I'm sure you can find one on ebay for less even, or maybe get one from a store and save on shipping. They're pretty common.

[line6man]

Ah, in my first post, I had you backwards.
I figured you were replacing the 3 way switch in your bass with a blend, but your actually replacing the blend with a 3 way...

With what I explained about blend pots, that's all the more reason to want a 3 way switch now.

[swankfrank6]

i definitely agree.
plus for some reason the SR basses have a bad problem with dusty crunchy pots. and i think a switch would pretty much solve that

[walterw]

there may be a big ol' circuit card in there with all the pots mounted on it, making any mod a real problem. if not, then yeah, a gibson-style switchcraft toggle would be good.

i like the idea of a rotary 3-way switch, so you could put the original knob back on and keep the stock look.

[swankfrank6]

first of all i am no way an electrician, so i have no idea what i'm looking at, but i have taken a look inside my SR. it looks like it would be an easy switch if i just get a 3 way that was set up the same on the back.

[Aharon]

Do active preamps have active volume / balance or just passive?

[line6man]

Originally Posted by Aharon

Do active preamps have active volume / balance or just passive?

First off, all preamps are active. There is no passive preamp.

Active volume?
I have never seen such a thing other than a Raven Labs P bass preamp with a volume control that boosted the volume toward the end of the rotation.

AFAIK, 99.99% of volume controls on instruments are simple potentiometers used to divert the signal to ground to reduce it's voltage.

There are, however, active buffered blend controls.

[Aharon]

Originally Posted by line6man

First off, all preamps are active. There is no passive preamp.

Active volume?
I have never seen such a thing other than a Raven Labs P bass preamp with a volume control that boosted the volume toward the end of the rotation.

AFAIK, 99.99% of volume controls on instruments are simple potentiometers used to divert the signal to ground to reduce it's voltage.

There are, however, active buffered blend controls.

I understand all preamps are active.

EMG do an active balance control but I got a quote on one from a UK dealer and the price was extortionate to say the least. I was considering getting an EMG or Aguilar preamp to compliment the 35DCs in my bass. Ultimately I wanted to know if aftermarket preamps have any in built solutions to dual-pickup balancing. So far, having two pickups in one bass is proving to be a pain in the butt! What are manufacturers doing to their production line models to eliminate this problem. Ive heard plenty of spectors and jazz basses and such which seem to handle two pickups just fine

[line6man]

Originally Posted by Aharon

I understand all preamps are active.

EMG do an active balance control but I got a quote on one from a UK dealer and the price was extortionate to say the least. I was considering getting an EMG or Aguilar preamp to compliment the 35DCs in my bass. Ultimately I wanted to know if aftermarket preamps have any in built solutions to dual-pickup balancing. So far, having two pickups in one bass is proving to be a pain in the butt! What are manufacturers doing to their production line models to eliminate this problem. Ive heard plenty of spectors and jazz basses and such which seem to handle two pickups just fine

What problem?

I would say that most basses on the market have two pickups on board, except for some single pickup models like P basses and Stingrays. I don't see why having two pickups should cause you any problems?

[bassbenj]

Originally Posted by walterw

there may be a big ol' circuit card in there with all the pots mounted on it, making any mod a real problem. if not, then yeah, a gibson-style switchcraft toggle would be good.

i like the idea of a rotary 3-way switch, so you could put the original knob back on and keep the stock look.

This is my choice as well. Blend pots aren't too bad but they do have problems in passive basses (that actually can be cured with the right pot and fix someone reposted). But the Vol/vol passive basses are my biggest complaint. So my standard mod, is to replace either the blend or the second volume control with a rotary switch. I wire it so that it gives 4 positions. Neck only/ both series/ both parallel/ and bridge only. I love that mod. The rotary switch fits the old pot hole and lets you keep the old knob (if you want to...on some of my basses I changed to a teardrop shaped knob to give more tactile feedback).

Somewhere recently in this forum there was a thread on modding an SX (search essex) bass this way. I'm not sure what series will do with your soapbar pickups but it's maybe some ideas.

[Handyman]

Originally Posted by bassbenj

So my standard mod, is to replace either the blend or the second volume control with a rotary switch. I wire it so that it gives 4 positions. Neck only/ both series/ both parallel/ and bridge only. I love that mod. The rotary switch fits the old pot hole and lets you keep the old knob (if you want to...on some of my basses I changed to a teardrop shaped knob to give more tactile feedback).

The rotary switch sounds intriguing. Where could I find a suitable switch for the configuration you've described?

[walterw]

Mouser has them, in various configurations.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by Aharon

I wanted to know if aftermarket preamps have any in built solutions to dual-pickup balancing. So far, having two pickups in one bass is proving to be a pain in the butt! What are manufacturers doing to their production line models to eliminate this problem. Ive heard plenty of spectors and jazz basses and such which seem to handle two pickups just fine

I think you're mistaking normal operation for some sort of problem. Two pickups in parallel like most basses (and guitars, for that matter) have that slight volume drop, along with a midrange "scoop", when they're both full up.

There are active onboard combiners and mixers that address this, but that additional "stuff" in the signal path comes with its own sonic "price", and strikes me as a solution in search of a problem.

[Badong]

So do I understand correctly that a 3-way toggle switch does not negatively affect the tone the way a passive blend pot does??

[line6man]

Originally Posted by Badong

So do I understand correctly that a 3-way toggle switch does not negatively affect the tone the way a passive blend pot does??

Yes.

You only need to ask the question in one thread btw.