Marcus Miller Tone Control Mod

[fredguy]

As a recent purchaser of a Marcus Miller IV I was dissapointed with the lack of tone controls when running in passive mode. I decided to look at installing standard Fender passive tone controls by replacing the two volume knobs with the stacked knobs setup of the '62 reissue. I purchased the knobs and stacked pots from HAS and finished the installation last night. There was plenty of room in the control cavity for the stacked pots and the controls work as expected. It really opens up the tonal range of the bass so I can get a good reggae tone in passive mode and leave the active mode set up for the marcus tone at the flick of a switch. Highly recommended + the black stacked knobs look cool too 8^). I'll post or email photos or layouts if there's any interest.

Dave

[studentaccount1]

Nice.

[luknfur]

Originally Posted by fredguy

As a recent purchaser of a Marcus Miller IV I was dissapointed with the lack of tone controls when running in passive mode. I decided to look at installing standard Fender passive tone controls by replacing the two volume knobs with the stacked knobs setup of the '62 reissue. I purchased the knobs and stacked pots from HAS and finished the installation last night. There was plenty of room in the control cavity for the stacked pots and the controls work as expected. It really opens up the tonal range of the bass so I can get a good reggae tone in passive mode and leave the active mode set up for the marcus tone at the flick of a switch. Highly recommended + the black stacked knobs look cool too 8^). I'll post or email photos or layouts if there's any interest.

Dave

FWIW:

seems disappointment in the passive tone of Millers is the rule rather than exception. I'm surprised so many guys even buy them. A guy listed a passive rewire fix a year maybe two years ago for the Miller in harmony central that apparently worked.

I run single miller J straight to the jack and it's my fav single coil J to date.

[sunbeast]

Does that mean that you have a volume and tone for each pickup when in passive mode? That adds a lot of usable tones! The only thing I might be worried about is loss of treble from the addition of 2 more pots (if they are the same value as the original volume knobs, you are in effect doubling the resistance that the pickups see- which will change the tone of the pickups considerably, though that should be alright if you generally roll off alot of treble anyways!).

Now if some manufacturer would just make a bass to my specs in the first place......!

Karl

[tplyons]

How about some pictures?

[SuperDuck]

I was really close to doing that exact mod myself, right down to the stacked controls. I probably would have done it if I hadn't just put my MM up for sale. (Shameless plug!)

[fredguy]

Originally Posted by sunbeast

Does that mean that you have a volume and tone for each pickup when in passive mode? That adds a lot of usable tones! The only thing I might be worried about is loss of treble from the addition of 2 more pots (if they are the same value as the original volume knobs, you are in effect doubling the resistance that the pickups see- which will change the tone of the pickups considerably, though that should be alright if you generally roll off alot of treble anyways!).

I've got a volume and tone for each pickup. The stacked pots are wired with 250k ohms for the volume pots and 500k ohms for the tone pots, same as on the '62 RI. The wiring diagram is at http://www.fender.com/support/diagra...190209CPg2.pdf . I just wired the pickups to the controls as shown and instead of wiring to the jack I wired it to the active/passive switch. I also don't notice any drop off in treble with the tone pots full up but i do enjoy being able to roll off a little treble in passive mode when needed. I'll try and get some after photos tonight.

Ciao,

dave

[natselection]

thanks for posting, i think im going to try this . can you post pictures?

[jmain]

I was looking at a MM yesterday and this dude that I know works there was helping me. He said he was able to wire the controls to be able to use the treble and bass tone controls (existing) in passive mode. Does this seem do-able w/out any loss of signal?

That's my only beef with the passive mode also.

[luknfur]

Originally Posted by jmain

I was looking at a MM yesterday and this dude that I know works there was helping me. He said he was able to wire the controls to be able to use the treble and bass tone controls (existing) in passive mode. Does this seem do-able w/out any loss of signal?

That's my only beef with the passive mode also.

FWIW:

I'm not aware of any pre that does as much and I'm guessing there's a reason for it. They're just pots so you could use them for one or the other but you're not going to get a bass and treble control in passive mode without using something that acts to filter the frequencies like they did in pre preamp days.

[jmain]

Originally Posted by luknfur

FWIW:

I'm not aware of any pre that does as much and I'm guessing there's a reason for it. They're just pots so you could use them for one or the other but you're not going to get a bass and treble control in passive mode without using something that acts to filter the frequencies like they did in pre preamp days.

Thanks man. I was wondering about that. I was feeling skeptical b/c he was telling me this after he handed me a bass that the bridge pickup wasn't working. Matter of fact that bass has been like that for 6 months - when I first played it.


So, something like a Sadowsky with a VTC-esque pot would work?

[fredguy]

Pics posted in thread

Adding mods to a new fender to emulate the old fender sound?

Dave