My passive bass tone control is ....
 

I'm curious as to how the rest of the TB community relate to their tone controls.

I have a J-bass and I want to re-wire it to stereo. I'm thinking of simply taking out the tone pot since I don't change it, ever. That way I can just use existing holes in the control plate. I know that ganged pots are an option but I don't feel the need for it.

I love my tone control. I wouldn't mind replacing it with a switch, but I do use it frequently.

You need to understand by removing your tone control you will be drastically changing the tone of your bass. The tone circuit in a passive bass loads the pickup even when it is all the way up. By removing the pot and cap your bass will get much brighter sounding. I do not recommend this mod at all.

It's only a very slight change. In any case, all you have to do is replace the pot with a fixed resistor or cavity-mounted trimmer pot.

Slight? OK if you say so. :eyebrow:

Whenever I redo a bass I change the tone pot(s) to StellarTones. I know they're not for everybody, but they work for me.

Have one of their new 10 selector dual pickups on order for my Gibson SS T-bird.

It depends on the signal's impedance and the pot value. After a certain point, the resistance of the pot becomes so great for the signal impedance that very little signal is passed to the capacitor, and thus, there is little difference between a relatively high finite resistance and an infinite resistance. If you are using a 250k pot and/or relatively high impedance pickups, you can usually hear a slight difference when bypassing the tone control. (And hence some players' preference for bypassable tone controls.) In certain cases, the use of 500k pots results in very little to no difference in tone, compared to removing the tone control. This is especially true of lower impedance pickups. In any case, the point is, when there is an audible difference, it is slight, and not extreme.

You left out a poll option for "nonexistent, my basses all have active EQ only." ;)

Then it's not a passive bass, is it? :)

Got me, I read the poll title on the "My Talkbass" page and not the thread title when I dropped in here. :p

I use mine all the time. But if you don't, why do you care what I think? Give it a try. You are obviously pretty good at this kind of thing. You should be able to UNDO it as easily as you did it. Go for it! (And report back here with the results.)

I'm a tweaker. Sometimes I like it bright, sometimes dark, sometimes dark with a hint of bright, sometimes bright with a hint of dark. Half the time it's on full, though. That's how I roll.

i use 500k pots with my vintage-wind fralin P pickup, so it's a bit brighter than "normal".

this lets me have a wide range of use out of my tone knob; full-up for grindy pick-style rock, dialed back a bit for more old-school P-bass tones, all with no battery.

Here is where we agree. Your definition of slight and my definition of drastic are one and the same. There is a drastic difference in a J Bass/Fender without the tone circuit as compared to with. For me it is an unusable option, YMMV.

+1

I use mine 99pst of the time with my rwP.:(
and i play either with my fingers up by the neck for a fat warm sound, or with a pick, resting my hand on the pickguard. Nice for my right drumming hand.

I use mine constantly. Gets me a huge variety of tones out of my J bass. Simple passive V/P/T circuit with Dimarzio DP123 Model J pickups. I believe I have CTS 250k pots and the Orange Drop capacitor.

I keep mine closed most of the time on one bass and like 10% on the other one. Sometimes I'll open them up but that's where they live.

--Silvie

I am always adjusting from song to song, and often during a song.

V-V-T with 500k volume pots and Fender TBX tone control!

(JJ and PJ basses)

The only knob that I tweak on my jazz bass is the neck pickup volume control.