Hi,
My main basses are a lovely 6-string Tobias and a home made 6-string with Ken Smith pickups (see
http://jaapenjanny.filternet.nl/4xbass_Stick.jpg ).
The last couple of months, I always used the home made bass onstage. Reason: the blend pot of my Tobias acted more like a 3 way switch. When it was in the center position, the slap sound was great, but when playing fingerstyle, the lower notes too undefined. It was very hard to back off the neck pickup "just a bit". After replacing the pot with 2 volumes (1 per pickup), I still had the same problem: turn one of the volumes down just a tiny bit, and it's almost as if you switch it off.
So, I decided to do it another way: instead of a blend pot, I now use a rotary 5-way switch. Position 1, 3 and 5 are "bridge only", "full bridge & neck", and "neck". Position 2 and 4 have a resistor (trim pot) in it, so that position 2 is "full bridge & half neck", and position 4 is "half bridge and full neck". It's very easy now to dial in my favourite fingerstyle sound (position 2), while still having access to the other standard mixes. Added advantage: there's only 1 volume pot now, so there's less load on the pickups.
See & hear these links:
finger, pos 1 finger, pos 2 finger, pos 3 finger, pos 4 finger, pos 5 slap, pos 1 slap, pos 2 slap, pos 3 slap, pos 4 slap, pos 5 schematic
The active EQ is neutral on bass & mid, and some boost on treble.
Hope this can help you guys with similar problems :-)
regards,
Jaap
