Volume/Volume or Pan?

[crispygoat]

Which do you prefer? Why?

[line6man]

Quoting myself from another thread:

As far as the Volume-Volume versus Volume-Blend setups, you should probably run a search on the matter. You get people in favor of both for different reasons.

VB has the advantage of being more convenient.
You have a master volume control, and then the blend to set the pickup balance, as opposed to having to fiddle with two volume controls.

However, there are some disadvantages:

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.
Second, you usually get a noticeable change in volume at the center position.
And third, a VB setup is the equivalent of three volume controls, versus just two in the VV setup. This decreases some of your output and treble, as described in the first link.

Personally, I am a diehard two volumes -or- volume and pickup selector switch setup guy. I don't mess around with blend controls in my basses.

[walterw]

doing the same (in response to line6man's response, in fact ):

Originally Posted by walterw

+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"!

[bassbenj]

Originally Posted by line6man

Quoting myself from another thread:

I agree with you about "blends" even though I much prefer them to vol/vol. Which is why I only have blend controls on my active basses. On my vol/vol basses I change them to switch pickups to avoid the hassle of fooling with two volume controls. One of the biggest problems I find such as on my OLP MM bass where vol/vol really is an important tonal feature is that because the pickups go to the sliders the impedance they see goes to zero as you turn down the volume. And that drastically changes the tone.

I'd love to keep the MM passive, but clearly that tone changing problem can only be fixed with an active mixer. I suppose since a "real" MM uses active for extreme EQ I have some justification for going active.

[Philbiker]

There is a massive thread on this with great info. Do some searches. I prefer VOL/VOL/TONE personally.

[depalm]

For live playing there's nothing more practical than separate blend and volume knobs (well,maybe a volume pedal)

If you like to mix PUs a lot from song to song or if you (like me) use to turn off the volume between songs.

Better than mess up with PUs mix with two volume knobs!

[Clark Dark]

I prefer volume volume and I've decided to go with stacked volumes on all my basses leaving me an opening where I can add a passive tone control to my aggie circuits.

[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.

[Philbiker]

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??

Whether the theoretical "negative affects" of the panpot are even perceptible is very much in question.

[M0ses]

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??

A toggle will brighten the tone because there is zero resitance, which does not happen even with vol/vol completely open. You can wire in a resistor to solve that if you want, but then again you probably won't mind it.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by Philbiker

Whether the theoretical "negative affects" of the panpot are even perceptible is very much in question.

actually, they're pretty obvious.

it's just whether the loss is acceptable considering the overall tone that would be "in question".

[topcat2069]

Vol, Vol passive
Vol, Blend active....

My new mantra

[SteveC]

I like Volume and blend for practical reasons. I could use a volume pedal, but for practical reasons (I don't like to have more gear than necessary) I like a volume knob.

[JackANSI]

Volume only, no blends... I've used the best blends available.. I can hear a difference and it sounds way better with no blends.

[nutso42]

My personal preference is Vol/Vol with a toggle switch. You can pull off some awesome stunts with that configuration.

Even better- Vol/Vol/Tone/Tone and toggle switch.

[Arvin]

Originally Posted by nutso42

My personal preference is Vol/Vol with a toggle switch. You can pull off some awesome stunts with that configuration.

+1; I love this combination.

Originally Posted by nutso42

Even better- Vol/Vol/Tone/Tone and toggle switch.

I prefer a single master tone control; it works great for my purposes. As always, though: YMMV.

[newbold]

Originally Posted by nutso42

My personal preference is Vol/Vol with a toggle switch. You can pull off some awesome stunts with that configuration.

I've been thinking about this a bit recently and have to agree. Great with delay and high gain drive.

I've been curious though - how do I do everything I can conceive with the fewest controls and the smallest room for error?

I like rolling in my neck pickup for added low end, riding the audio taper - but volume bumps and valleys (flubs) are embarassing.

Perhaps a

Stacked vol/vol
series/parallel toggle
pickup toggle
master tone w. pushpot for another tone cap/greasebucket

or a

Stacked vol/blend
series/parallel toggle (blend is bypassed in series?)
pickup selector toggle
master tone w. pushpot for another tone cap/greasebucket

would work for you folks.

Which one if any?


On one hand a stacked vol/vol would make it easier to fix volume changes, a vol/blend would remove the necessity to ever have to.

Though Rolling in girth or adding bite is the magic of the traditional j-bass wiring, there's still a reason we keep asking the same question ad nauseum.

[line6man]

Originally Posted by newbold

I've been thinking about this a bit recently and have to agree. Great with delay and high gain drive.

I've been curious though - how do I do everything I can conceive with the fewest controls and the smallest room for error?

I like rolling in my neck pickup for added low end, riding the audio taper - but volume bumps and valleys (flubs) are embarassing.

Perhaps a

Stacked vol/vol
series/parallel toggle
pickup toggle
master tone w. pushpot for another tone cap/greasebucket

or a

Stacked vol/blend
series/parallel toggle (blend is bypassed in series?)
pickup selector toggle
master tone w. pushpot for another tone cap/greasebucket

would work for you folks.

Which one if any?


On one hand a stacked vol/vol would make it easier to fix volume changes, a vol/blend would remove the necessity to ever have to.

Though Rolling in girth or adding bite is the magic of the traditional j-bass wiring, there's still a reason we keep asking the same question ad nauseum.

Both of those setups are going to run you into some problems.

With the first option:
If you want a series/parallel switch plus a pickup selector switch, usually it would be desirable to use a 3PDT toggle switch for the series/parallel to allow you to bypass the pickup selector switch in series mode so that you will have sound regardless of the it's setting, however, if you have two volume controls in the circuit, that means that the volume controls run before the pickup selector switch, so they would also be bypassed, leaving you with no volume control in series mode.

If you go this route, you would want to make sure that the pickup selector switch is set to the neck pickup setting in series mode, or if it's set to both pickups, that the bridge pickup's volume control is set to full to avoid diverting the signal to ground.


With the second option:
First off, stacked volume/blend would require a dual concentric triple ganged pot. Such a thing probably needs to be custom made.

Second, it really isn't possible to have a pickup selector switch and a blend control, unless you do a multi-pole rotary switch for the pickup selector.

[newbold]

Originally Posted by line6man

Both of those setups are going to run you into some problems...

Thanks for that dose of reality.

I loved a master volume, 3 way switch, master tone on my old Standard Jazz at the time and I think a series/parallel option would be one of the only things to improve that setup aside from being able to roll in more rumble or snarl...Unfortunately, I make use of vol/vol a lot and wish I could have the best of both worlds with series/parallel summing at my disposal.


MEC makes vol/blend...they're expensive but they do exist.

So as far as I understand, summing 2 pickups in series demands bypassing any blends or selector toggles.

I'm gonna have to come to terms with giving up something if I change my controls from v/v/t - though I'll certainly gain something in return.

I don't mind the rotary pickup selector switch...in fact, going that route would save me drilling holes into a control plate for a series/parallel toggle switch so it's probably best.

So...(ugh...)

IS this an unrealistic goal? Am I asking for too much from my bass?

-volume/volume
-rotary selector switch
(with one of the volume control hardwired as master volume in series modes)
neck
neck+bridge series
neck+bridge series (bridge out of phase)
neck+bridge parallel (bridge out of phase)
neck+bridge parallel
bridge
-master tone pushpot -
in position: rotary selector bypassed - tone cap 1 - standard v/v/t, parallel summed pickups.
out position: tone cap 2/greasebucket (for more 'p'unch but less pickup loading...high end roll off only(?)) - rotary selector active

This way I have a pushpot to go between sounds with one flick of a switch, have the standard wiring, and have the flexibility of pickup summing and phasing if I want it.

Can this be done with a stacked pot, a 6 way rotary switch, and a pushpot???

(please let it be so)