.1 cap is cutting most of volume.

[AK Bass Guy]

It's a bit of two things causing this:

1- It's a LPF. The more you roll it off, the more of the signal it filters off from the top on down. The more signal it filters off, the less signal there is. Less signal can be (but isn't always) less volume. (This is fairly over-simplified, but the gist of what happens.)

2- Fletcher Munson curve. It's a LPF. And .1uF is fairly aggressive. The more you roll it off, the more of the highs and then mids and even low mids you're rolling off. Even if the measurable volume is the same, the apparent volume is lower.
i.e. You've filtered out the frequencies the human ear is attuned to hearing.

--

And that's just talking about rolling off the tone knob in isolation. If you also have your lows cut on you EQ, or you're running through a HPF that's set anywhere in the audible frequencies, you're essentially lowering the volume of the only frequencies your bass is making when you roll off your tone.

This is what I was trying to say earlier but just not as eloquently said here.

 

[bdplaid]

The whole circuit is a jazz bass, with a push pull double tone cap. The circuit worked fine, I just had trouble with the 1/.1 uf cap. It's straightened out now. I like the .1 cap quite a bit. Fully down, it give something of a sound like flats with the tone all the way down.

 

[AK Bass Guy]

The whole circuit is a jazz bass, with a push pull double tone cap. The circuit worked fine, I just had trouble with the 1/.1 uf cap. It's straightened out now. I like the .1 cap quite a bit. Fully down, it give something of a sound like flats with the tone all the way down.

I like a .1 too, great for getting nice deep bass. Good for things like dub, country, blues, bluegrass….
I have a bass with a push/pull on the tone pot so I can pick between a .1 or .47, fun cheap mod. Adds a lot of versatility.

 

[bdplaid]

All the above is true! My alternate cap is a .022. I like that too, as it just rounds off the very top edge.

 

[bassdude51]

Considering a 47 nF (0.047 uF) capacitor is pretty much industry standard to start with, you have exceeded the value of a usable cap for this particular application. I'd suggest changing the capacitor with a more reasonable value and see what this does for your volume loss.

EXACTLY!

I use .047/.050 and by the way, rarely do these caps measure their rating mark. I've used .033 caps and I like those too.

.1 mf is a bit strong.

 

[bdplaid]

I've used .047 forever. It's fine, but I want something different. If you go back, I have resolved my problem and I like the .1 quite a bit. Thanks!

 

[micguy]

Considering a 47 nF (0.047 uF) capacitor is pretty much industry standard to start with, you have exceeded the value of a usable cap for this particular application. I'd suggest changing the capacitor with a more reasonable value and see what this does for your volume loss.

Ahem. There is nothing "unreasonable" about using a different value capacitor in a tone circuit. Yes, it will sound different, and....that's the point - we don't all want the same things from our instruments. I don't typically use .1uF caps in my basses, but I do use capacitors that are far smaller than .047uF at times, because I want a tone control that does less - a typical tone circuit cuts off a lot of upper mids, which I'd like to keep. I have a lot of basses with 2 tone circuits (they are used for different modes), where one tone capacitor is quite a bit larger than the other - I've used capacitors form .0015 uF to .068uF, and all those values are "reasonable" - they do what I wanted the thing to do. A .1uF will do more than a typical tone circuit (exactly how much it does depends a lot on the inductance of your pickup(s), and if the OP likes that, there's nothing wrong with using that value - it is what is needed to get that result, and noone will be harmed by the use of a "non-standard" capacitor value.

Leo picked a value (it was .05 back then) that, in the 1950's, worked well with the pickups he had, and the value also worked because it was obvious that the tone control was doing something. It's no longer the 1950's, we have pickups with all different values of inductance, we have different musical desires, and not everyone wants their tone control to do the same thing. The musical instrument industry is ridiculously resistant to change, which leads to thought schools that something is "right" about a certain decision - that's why so many people think that .047 is somehow "magical" or "correct". It isn't, it's just a choice that was made many decades ago in a specific circumstance by a specific person, and people don't think or listen long enough to question whether they might want a different value capacitor.
Oh, and just for the record, most of the .05uF capacitors that were put in basses back then (.05 was a standard value for a 20% part, .047 is for 10% or 5 % parts) are ceramics that used dielectrics that are not stable - their value decreases over time, If you measure the value of a ceramic capacitor from an old Fender (you have to do with without hearing it up as that will change its value), it's less than .05uF. Old basses and guitars do sound different for several reasons, and one undeniable reason is that their tone caps are not the same value as when they were built.

One other point. A .1 uF cap will not audibly change what you hear with the tone control maxed - even a 1 uF will sound the same. It's only when you set the control at half tone or below where the value of the capacitor really matters.