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Active to Passive conversion, new wiring

MichiBass

MichiBass

Nov 2, 2005
840
46
40
Timișoara, Romania
mihaimoldoveanu.ro
#1
So I have a Washburn Bantam Bass, with 2 humbuckers (passive, they worked without a battery) and no electronics, no pots, no jack (the previous owner stripped the active circuit out because he hated it and let it like this...).
I have 4 pot holes and I want to rewire the bass to Volume Volume Tone Tone (V/V/T/T). First of all I want to know what pots to buy. Are those okay? : Invalid Link Removed (I'm looking for the cheapest solution) What means "A-Log" ? Is it ok for my wiring?
Then, can anyone suggest me a wiring diagram? I haven't found one with 4 pots yet. Can I just double the P-bass standard wiring for each pickup and then unite them at the jack?
And then I would like to know what capacitor i should use? Is this OK? Invalid Link Removed Do I have to buy two?

Ok, and I have another bass, an Ibanez SR from '89. Same thing 4 pots, electronics broken and stuff. Same wiring, BUT, it has active pickups. How will the wiring be modified? Do these pots also work with active electronics?

Any help is appreciated!

Please help me to rewire these basses :)

Thanks

Michi
 
#5
Hi, Michi.

You'll want LOG (=Logarithmic) pots for volume and LIN (=Linear) for tone. As for the value, 250K and 500K are standards, both are used. Combined with some pickups the brightness may vary, but with cheap potentiometers I'd be more worried about the general construction than subtle tonal variations.

The capacitor value is all right, but buy 0,0022 ones as well. Try both separately and in series and parallel for the best result. If You have two tone pots, You'll need capacitors for both circuits.

These pots won't probably work well with active circuits, You'll be safer to replace the pots with the same values as the old ones. I've usually seen 10K, 25K, 50K and such.

While I also use Thomann and various other on-line stores for shopping, I'd advice to shop locally for small electronics parts. Often they're cheaper, better quality and the available range is greater. And it may ensure that there's a possibility to get them locally in the future too.

Regards
Sam
 
#8
Just don't get a ceramic capacitor, whatever you do! Any other cap type (besides electrolytic) is fine.

.022uF has a higher corner frequency than .047uF, which has a higher one than .1uF. (.047uF is the standard)

It's not really about rolling off more highs of adding more bass, it's about cutting out the signal above a given frequency. And the potentiometer fades this effect in and out.
 

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