AI gave me instructions for circuitry mods. Are they accurate?

[Stagelab]

I just bought a mid90s Ibanez SR1305-PW MIJ with an active pre and active pickups. Controls are:

- vol
- blend
- treble/bass boost/cut stacked mnob
- mid boost/cut and vari-mid freq stacked knob

The bass doesn't have an EQ bypass and I'm thinking of adding one. I asked an AI tool for instructions and I'd like a sanity check on them. Scroll down for the AI's steps. What do you think?

Do I need an SPDT switch for a passive blend or can I just leave the blend pot as is? Ideally, the treble boost/cut in the stacked treble/bass pot would be a passive tone control in EQ bypass mode.

AI instructions below.

**Step-by-Step Modification**

#### **Components Needed:**
- **Push/pull potentiometer** (500kΩ audio taper, 16mm shaft) to replace volume knob
- **SPDT on/on switch** for pickup blend (if converting to passive blend)
- **Capacitor** (0.047μF film capacitor for passive tone)
- Shielded wire, solder, heat shrink tubing

#### **Wiring Diagram Concept:**
```plaintext
Pickups →
[Push/Pull Vol Pot] →
│ (Bypassed: ↓ | Active: → Preamp)
↓
Passive Tone Circuit (Treble Pot) →
Output Jack
```

#### **Key Steps:**
1. **Replace Volume Pot with Push/Pull:**
- **Pulled (Bypass Mode):**
- Pickups → **Input Lug** of push/pull → **Output Lug** → *Directly to output jack*
- *Preamp disconnected from circuit*
- **Pushed (Active Mode):**
- Pickups → Preamp → Output jack (stock wiring)

2. **Convert Stacked Treble/Bass Pot to Passive Tone Control (When Bypassed):**
- **Treble Pot Rewiring:**
- Disconnect treble pot from preamp circuit.
- Solder **0.047μF capacitor** between the pot's input lug and output lug (creating RC low-pass filter).
- Ground the pot casing to back cavity.
- *Note: Bass pot becomes inactive in bypass mode.*

3. **Pickup Blend Modification:**
- Your blend pot *must* be converted to passive (500kΩ) or replaced with an **SPDT switch** (pickup selector) since active blend pots won't work in passive mode.

4. **Output Jack Rewiring:**
- Add a wire from push/pull output lug → tone pot → jack tip (bypass path).
- Retain original preamp → jack connection for active mode.

---

### **Battery/Power Management**
- **Active pickups ALWAYS draw power** (even in bypass mode).
- Install a **battery cutoff switch**

 

[ardgedee]

A few things stand out to me...
1. No instructions for reconnecting the treble pot after disconnecting.
2. No instructions of any kind for the bass pot (more on that below)

There are more issues I'm skeptical about but that's enough to start with.

fwiw some Ibanez active circuits have the bass pot's wiring harness cascade from the treble pot's -- I don't know what board you have and I 100% guarantee that the "AI" doesn't either.

I would be extremely skeptical of "AI"'s utility in designing a bypass for a specific circuit that is not commonly discussed online. There simply isn't the knowledge base available for it to find for you. And when it doesn't have useful data it will generate bullhockey to make it sound like it does know. You have to think of it like a search engine that's so over-eager to help that it will babble anything in order to keep you happy. It's going to be harder to get direct actionable help from humans, but the help you can get is far more likely to be something you can actually apply.

So let's start with this: From previous questions you've posted, I assume you want to bypass the pre completely rather than just the EQ... is that right? If so, is your bass one of the models where the volume and balance work as expected and the treble pot becomes a tone control when the pre loses power?

 

[J-Bass RMR]

AI gave me instructions for circuitry mods. Are they accurate?​

 

[sunbeast]

 

[ddnidd1]

I've gotten so much wrong info from google ai that I disabled it.

 

[ctmullins]

AI is nowhere near trustworthy yet. Won't be for some years at least.

If you want to do something, best to either learn the concepts and techniques yourself, or hire someone who does.

Do NOT trust AI with anything of value.

 

[Jared Houseman]

If you don't know what your doing, it's probably not going to workout correctly even if you're instructions were right (they're not)

 

[lowfreqgeek]

I wouldn't touch this AI "advice" with a 10' pole. It's not going to accomplish anything except ruin a perfectly good instrument.

 

[DanAdams]

Why AI when you have a multitude of attentive FREE expert human bass modders right here?

.... wait, y'all human right???

 

[walterw]

I've gotten so much wrong info from google ai that I disabled it.

tell me how you did that!

(and yeah, the AI has no clue about the right answer, it's just a fancy autocomplete that adds the most statistically likely next word to the previous word; it's a bull***t generator and people need to stop believing what it says)

 

[walterw]

The bass doesn't have an EQ bypass and I'm thinking of adding one.

not much point in that; if the pickups themselves are active then the only reasons for a preamp bypass (a "passive" sound option, continued use if the battery dies) are not there

 

[Ben Clarke]

Why are you using AI if you don't trust the outputs? It's a complete waste of resources and time.

I simply don't understand this behavior.

 

[salmon256]

 

[JimmyM]

Why are you using AI if you don't trust the outputs? It's a complete waste of resources and time.

I simply don't understand this behavior.

AI always seems to have at least one result in pretty much any search you do on Google, so he might as well ask about it before screwing up his bass.

 

[KidAmnesia]

An SPDT for a passive blend. Sure.

 

[Ben Clarke]

AI always seems to have at least one result in pretty much any search you do on Google, so he might as well ask about it before screwing up his bass.

It seems reasonable to just scroll down past the AI they're trying to shove down our throats, to get to actual humans' experience. Or just ask humans.

I don't see the value of burning insane amounts of electricity and wasting insane amounts of clean water to run AI servers to puke back word salad that still needs to be checked by humans. I think it's lazy, stupid, and gullible to think that such garbage is more useful than not, especially for a simple technical question.

AI results are ubiquitous, as you describe, because Google sees a profit opportunity in doing so. It's not because it's valuable or good.

I think the strategy to deal with the poor quality results is not to use them as a basis to ask questions, but to skip them entirely and talk to humans who actually care about the accuracy and usefulness of their responses.

 

[JimmyM]

It seems reasonable to just scroll down past the AI they're trying to shove down our throats, to get to actual humans' experience. Or just ask humans.

I don't see the value of burning insane amounts of electricity and wasting insane amounts of clean water to run AI servers to puke back word salad that still needs to be checked by humans. I think it's lazy, stupid, and gullible to think that such garbage is more useful than not, especially for a simple technical question.

AI results are ubiquitous, as you describe, because Google sees a profit opportunity in doing so. It's not because it's valuable or good.

I think the strategy to deal with the poor quality results is not to use them as a basis to ask questions, but to skip them entirely and talk to humans who actually care about the accuracy and usefulness of their responses.

Ok, John Connor

 

[Gopherbassist]

View attachment 7272278

What does Kramer do for a living, anyway?

 

[Ben Clarke]

Ok, John Connor

fair enough.

I don't want that role. I'm good with merely being rebel scum.

 

[Stagelab]

Why AI when you have a multitude of attentive FREE expert human bass modders right here?

Because I'm genuinely curious how accurate this AI tool is for this purpose. I've used it for simpler bass repair advice but nothing this complex.