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Any basses without knobs?

X

Xanaptabil

Jul 18, 2005
66
1
42
Tempe, AZ
#1
Hey, my name is Ian.

Anyway, do any luthiers make passive basses without knobs? My desire for this began when my Ibanez's pots went bad and I pulled them out. I just sent the pickups straight to the output jack.

1. The tone improved substantially even through a cheap peavey.

2. The bass looks great! It came with these gaudy chrome knobs on it's dark blue body and now it's just sleek as hell.

It's a GSR200 fretless with barts.

So my ideal bass is a soundgear, ebony fretless, dark wood body with natural finish, no knobs, black hardware.

Anything even come close to this? Thanks.

God I hate knobs.
 
#2
Our own Stew McKinsey, 10 strings, no knobs:

BOG-Noho-0067.jpg


and I think any custom luthier would gladly make a passive instrument without tone controls, if that's what the customer wants.
 
#6
I had one once, (it was stolen in Northern California - reward for its return!).

It was custom built, had a semi-hollow body, (ala Rickenbacker), of birdseye maple, 2 F-holes, a maple Fender Jazz bass neck glued solid into the body, (truss rod adjustment at the head), and 2 EMG pickups. When it was stolen, the brown pickups had been replaced with newer black ones. No controls at all, and the battery was replaced through the output jack panel on the bottom, (same place as Rickenbacker).

These are the only images I could find of it, ('also gave up using picks)...

BTW - I currently play a black Rickenbacker 4001.

John
 

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#8
Xanaptabil said:
Dragonetti only needed three strings :)
Click to expand...


From what I know of Stew, I'm sure he could kill just as well on two strings as 10. With the 10, he's got a lot more options, though.

I believe he has other knob-free basses too.


If you're going to go this way, you'd better make sure you're only about 3 feet away from your amp at any one time.

I like having a tone control. I like having different colors for different songs.

Most importantly, most of my basses have a place on the tone knob where they sound great...its usually somewhere in the middle, not at either end. If you get rid of your tone circuitry, you'd eliminate that option.
 
#11
utopia_imminent said:
maybe you would like to have just one pot for volume control
Click to expand...

I would think that would be the one control you wouldn't want... since turning a volume control down on a passive instrument really degrades the tone (in my experience, and hearing many guitarist talk about it.... sorry :eek: . I would go with an 'on/off' switch as the only control if you wanted to go that way... you wouldn't degrade the signal, but would still have the ability to cut the sound on breaks, etc.
 

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