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Any basses without knobs?

#23
lamborghini98 said:
I was once told that Eddie Van Halen played his guitar with like one knob (not none, but close). He said that he started that style of as few knobs as possible, is that true?
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Contrary to what a lot of guitrists believe, EVH while being a great player, actually did not invent/develop any of the styles he is known for. He did POPULARIZE them and expose them to a wider audience. I don't know the histoy of the Electric Strings as well as others, but I'd have to guess that at first they only had volume, and tone controls came later.
 
#26
LOL..that reminds me of the idiot who was selling a Blackbird on eBay who said the toggle was broken because it didn't function in one position.
 
#29
Norwegianwood said:
Cool idea, but I could never use it in a live situation. I got to have the option of soloing the bridge pickup. And don't go there saying all the tone is in the hands. Because it's not.
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If you have good pickups you can get a huge ammount of tone variety from attack and position. Try it sometime. It has taken me a while to really develop my plucking hand.

I get very annoyed when guitarists hold up sessions messing around with knobs and their amp. No one cares, just play and play well.

That said, I had no idea there were so many knobless basses out there. Very cool, as I thought I was the only one.

Would all you tone-picky guys even be bassists back when there were only p-basses strung with flats?
 
#32
I rigged up one of my basses (passive fretless) with toggle switches instead of knobs. The 2 switches turn their respective pickups on/off, which actually gives me a good variety of tones in just 3 simple configurations (neck/bridge/both), and I can flip both switches down to cut the signal completely. Plus, I think the switches look cooler; sorry I don't have any pics of it yet, so I know technically it doesn't really exist. :rollno:
 
#34
Meyekul said:
I rigged up one of my basses (passive fretless) with toggle switches instead of knobs. The 2 switches turn their respective pickups on/off, which actually gives me a good variety of tones in just 3 simple configurations (neck/bridge/both), and I can flip both switches down to cut the signal completely. Plus, I think the switches look cooler; sorry I don't have any pics of it yet, so I know technically it doesn't really exist. :rollno:
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That is exactly what I am thinking doing with my next bass.
Maybe a passive tone with that, but probably not.
 
#35
deathbloomslife said:
Edward only has a tone knob installed on his guitars. As far as I know, that is.


~Ryan
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He uses a single volume control with a knob labled "tone", it's still a volume knob :)

I've thought about taking wiring my P' straight to the jack. I'm still trying to figure out if I actually use it (not something I realy think about much).

~Paul :)
 
#36
Xanaptabil said:
If you have good pickups you can get a huge ammount of tone variety from attack and position. Try it sometime. It has taken me a while to really develop my plucking hand.
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You know, I really think that a lot of bass players could learn from having a really good knobless bass. So many people are spoiled by their onboard active electronics. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

My problem is that my bass isn't really good enough without its knobs, I find that my Jazz sounds best with the neck pickup and tone knobs on 10 and the bridge pickup around 8-9. Maybe I'll try to find a good P-bass or something and de-knob it.
 
#37
Audiophage said:
My problem is that my bass isn't really good enough without its knobs, I find that my Jazz sounds best with the neck pickup and tone knobs on 10 and the bridge pickup around 8-9. Maybe I'll try to find a good P-bass or something and de-knob it.
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Maybe you could solder in a resistor for the bridge pickup. Don't know too much about this... Damned circuits.
 
#38
Audiophage said:
My problem is that my bass isn't really good enough without its knobs, I find that my Jazz sounds best with the neck pickup and tone knobs on 10 and the bridge pickup around 8-9. Maybe I'll try to find a good P-bass or something and de-knob it.
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Why don't you just install the pots on the inside of the control cavity? That way you could still fiddle with them by taking the cover off, but they'd stay in the preset "sweet spot" without having exposed knobs and such. Personally I say it's a best of both worlds kind of thing, assuming you play an instrument that doesn't make you remove the strings to get at the electronics.

-Nate
 
#39
Audiophage said:
You know, I really think that a lot of bass players could learn from having a really good knobless bass. So many people are spoiled by their onboard active electronics. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

My problem is that my bass isn't really good enough without its knobs, I find that my Jazz sounds best with the neck pickup and tone knobs on 10 and the bridge pickup around 8-9. Maybe I'll try to find a good P-bass or something and de-knob it.
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Let's keep this simple; how about no knobs, an output jack wired direct to each pickup (two jacks), two heads (or a stereo preamp (or two mono preamps) & a stereo power amp), and two cabs -- set the volume for each pickup at each amp to get the balance you want.

Isn't that simple???!!!???

:rolleyes:
 
#40
lo-freq said:
Let's keep this simple; how about no knobs, an output jack wired direct to each pickup (two jacks), two heads (or a stereo preamp (or two mono preamps) & a stereo power amp), and two cabs -- set the volume for each pickup at each amp to get the balance you want.

Isn't that simple???!!!???

:rolleyes:
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Yes it is simple and it's what I do - except to seperate amp channels or seperate pres or two channel pre (or single with a single pup). Two pups yield more variation but a single pup that is versatile works just fine - just sounds a lot a like depending on the pup and what you run through. Some pups like a single model J have more sound variation than many pup pairs.

I started out with a wall of basses with active electronics. Think I ran across something on Gary Willis so thought I'd check it out. So I started exploring online about it and it looked promising - the more compenents the more the signal is degraded, etc. Within a month or so I pulled all the onboard pre's, made them into outboards, and about a month later got rid of them all together.

I can't sing and stand right next to the amp so I don't need onboard controls anyway. I get a lot more flexibility from controls outside the bass than I ever did onboard. In running some 75 plus sets of pups, I've found that most pups sound much more alive and raw straight to the pipes. You'd be suprised at how passive an EMG LJ-5 mounted mid position sounds straight to a jack. A few pups actually sound better through preamps and some it doesn't make any distinguishable difference. I didn't find much difference between running through a passive harness and a preamp - so it's jacks only that works for me.
 

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