Audio Taper or Linear pots in 1954 Precision Bass?

[Mickzep]

Does anyone know if the Stackpole pots in a '54 Precision bass are linear or audio taper?

 

[LoveThatBass]

Audio for both OR audio for volume and Linear for tone

 

[Mickzep]

Cheers.

Did they all come with a 15k resistor or did some have a capacitor only?

 

[fermata]

Audio for both OR audio for volume and Linear for tone

Other way 'round; a linear taper tone pot bunches the audible effect of the control in the last bit of the rotation; audio taper spreads it across the rotation. Linear taper works great for volume controls.

Did they all come with a 15k resistor or did some have a capacitor only?

According to this fabulous resource http://www.ak-line.com/medium/Bassschaltungen.pdf, it looks like the 15k Ohm resistor was used in 52-53 and dropped in 54.

 

[Mickzep]

If they dropped the resistor in 1954 what did they replace it with?

Cheers

 

[fermata]

Nothing, as you can see in the linked diagrams. A resistor in series with a tone cap damps the resonant peak that normally occurs when the tone control is turned to zero. Sometimes, that resistor makes for a smoother, more pleasant tone, sometimes the resonant peak sounds good; it all depends on the interaction of the elements of the circuit: pickups, pot values, and capacitor value (which only matters when the tone put is turned almost all the way down).

 

[LoveThatBass]

Other way 'round; a linear taper tone pot bunches the audible effect of the control in the last bit of the rotation; audio taper spreads it across the rotation. Linear taper works great for volume controls.

Interesting because a Friend and I tried Linear taper for volume on our G&L SB-2 basses and found we did not like the results.

 

[fermata]

Fair enough. When it comes to volume controls, it's really a matter of taste. But for tone controls, only audio taper works (at least how one expects a typical tone control to work).

 

[walterw]

Interesting because a Friend and I tried Linear taper for volume on our G&L SB-2 basses and found we did not like the results.

what value was it and what didn't you like about it?

because in general, linear volumes are indeed more useful for typical clean bass sounds, they more evenly sweep from full to off while audio volumes have that fast dropoff from 10.

(+1 to @fermata, you want audio tones regardless or everything happens between 0 and 3 on the tone knob)