I HATE Blend Pots!

[ctmullins]

I hate watching videos. What did you not like about it?

 

[kyral210]

I hate watching videos. What did you not like about it?

It sounds like a blanket is over my amp. Nine years later I stand by this assessment as my recent passive blend frankly sucked.

 

[sunbeast]

There’s one video on YouTube of a guy reviewing the ABC. That is me! Past me hated the ABC

Are you sure that piece is the ABC? It’s hard to see clearly from the video, but I’m almost 100% certain that is just the standard passive blend control used for active EMG pickups and NOT the EMG ABC
This is what I see in your vid: (EMG - Potentiometers - 25K BAL Balance/Blend pot - Best Bass Gear)- that control is a 25K passive blend control intended for use with active pickups (that already have built-in buffer preamps) and would behave exactly as you describe (no improvement in blend action, much darkened tone in all settings when used with passive pickups due to unsuitable potentiometer values). The ABC on the other hand has active buffers before each side of the blend control, requires 9V to operate, and in my experience works quite well at both blending and buffering with passive pickups (you’ll actually get brighter tone using the ABC). You can easily tell the ABC as it has SMD opamps and other components populated on the potentiometer side of the circuit board while the standard EMG 25K blend is just a blend pot attached to a circuit board (no additional electronic components)- in your video both sides of the circuitboard appear to be bare as is the case with the EMG 25K passive blend control. The ABC also costs around $75 while the passive EMG blend is around $20.

 

[ctmullins]

Exactly. Buffers make a huge difference.

 

[ctmullins]

I went and watched enough of the beginning of your video to get a good look at the unit.

And, as @sunbeast mentioned - that's not an ABC.

So, "ditto" to everything sunbeast said.

And you should probably amend your video as well to acknowledge such.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I’ve been using these Bourns blend pots with passive single coils with no issues. Maybe my ears aren’t good enough to hear the “problems” with these?

 

[kyral210]

Are you sure that piece is the ABC? It’s hard to see clearly from the video, but I’m almost 100% certain that is just the standard passive blend control used for active EMG pickups and NOT the EMG ABC
This is what I see in your vid: (EMG - Potentiometers - 25K BAL Balance/Blend pot - Best Bass Gear)- that control is a 25K passive blend control intended for use with active pickups (that already have built-in buffer preamps) and would behave exactly as you describe (no improvement in blend action, much darkened tone in all settings when used with passive pickups due to unsuitable potentiometer values). The ABC on the other hand has active buffers before each side of the blend control, requires 9V to operate, and in my experience works quite well at both blending and buffering with passive pickups (you’ll actually get brighter tone using the ABC). You can easily tell the ABC as it has SMD opamps and other components populated on the potentiometer side of the circuit board while the standard EMG 25K blend is just a blend pot attached to a circuit board (no additional electronic components)- in your video both sides of the circuitboard appear to be bare as is the case with the EMG 25K passive blend control. The ABC also costs around $75 while the passive EMG blend is around $20.

It’s nine years ago, so you could be right. My memory is a little hazy, but I’m sure I paid around £65 for it and soldered a battery to it. Also, I got the name and info about it from the purchase I made, I didn’t just make it up.

 

[sunbeast]

It’s nine years ago, so you could be right. My memory is a little hazy, but I’m sure I paid around £65 for it and soldered a battery to it. Also, I got the name and info about it from the purchase I made, I didn’t just make it up.

I’m certainly not accusing you of making it up, but you could have been sold the wrong item. If you look yourself at the item you have in the video vs online pics of an ABC, I think it should be pretty clear that the circuitboard on the item you installed was not populated as the ABC is. Many EMG parts will have attachments for power for routing purposes even when they themselves don’t utilize power, FWIW (it’s easier to solder all the 9V connections to a circuitboard than needing to splice several wires together in the control cavity)