Ibanez Tone-Lok Pots - who makes pots like them?

[christw]

I want to put a set of pots like the ones Ibanez uses in their pedals. Plan is to put them into a lefty strung righty I have so I can adjust on the fly and not knock my stuff out of whack with my first wild move.

Yes, I want to be able to click them into my bass. Am I asking too much?

 

[christw]

Bump!

 

[christw]

Dangit, no one makes these?

 

[walterw]

a good idea, but i think you've "stumped the band".

 

[StonewallValent]

Barring any other, better ideas, my best guess would be to snatch a few from an ibanez pedal and work it into your bass. Of course, I doubt the values would be what you'd need though.

I did find a data sheet for a similar kind of pot with locking ability.

 

[Swin]

Ibanez don't offer the ToneLok control knobs as service items so your best bet is to buy the cheapest pedal you can find online [maybe a damaged one off ebay???] and salvage those for your project. As the design is owned by Ibanez...you'd be hard to find any others around.

And also, depending on the depth of your bass...they might not go flush into the body cavity either...they do sit quite high so prepare to do some further routing if your body needs it.

 

[christw]

Thanks for the ideas. I figured a broken pedal was my best bet but I was hoping there was a market for this kind of thing. Guess not.

 

[superblues]

Based on what I've seen from dismantling pedals and such, the pots are probably smaller and more fragile than your standard instrument pot. They're probably also have PCB terminals. You'd be VERY surprised at what you see underneath some of those sturdy-looking chrome stomp switches.

Another big question is how do you plan on routing the platform into the top of your bass so that the knob can recess into the top of the bass when you push it into "lock position. In a normal bass, the pot is mounted right on the surface. But with the tone-lock, you'd have to mount the pot on a platform recessed the height of the knob.

I know this is beside the point, but maybe its better to use an external pre-amp and no on-board controls than to try and reinvent the wheel here.

 

[christw]

I wouldnt mind making a mounting bracket. The idea was to install it into the pickguard/control cavity where it exists so I can adjust on the fly and not mess it up.

As for outboards, I still want pickup switching but I can let the tone knob go. Maybe I'll put a small (Jag style) pickup switch in a non obtrusive position and get over it. I think a stereo output and a pickup selection pedal would be the least obtrusive outboard control I can think of and that's just too complicated.

 

[BadCaps]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread (I know it's the most horrible thing a person could ever do), but this thread is one of the first things to come up on Google when searching for "push lock potentiometers". Why start another thread to further muck up the web, when the information can be elaborated on in the original place? (It's no different than writing new notes in old service manuals. Should we instead throw those away and write a whole new book?)
To answer the OP question, both ALPS and Alpha make these potentiometers. It's not a proprietary technology that Ibanez keeps secret. Also, it is not necessary to recess the pots for the lock function to work. Ibanez just did that for cosmetic reasons and to try to be different.
Here is a pic of a typical Ibanez Tone-Lok board:

And here is one of the ALPS pots. It's probably the brand Ibanez used. As you can see, they can be mounted like a standard pot. These can be purchased from larger electronic parts suppliers like Mouser: