JAZZ BASS PLAYERS--Which Pickup Do You Attenuate?

[dabbler]

Depends on what I'm playing. I mostly use one of the following: neck full on and bridge off, both full on, and neck full on with the bridge rolled back slightly.

BUT in addition to differences in what people want, the relative heights and strengths of the pups affects what you get from the vol knob changes.

Since all of my J's have a series/parallel mod and only one vol control works in the series mode, I adjust the relative pup heights to give me a nice thumpy P kinda tone in series. When I do that, the settings above (in regular parallel mode) do the following:

neck alone - nice jazzy warm almost acoustic tone

both full on - a little more thumpy than the neck and less round, sounds kinda neutral

Neck full, bridge rolled back a bit - there's a point where the tone gets a little scoopy, lots of character!

 

[dubstylee]

I run my Jazz with the neck full on, bridge off, tone @ 10% or off, and it's pure dub city!

 

[G00D+~VIBES]

I read somewhere that the secret to getting the most tone out of a Jazz Bass is to keep both volumes rolled back a bit (ratio depending on tone preference). Ever since I started doing that, my tone became a lot meatier.

I do this too. I saw a chart once that shows how it yields a more balanced response across the spectrum, and like this the tone knob works as a "bass boost-ish" thing.

 

[wittynamehere]

generally neck 85-90%, bridge 60%, tone 50-60% (although I find myself fiddling with the tone knob way too much, it's like I'm channel surfing for that "magic tone" that is prolly in my fingers anyways.)

 

[Valerus]

Both open, but I tend to roll my bridge pickup totally off when i'm playing with my pork loin

 

[Mastermold]

The tone I prefer with my 62 reissue (with concentric knobs) is neck pup 100% and tone 100%, bridge about 75% and tone about 50%, and LaBella flats. Very percussive but still articulate. Sweet.

 

[aborgman]

Both my Jazzes are wire V/B/T, not V/V/T - and I keep the blend centered, so both pickups wide open.

 

[Kwesi]

Most of the jazzes I've played have had either 2 or 3 band EQs with a blend pot (which I prefer) and some had tone controls but most didn't. I alternate between the blend set dead center and going mostly or all bridge pup because they give me a good mix of growl and clarity. I only favor the neck pickup when trying to emulate old skool tones but that's about it.

 

[darkstorm]

This applies to all basses, not just jazz. I seldom just run both pups even. Normal is a small shift to either neck or bridge. With the Traben its most often toward neck. With the Ibanez and most other basses I've owned its more often toward the bridge a little. When Ive had JJ & PP pup basses its varied between the two depending on tha basses woods and pup voicing with its onboard active eq.