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Looking for a micro sized blend pot

Chef

Chef

In Memoriam
May 23, 2004
41,814
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Columbia MO
Disclosures
Staff Reviewer; Bass Gear Magazine
#1
I have this new-to-me 1981 G&L L2000-E that's been modified...
The preamp is gone, and it's setup passive like a J-bass; vol/vol/tone.

She's going back to a more stock config, with vol/treb cut/bass cut, micro-switches for coil tap for each pickup in two of the three smaller holes in the control plate.
It would be stock for pickup select to be via another micro switch, but if there's a micro pot that could be used for blend, I'd like that better.

Anyone know if such a thing exists?

2kcu.jpg
 
#5
That linked pot's shaft is spec'd:
Shaft Diameter: 6.32 mm

This would in fact fit the hole in the control plate, if there's room for the potentiometer body in the control cavity.
Hard to tell if it's substantively bigger than the the three position micro-switch used for pickup selection in the bass's stock form.
 
#6
Chef said:
I've seen regular blend pots in 250 and 500...is 250 the right value for my project?
Click to expand...

There's a debate out there about tone, supposedly the 500k sounds brighter.

The link I gave you is for a mono, you want a ganged (stereo) pot for blend... I think Alps makes a mini one. I'll look some more.
 
#9
Brighter is generally ok with me. I can trim with the passive treb cut.
The depth of the one in that second link concerns me though., at least in the one at the left of the three pictured...
 
#10
slightly OT, but have you thought about maybe using a newer (and IMO, better) preamp system, one that uses actual active bass and treble boost/cut controls? i've wired EMG BTS controls into a few G&Ls, and it transforms the bass into a monster!

also, i suspect that you're gonna have a hard time finding a proper M/N balance-blend pot that's any smaller than the typical bournes mini-pot size.

maybe a concentric vol/vol pot, or one of those fancy concentric volume/blend pots to replace the single volume? that would solve the problem of blending the two pickups without having to use a super-tiny pot.

you could also make the bass and treble pots concentric, freeing up the first two spots for proper separate full-size volume/volume or volume/blend arrangements.
 
#11
I don't want it active- I really like the passive tone of my old L1000's.
My goal is to make this like those in terms of control layout, so, replacement preamps are out.

While a stacked vol/vol pot would work, I don't want to alter the looks of it.
If I have to, I'll stick with the micro pup select switch.

Thanks for your thoughts though walter, I appreciate it!
 
#12
barnaclebeau said:
There's a debate out there about tone, supposedly the 500k sounds brighter.

The link I gave you is for a mono, you want a ganged (stereo) pot for blend... I think Alps makes a mini one. I'll look some more.
Click to expand...

A dual ganged pot is not the same as a blend pot. You would not want to use a dual ganged pot in place of a proper blend.

Also, it's 250k and 500k, not 250 and 500.
A 250 or 500 Ohm pot would present way too direct of a load parallel to the signal, and basically short the output.
 
#13
oh, i thought by "stock" you were going to scare up another G&L "boost only" preamp.

do you really find the bass-cut knob useful on a passive bass?

you could make one mini-toggle split both pickups into single-coil, freeing up two little mini-switch spots for your pickup shading. you could then install two little trim-pots, one for each pickup, that just turned each pickup down. it would be a little awkward, and extra volumes can impact the tone unless they're really high resistance (like 1MΩ each) or you wire them just as rheostats, without the grounded tab. the trade-off there is that ungrounded, they won't turn the pickup completely off.

i actually wire my 250k M/N blend pots that way (ungrounded) and they do work fine. you don't hear the "off" pickup at all, even though it still makes some sound if you tap it with a screwdriver or something.
 
#14
also, IIRC, stock was one mini for pickup switching, one for splitting both pickups, and one 3-way to bypass the preamp, kick it in "flat", or kick it in treble-boosted.
 
#15
My plan is:
control knobs volume/treble cut/bass cut, as per stock

coil taps, per pickup, setup like the L1000...this will take two of the three micro switch holes:
dual parallel, single coil (inner coils, most like 60's J placement), series with bass boost or OMG mode
bass cut is very useful for the OMG mode.

I'd like to use the third micro-switch hole for the micro blend pot; but, if that's not possible, I can live with the stock pickup select micro-switch.
 
#16
I understand this; I've had one of these since 1981, and owned many others, and many L1000's.

I should have said I'm moving this back to include some stock concepts or something I reckon...using my plan in the above post, it'll look stock.

Alpha Music? I believe I bought my Thunderfunk from you guys, back in the day...

walterw said:
also, IIRC, stock was one mini for pickup switching, one for splitting both pickups, and one 3-way to bypass the preamp, kick it in "flat", or kick it in treble-boosted.
Click to expand...
 
#18
I want to leave it looking stock.
If I can't get a pot into where the pup selector switch goes, I'll just leave the pup selector mini switch there.

I'm open to reaming the hole bigger.
 
#19
widening the hole and putting a knob on there wouldn't look very "stock", would it? ;)

might as well go with a stacked knob solution if you gotta have shading between the two pickups.
 

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