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Minimal electronic setup? Only Volume?

Ron Johnson

Ron Johnson

Guest
Nov 19, 2014
579
193
Chicago, IL
#1
I control all tone through the head's preamp and my Vox Stomplab multi effects pedal. I recently fixed up an old fretless bass and rewired/cleaned the electronics since the guy before my did a mediocre job on it. I'm not experienced in electronics setups, I only put new pots, a switch, and wires in place of the old ones exactly as I saw them wired. The bass has a three-way toggle for the jbar and pbass pickups, a volume pot, and a tone pot. I figured I don't ever change the controls, so why leave them there where they can be bumped and changed on accident? My volume is always up, tone all the way down, and toggle in the middle. I control everything with my effects. Is there a simple configuration I can use where it is only perhaps a volume pot and no other controls? If the tone pot were disconnected, would the tone be on bright or dark by default? I prefer it all the way dark. And if the toggle was disconnected would the pickups be perfectly in balance? Also, I control volume with my pedal, so could I just remove the volume knob too and connect an on/off switch for the signal all together? I'm having trouble figuring out what these controls do exactly, because when the bass is hooked up to the amp alone, turning the tone knob or pickup switch makes a noticeable difference, although when it is hooked up to my effects pedal changing the knobs makes no audible difference in tone. That is why I find them unnecessary.
Any tips? Thanks
 
#3
If you leave both pickups 'on', with no blend, then they'll be the same w/o a switch.
I'm not the best w/electronics w/o having to do a little search to verify my thoughts-
first, connect the pickup hot wires,
add the resistive value of your tone and vol pots- get a resistor to equal that,
(connect it to the pickup hot leads),
then wire a capacitor (value of the one on your tone pot) in series with it,
and straight to the jack.
But someone may have a better way of doing that...
 
#4
In reply to adding a capacitor for the tone without a pot, I was thinking to just use a killswitch and nothing else, and just use my effects pedal or preamp to turn the tone down. Would doing this have the same effect as the tone capacitor or not? Also, I thought of perhaps adding a three-way switch that either kills all connection, provides a connection through the regular controls, or a direct connection to the pickups.
 
#5
If you leave the tone control all the way down, then remove the tone control is going to give you the opposite of what you want. You will need to replace your tone pot with a shunt. (In other words, remove the tone pot, and solder the connections that went to its terminals together.)
 
#6
JustForSport said:
If you leave both pickups 'on', with no blend, then they'll be the same w/o a switch.
I'm not the best w/electronics w/o having to do a little search to verify my thoughts-
first, connect the pickup hot wires,
add the resistive value of your tone and vol pots- get a resistor to equal that,
(connect it to the pickup hot leads),
then wire a capacitor (value of the one on your tone pot) in series with it,
and straight to the jack.
But someone may have a better way of doing that...
Click to expand...

This is all wrong. Connect the hot wires from each pickup to the first terminal of the volume pot. Ground the third terminal of the volume pot. Place a capacitor across the first and third terminals of the volume pot. Connect the second terminal of the volume pot to the tip terminal of the output jack. Finally, join all grounds in any way that ensures continuity between them, and connect them to the sleeve terminal of the output jack.
 
#8
JustForSport said:
Ha- knew that'd get some feedback, but he said (I thought) he may not want even a vol pot...
Click to expand...

And in that case, the pickup hots go to the tip terminal of the jack, and all grounds go to the sleeve terminal of the jack. Then, the capacitor goes across the jack.

A killswitch was mentioned, as well. For that, a SPST switch goes across the jack.
 
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#10
JustForSport said:
Then, the prev setup's combined pot values don't factor?
Click to expand...

Whatever you were saying about adding resistances is way off point.
If you want the tone to be the same as having the volume on 10 and tone on 0, you would have a capacitor and resistor parallel to each other. The capacitance would be the same as the current tone control's capacitance, and the resistance would be the same as the current volume pot's resistance. However, the capacitor is removing all the highs, so the resistor is not necessary. You wouldn't be able to hear it's effect.
 
#12
cleary said:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/guitar-wiring-102/

For simplicity, I'd leave the volume out and just use a master kill switch. You might find you need to fill some holes though, so...
Click to expand...

Forgot to mention (but was clarified above), tone would be all the way bright in this configuration.

If you are doing tone control on an outboard device, it's easy to cut brightness there. Cutting it at the bass only to boost it later in the signal chain seems... redundant/ineffective to me.
 
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#13
Ron Johnson said:
In reply to adding a capacitor for the tone without a pot, I was thinking to just use a killswitch and nothing else, and just use my effects pedal or preamp to turn the tone down. Would doing this have the same effect as the tone capacitor or not? Also, I thought of perhaps adding a three-way switch that either kills all connection, provides a connection through the regular controls, or a direct connection to the pickups.
Click to expand...

No, a capacitor's interaction with a pickup coil is something a bit different than the application of EQ to a later part of the signal path. It's harder to replicate the effect with a traditional EQ. That being said, what was it about the tone control that you found appealing? The treble cut, or the way it altered the resonant peak? You can always EQ out treble.
 
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#14
line6man said:
No, a capacitor's interaction with a pickup coil is something a bit different than the application of EQ to a later part of the signal path. It's harder to replicate the effect with a traditional EQ. That being said, what was it about the tone control that you found appealing? The treble cut, or the way it altered the resonant peak? You can always EQ out treble.
Click to expand...
I play fretless and like absolutely no fingerboard or finger noise. I like the tone set all the way dark because of the smooth seamless sound. So if I were to eliminate knobs on my bass and not even have capacitors or resistors, could I acheive that same dark tone by setting the tone on my effects pedal all the way down? Or do I get this extremely dark tone I prefer because both the guitar and pedal are set dark. Does turning down tone on both the guitar and pedal double the darkness or no?
 
#15
Ron Johnson said:
I play fretless and like absolutely no fingerboard or finger noise. I like the tone set all the way dark because of the smooth seamless sound. So if I were to eliminate knobs on my bass and not even have capacitors or resistors, could I acheive that same dark tone by setting the tone on my effects pedal all the way down? Or do I get this extremely dark tone I prefer because both the guitar and pedal are set dark. Does turning down tone on both the guitar and pedal double the darkness or no?
Click to expand...

The "darkness" comes from the capacitor. You can EQ away treble, but the capacitor does affect the resonant peak of the pickup. If you want to know what you are getting into, turn your volume and tone all the way up and then see where outboard EQing takes you.
 
#16
line6man said:
The "darkness" comes from the capacitor. You can EQ away treble, but the capacitor does affect the resonant peak of the pickup. If you want to know what you are getting into, turn your volume and tone all the way up and then see where outboard EQing takes you.
Click to expand...
Thanks, now I think I understand how this works. What I think I'll do is attach another 3-way switch, and the three things it will switch between will be signal through the original knobs, signal straight through the pickups with no knobs, and a killswitch. That way I can use the no-knob option for when I'm hooked up to my own rig where my preamp handles tone, and use the knob option in case I ever connect to another rig or directly to a recording interface, and the killswitch just to shut off the connection.
 

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