Electronics update:
Despite this build being a pain in my backside, and still looking like crap up close, it’s really comfortable to play, and its inherent voice is deep, full, and quite engrossing. But the original electronics were not quite right. So I’ve been experimenting with different circuits and combinations.
As I wrote in the filter preamp thread the other day:
—
The original circuit was passive, with a selector switch and a 500kOhm master volume. Tone was good. The Nordstrands have an amazingly healthy output. But the overall tone was darker than I wanted.
Then I added a JTEX Distiller after the master volume. More flexibility, some good tones, but still too dark.
Then I replaced the Distiller with a John East BTB-01, a really nice, compact concentric two-band unit with some cool features: the bass control is boost-only, the treble control cuts at a lower frequency than it boosts, and it has a pull Bright for top-end sheen. This is a comfort zone for me, as I have these units in several other basses. Again, plenty of flexibility, but the overall tone was still too dark.
I realized that the passive mixing of the pickups with the selector switch was probably contributing to the dark tone, especially the middle position, where the insertion loss was sucking out a bunch of mids too. So I replaced the selector switch with a Richter MX2 active buffered blend, and replaced the 500kOhm master volume with a 25kOhm unit wired after everything else. Huge difference! Instead of losing mids in the center position, the active blend actually emphasized them, which was quite welcome! And having each pickup routed straight into its own buffer really helped preserve the treble frequencies. I was actually thinking of swapping out the W&W Big Blades for a pair of Clean & Clear, but the buffers made that unnecessary. Now we’re getting somewhere!
After a while I became dissatisfied with the taper of the active blend - it seemed like the middle 80% all sounded essentially the same, with either end sounding different, but either end also had less output than the middle section. Maybe that’s a quirk of the Richter? I don’t know. I don’t really like blend controls anyway.
So the final iteration, and the one that I think is a keeper, is this: the neck pickup is wired directly to the JTEX Distiller, the bridge pickup is wired straight to the East BTB-01, then those outputs go to the selector switch, then to the 25kOhm master volume. Holy Crap! This bass is an absolute beast now! Wiring each pickup straight to a buffer preserves so much high end, the neck pickup with the filter does all kinds of vintage and deep/dub tones, the bridge pickup with the East does all kinds of grindy and full rock tones, and running both together gets me that scooped pseudo-Jazz tone, but with loads of clarity and loads of output, and - this is the cool part - twiddling with the knobs lets me dial in the mids. With the East at a neutral setting, I can sweep the neck pickup through the filter and hear how it combines with the bridge going through the East. Since they’re both buffered, the two signals sum instead of cancel, and the filter emphasizes a certain band of mids - high mids, hi-mid mids, lo-mid mids, low mids, or deep dub lows. It’s a whole ton of fun!
—
So now, despite being a mongrel destined for the fire pit, this little bastard has managed to claw its way to the top of my regular daily players pile. You just never know, do you?
