The issue with passive blend is primarily the interaction of all the impedances in the circuit - the pickups and the pots. The pickups impedances interact with each other, and the other stuff in the circuit affects that as well. Keep in mind that a blend pot is basically two volume pots stacked on top of one another, one of which operates backward, and in a typical blend circuit you also have a master volume..... so a typical blend circuit has 3 volume pots where a typical V-V-T only has 2.
Since these impedances all interact in a passive circuit, it's very hard to predict how well a blend will work with a particular set of pickups. If you try it and it's not working well with a 500K blend pot, you can try it with a 1000k or a 250k and see if it gets any better....... I've got two Bartolini equipped Modulus basses with passive blends that work just fine, but I've found some pickups that just don't work well with passive blend no matter what.
I've never tried it, but I would bet that a passive blend wired up with no master volume would work just as well as a V-V-T......... all I ever use a master volume for is to mute the bass when I'm not playing, so maybe wire in a push-pull pot for the tone control, use the switch to cut output........
Also, just using a preamp does not neccessarily mean you're getting an active blend circuit. In fact, almost all preamps are single channel designs where you do all volume control and blending passively, before the signal ever gets to the pre, so they really don't affect "the passive blend problem" at all, for better or for worse. Aguilar, Sadowsky, Seymour Duncan, and most Bartolini preamps are single channel designs.
EMG "systems" - the ones named "BTS", BQS", etc. - have buffered blend circuits (their various items labeled "controls" do not), Audere pres are two channel designs with active blend circuits, Demeter on board pres have active blend, some of the East pres have active blend, some Bartolini circuits have active blend.
(in case you didn't know, "buffered blend" and "active blend" mean the same thing........ the audio signals being mixed together are electronically isolated from each other using buffers)
You can add an active blend circuit in front of your favorite single channel pre if you want - Bartolini makes a few different 2 channel buffer amps that can be used this way.
Back to the original topic - I don't know absolutely, but I'm 99% sure that your 3 wire split-coil Fralins have a hot wire for each coil so you can run each pickup in series or parallel (just like you might do with a P style split coil), plus a common ground. So you basically sort out how you want to run each pickup first, which leaves you with two wires coming from each pickup to feed into the "master" circuit - which you could then also run in series or parallel. Essentially, you could have a series/parallel switch for each individual pickup, plus a series parallel switch for the overall circuit........ maybe more switches than you want to deal with, so you'd most like want to hard-wire each pickups split coils in parallel and just use a series/parallel switch on the outputs of both pickups.
Hopefully that makes sense to you........
Since these impedances all interact in a passive circuit, it's very hard to predict how well a blend will work with a particular set of pickups. If you try it and it's not working well with a 500K blend pot, you can try it with a 1000k or a 250k and see if it gets any better....... I've got two Bartolini equipped Modulus basses with passive blends that work just fine, but I've found some pickups that just don't work well with passive blend no matter what.
I've never tried it, but I would bet that a passive blend wired up with no master volume would work just as well as a V-V-T......... all I ever use a master volume for is to mute the bass when I'm not playing, so maybe wire in a push-pull pot for the tone control, use the switch to cut output........
Also, just using a preamp does not neccessarily mean you're getting an active blend circuit. In fact, almost all preamps are single channel designs where you do all volume control and blending passively, before the signal ever gets to the pre, so they really don't affect "the passive blend problem" at all, for better or for worse. Aguilar, Sadowsky, Seymour Duncan, and most Bartolini preamps are single channel designs.
EMG "systems" - the ones named "BTS", BQS", etc. - have buffered blend circuits (their various items labeled "controls" do not), Audere pres are two channel designs with active blend circuits, Demeter on board pres have active blend, some of the East pres have active blend, some Bartolini circuits have active blend.
(in case you didn't know, "buffered blend" and "active blend" mean the same thing........ the audio signals being mixed together are electronically isolated from each other using buffers)
You can add an active blend circuit in front of your favorite single channel pre if you want - Bartolini makes a few different 2 channel buffer amps that can be used this way.
Back to the original topic - I don't know absolutely, but I'm 99% sure that your 3 wire split-coil Fralins have a hot wire for each coil so you can run each pickup in series or parallel (just like you might do with a P style split coil), plus a common ground. So you basically sort out how you want to run each pickup first, which leaves you with two wires coming from each pickup to feed into the "master" circuit - which you could then also run in series or parallel. Essentially, you could have a series/parallel switch for each individual pickup, plus a series parallel switch for the overall circuit........ maybe more switches than you want to deal with, so you'd most like want to hard-wire each pickups split coils in parallel and just use a series/parallel switch on the outputs of both pickups.
Hopefully that makes sense to you........
