P bass and 500k pots?

[Mystic Michael]

I also like 500K pots on passive basses. It shifts the resonant frequency of the pickup up slightly, so it sounds brighter. You can roll the tone back a notch to go back to the 250K tone.

What about with active basses? I recall seeing a thread recently about a modification someone had made to the Bart NTMB onboard preamp, swapping out the stock 250k volume and tone pots for 500k pots - thus "curing" it of its allegedly too-dark tone (according to the opinion of some).

Valid?

MM

 

[SGD Lutherie]

What about with active basses? I recall seeing a thread recently about a modification someone had made to the Bart NTMB onboard preamp, swapping out the stock 250k volume and tone pots for 500k pots - thus "curing" it of its allegedly too-dark tone (according to the opinion of some).

Sure, if the volume or pan pot is before the preamp. It's still loading the pickup. Changing the value on the tone pots would probably change their boost amount, or range of adjustment.

 

[Ric5]

Gathering from these 2 comments, is my understanding correct that it's better to use a "brighter" 500K or even 1M pot to allow fuller transfer of signal from the pickups to the amp and cut back the excessive treble using the amp's treble control, rather than using a 250K pot that trims off the signal permanently and prematurely?

Sometimes a 500k or 1000k ohm pot will make your bass sound harsh and cold ... try it with the tone pot first and leave the volume pot as is ... I sometimes used to put 250k ohm volume pots with 500k ohm tone pots on my passive fender style basses ... but these days I am making most of them active. Also sometimes all 250k ohm pots will make a bass too muddy.

 

[jimbilly]

Kind of like Jwymore was saying; you can't assume that all P pickups are the same, one with a 250k might be too dull sounding, and another be plenty bright (like my '76P), plus the personal taste part, -and your amp (lots of variables there). It's a 20 minute job with a $5 part, try a 500k and if you don't like it change it back.

 

[fourteenstrings]

I have a Fender custom shop passive P-bass with Fender P/J pickups and I put in 500K volume pots a while back. The problem I ran across is, yes, there is a lot more high frequency in the tone, but it is not useful. All it does is pump out tons of fret noise, but it doesn't equate to a brighter, more open tone for me. I can't even dial it out with EQ, so I am switching back as soon as my new 250K pots get here.

 

[Swerve]

I have a Peavey Milestone II (basically a Korean Fender P clone) and it has 500k pots. Much brighter and clanky than my US Fender P.

So I keep flats on the Peavey, the pickups relatively low (7/64" bass side - 5/64" treble side), and roll the tone off a bit. Actually sounds really great.