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P/J Fretless, Antiquity II PUs, Jaco Sound, Wiring Suggestions?

Elvisish

Elvisish

Mar 15, 2005
52
7
#1
I have a P/J fretless bass that I'm switching out the pickups for and I would like to go for the configuration seen here: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I'm going for the Seymour Duncan Antiquity II pickups, with the "Pride" P and the "Jive" J, I'm hoping to aim for a Jaco Pastorius sound but with the flexibility of a P/J setup.

I found a couple of kits that look okay, if I get them to change one of the pots to a blend: Upgrade Wiring Kit for Jazz Bass CTS Split or Solid Shaft Pots O/drop etc.
and here: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Also, would the 250k standard pots be best for a Weather Report-type sound, or is there something that the 500k pots could provide better?
 
#8
Hopkins said:
I think they are just screwing people over by selling it as a kit. I am sure you can get the individual components for much less than that
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I found the same components on eBay for £20, the guy that runs WD is helpful and I trust he'll send what he claims it has. If you can show me these exact components for a drastically cheaper prince individually in the UK, I'll eat my capacitors :D
 
#9
Elvisish said:
I found the same components on eBay for £20, the guy that runs WD is helpful and I trust he'll send what he claims it has. If you can show me these exact components for a drastically cheaper prince individually in the UK, I'll eat my capacitors :D
Click to expand...

£20 is closer to what you should be paying for it
 
#11
Elvisish said:
Cheaper than £20? Can it/should it be done?
Click to expand...
.

I don't usually use CTS pots. I buy Bourns solid shaft mini pots off of Amazon for $2.50 a piece, they are IMHO a better quality pot than the CTS at a lower price. But I don't know if shipping to the UK would make it worth it, or if they will ship over seas at all. I can wire up a quality Jazz control plate for under $15 USD

250k
500k

I buy these capacitors 50 at a time for a little bit of nothing. There is no advantage to spending more money on a tone capacitor.
 
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#13
Hopkins said:
.

I don't usually use CTS pots. I buy Bourns solid shaft mini pots off of Amazon for $2.50 a piece, they are IMHO a better quality pot than the CTS at a lower price. But I don't know if shipping to the UK would make it worth it, or if they will ship over seas at all. I can wire up a quality Jazz control plate for under $15 USD

250k
500k

I buy these capacitors 50 at a time for a little bit of nothing. There is no advantage to spending more money on a tone capacitor.
Click to expand...

Right, this is all stateside, I haven't found uk deals like that.

line6man said:
Why shouldn't it be done?

Vendors in the musical instrument/audio industry like to charge insane prices for inexpensive parts that wouldn't otherwise make them any reasonable profits. If you know where to shop, then you can pay the normal prices for components, and save tons of money.
Click to expand...

Yea but there's always the chance they sell you something worse than you expected.
 
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#14
Elvisish said:
Right, this is all stateside, I haven't found uk deals like that.



Yea but there's always the chance they sell you something worse than you expected.
Click to expand...

It may be worth paying for shipping.

CTS, Bourns, Alpha ect. do not make guitar specific components. A 500k pot in a guitar is no different than any other pot. They are just ridiculously marked up when advertised for guitar. I'm sure there an electronics components supplier in the UK
 
#17
I saw an interesting video up on YouTube recently where they rested a small collection of pots to see how ckose to spec they actually were. Although all were within the advertised tolerance range, what made the video interesting was how the inexpensive Alpha pots were far closer to the 250k spec than the more expensive CTS pots.
 
#18
40Hz said:
I saw an interesting video up on YouTube recently where they rested a small collection of pots to see how ckose to spec they actually were. Although all were within the advertised tolerance range, what made the video interesting was how the inexpensive Alpha pots were far closer to the 250k spec than the more expensive CTS pots.
Click to expand...

Were they rated to the same tolerance?
 
#19
line6man said:
Were they rated to the same tolerance?
Click to expand...

IIRC the CTS were +/- 10% and the Alphas were more than that. The guy doing the video wanted to show that just because the pot had a value of 250K, the actual value could fall on either side of that. So he put a meter on a half dozen pots to demonstrate it. He sounded as surprised as I was when those particular Alphas were significantly closer to the value.

I tend to get CTS out of force of habit. But I've got instruments with Alpha pots and I've never noticed any issues with them compared to a CTS. They work just fine.

I've recently tried out RS Guitarworks SuperPot volume pot. They're made for them by CTS and have a custom taper I actually like quite a bit. At $9.95 each they're expensive for what they are. But I'm more interested in the response and feel than the absolute tolerances generally - so I use them. I can always measure and take the actual resistances into consideration, and then either play with cap value(s) or add a little more resistance to the circuit if I'm in the mood to really fine tune it. But these days I usually don't bother.
 
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