Pots...am I too anal, orrr.......

[mmbongo]

Already got them in

I've used nothing but audio tapers for years.

 

[walterw]

try linears; you'll find they work much more evenly for volumes on a bass.

 

[4848277]

For volume, audio taper.

+1

The human ear responds to sound pressure logarithmically.

Cheers!

 

[calebbarton]

So ......

Nice: its up to you ultimately. You can choose whatever value pot you like and it will sound as good as you decide it will. To some, it likely wont make a difference. To you, it may. Choose the best value for your ears.

Mean: Just make a freaking decision already.

Indifferent: I don't care which pot you use.

 

[walterw]

The human ear responds to sound pressure logarithmically.

true, but we don't plug basses into our ears, we plug them into clean full-range bass amps.

linear tapers will evenly sweep from "0" to "10", while audio tapers (especially higher-resistance ones like 500ks) will stay quiet as we turn them up from "0", then have a big volume jump just before "10".

this is not theory or conjecture, this is what actually happens.

 

[mmbongo]

I like audio tapers because normally when I use both pickups of a 2 pickup bass, I like to roll the neck volume down a bit. With audio tapers, I just barely have to roll the pot.

 

[4848277]

I like audio tapers because normally when I use both pickups of a 2 pickup bass, I like to roll the neck volume down a bit. With audio tapers, I just barely have to roll the pot.

Yes. I've discovered this too with the dual volume mod I made to my G&L Tribute L-2000 recently.

 

[walterw]

that makes sense, but most folks complain that they get too much drop with just a nudge of the audio volume;

with 2-pickup basses, it's harder to get the blend just right, with the knob acting like an on-off switch. with linears, you can control the balance more easily, especially when looking for the "sweet spot" where the neck just starts to yield to the bridge.

 

[Passinwind]

that makes sense, but most folks complain that they get too much drop with just a nudge of the audio volume;

with 2-pickup basses, it's harder to get the blend just right, with the knob acting like an on-off switch. with linears, you can control the balance more easily, especially when looking for the "sweet spot" where the neck just starts to yield to the bridge.

I do lots of volume swells, especially playing slide bass. No linear pots for me, thanks.

 

[walterw]

I do lots of volume swells, especially playing slide bass. No linear pots for me, thanks.

are you using a bit of compression and/or overdrive, more like guitar amp style?

'cause i gotta have audio taper volumes for my guitars, where i want to control the amount of overdrive with the volume, or yes, do swells.

but for mixing two pickups or for regular level control on a normal clean bass rig, linears just work more evenly.

 

[Passinwind]

are you using a bit of compression and/or overdrive, more like guitar amp style?

Yep, tonnes of distortion at times.

My final solution was just to add a master volume in my slide bass, but I still prefer log pots for the individual pickups too. Probably just from35 years of it being that way...

 

[walterw]

Yep, tonnes of distortion at times.

My final solution was just to add a master volume in my slide bass.

there it is, then.

with overdrive, linear volumes "jump" from zero, and don't do much near 10. (not so good for rock guitars.)

clean, audios don't do much from zero, and jump near "10". (not so good for "regular" basses.)

for even response, you want linear volumes for clean rigs and audio volumes for compressed/crunchy rigs.

also, with two-volume basses, linears make it a lot easier to find and control that subtle blend, since you don't have the "jumpiest" part of the pot right at the "touchiest" point of the balance, when you just begin to turn one volume down.

 

[Passinwind]

there it is, then.

with overdrive, linear volumes "jump" from zero, and don't do much near 10. (not so good for rock guitars.)

clean, audios don't do much from zero, and jump near "10". (not so good for "regular" basses.)

for even response, you want linear volumes for clean rigs and audio volumes for compressed/crunchy rigs.

Even response? "Regular" basses? I know nothing!

As I so often seem to end up saying, just depends...

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

true, but we don't plug basses into our ears, we plug them into clean full-range bass amps.

linear tapers will evenly sweep from "0" to "10", while audio tapers (especially higher-resistance ones like 500ks) will stay quiet as we turn them up from "0", then have a big volume jump just before "10".

this is not theory or conjecture, this is what actually happens.

We plug into amplifiers, which amplify the signal and produce sound from speakers. The conversion of electrical power to what we hear, isn't linear

(as someone who uses log pots for audio and has never had an issue, linear pots on the other hand . . .)

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Yeah, that's both anal and anoying!

That would be "annoying" because misspelling annoying is annoying.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

+1

The human ear responds to sound pressure logarithmically.

Cheers!

That doesn't work if you are mixing two pickups. Also, audio taper is for getting smooth fades, which we aren't doing.

Linear tapers work better on Jazz bass type setups. Audio taper is good for a master volume or when you use a pan pot.

Also, log taper pots are generally not log taper. They are an approximation by using two or more linear taper elements.

Another thing to watch for is the taper rate. Some work better than others.

 

[4848277]

It's appalling how some people want to argue FACTS and show-boat in these forums. I'm NOT here to argue.

You won't be provoking any further responses from me in this thread, and please don't follow me around to other threads with your argumentative tendencies. You know who you are.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

this is not theory or conjecture, this is what actually happens.

People like to state that things are fact, because they read it somewhere, and don't realize that theory and practice don't always line up due to unstated variables. We all know why log taper pots were invented, but in actual practice they are often better used as faders so you can get a smooth fade.

The thing people are forgetting about when using audio taper pots when mixing two pickups is the interaction of the pickups due to loading, etc. That exaggerates the mixing issues. With linear taper you know when you turn the pot half way down, that you have reduced its signal by half. Yes, that might sound like more than half due to our hearing, but we are talking about mixing two signals, not the over all level.

You and I know what works because we have done it many times, but that's not stating facts I guess. You read time and time again that people complain their volume pots jumps at 9 and below that theres nothing usable. If log taper pots worked better in pickup mixing situations than people wouldn't be finding an issue.

 

[khutch]

true, but we don't plug basses into our ears, we plug them into clean full-range bass amps.

linear tapers will evenly sweep from "0" to "10", while audio tapers (especially higher-resistance ones like 500ks) will stay quiet as we turn them up from "0", then have a big volume jump just before "10".

this is not theory or conjecture, this is what actually happens.

The amp just makes a bigger copy of what went into it, especially if it is clean and full range. The amp has no effect on what kind of pot you use.

The human ear is not really logarithmic, at the time human hearing was first being studied in any detail logarithms were a relatively new invention and the human aural response was force fit to the trendy new mathematical tool in research results. Its a minor point though, the human response is a power series but close enough to logarithmic for most practical purposes.

An audio taper pot is supposed to give you a linear perceived volume change with the rotation of the pot shaft. That is the one and only reason they were invented even though after the fact they may also have found some use in certain test instrument applications. Because of the human ear's response curve a linear pot will not do that. A proper log taper pot will do that. If your audio taper pot does not do that then you have a really bad audio taper pot or more likely you wired it in backwards.

You don't necessarily want an audio taper for any application except a volume control. For example in a V/V/T setup the V pots are both volume and blend controls so should they be linear or log? Reasonable people may disagree on that. I don't know that there is any advantage to a log pot on a tone control.

Ken

 

[khutch]

So, what would you use? Matched pots, or higher value non-matched pots?

I sometimes design integrated circuits. The resistor values available on an IC often vary by as much as 30% from lot to lot but on a single chip they often match each other within a few tenths of a percent. So analog IC design techniques are predicated on the use of matched and balanced circuits. Perhaps that biases me too much towards the matched pots but even in normal life a matched set often has an advantage.

The difference between your pots is not a few Ohms as someone said (and I am sure they know better if they take the time to think about it), it is 55k Ohms from highest to lowest. Even that is only ~10% so for things like pickup loading and its effect on tone that is a fairly minor difference. You made a much bigger change by going from 250k to 500k. However if you want both matched pots and higher value you could put 56k fixed resistors in series with the two matching pots. Yeah, you would suffer some slight volume loss (0.9dB) at max volume and yeah, the volume curve could get a little funky at the low end but how often do you run near zero volume? I'm not sure you gain enough brightness to bother but it is something you could try if you wanted.

Its fun to be anal once in a while and occasionally it actually makes a difference....

Ken