Pot's Choice - Sorry to even bring it up...

[Zeus_Mutation]

HI,

Let me first apologize for the topic…

I'm looking to replace the pots to use with my new pickups. I think I'll try Linear volumes and audio tone. My question is rooted in that its a P/J and I haven't found any info I could understand regarding linear vs audio blending with this setup. I'm looking to achieve the most control possible for blending the pickups. Will Linear volumes still be way to go?

Also, I've no experience with preamps, do they effect only the tone or do they impact blend as well?

Pickups being used are SD SPB-4 P at the neck and SD Basslines QTR PND in the bridge.

Thank you!

 

[BruceWane]

You probably don't want to use linear pots in a passive bass harness. You'll get very uneven response - very little change for most of the rotation, then a whole lot of change in a very small area of rotation.

They won't hurt anything, so you could try them to see how they work for you.

Passive blending is somewhat of a crap shoot - results vary a lot depending on the pickups involved. It's been discussed here a lot. But a lot of people have reported they got the best results using a Bourns M/N blend pot, 250K or 500K, wired up leaving it ungrounded.

Read this thread - http://www.talkbass.com/threads/ungrounded-m-n-blend-and-pot-values.1059681/#post-15600796

 

[line6man]

You probably don't want to use linear pots in a passive bass harness. You'll get very uneven response - very little change for most of the rotation, then a whole lot of change in a very small area of rotation.

You are thinking of audio taper pots, which have jumps in resistance. Linear taper pots are the proper choice for pickup blending, because the resistance range is spread out. You're trying to fine tune the balance of two pickups, not do fade ins/outs. Linear taper pots work very well in basses, as long as they are only used on volume controls.

 

[SamanthaCay]

I find it somewhat intriguing yet also somewhat confusing why you, as well as some others claim linier to work better in regards to volume controls.

I’ve tried it more than a few times, twice on the same p with the same brand and reading of pot, (it sounded bad to begin with so I tried another) once on a jazz and as well on a jazzmaster guitar.

To my ear they were all awful, the audible portion of the taper was less then ¼ on each.
This leads me to believe wonder that maybe “audio taper” (resistance curved for the human ear) perhaps isn’t something that’s very cut and dry and that maybe some of us (such as yourself) have more linier tapered hearing.

To me the best tapers I’ve encountered have always been in low ohms audio taper pots.

Am I the only one who’s wondered about this I wonder???

 

[line6man]

I find it somewhat intriguing yet also somewhat confusing why you, as well as some others claim linier to work better in regards to volume controls.

I’ve tried it more than a few times, twice on the same p with the same brand and reading of pot, (it sounded bad to begin with so I tried another) once on a jazz and as well on a jazzmaster guitar.

To my ear they were all awful, the audible portion of the taper was less then ¼ on each.
This leads me to believe wonder that maybe “audio taper” (resistance curved for the human ear) perhaps isn’t something that’s very cut and dry and that maybe some of us (such as yourself) have more linier tapered hearing.

To me the best tapers I’ve encountered have always been in low ohms audio taper pots.

Am I the only one who’s wondered about this I wonder???

It's a very controversial subject, with experiences all over the place. There is no consensus on what works best, either in theory or in practice. Part of that, however, can be contributed to the variability of tapers. Not all tapers are created the same. In any case, that's why it is best for people to experiment, and find what works best to their ears and application.

 

[walterw]

I’ve tried it more than a few times, twice on the same p with the same brand and reading of pot, (it sounded bad to begin with so I tried another) once on a jazz and as well on a jazzmaster guitar.

To my ear they were all awful, the audible portion of the taper was less then ¼ on each.

To me the best tapers I’ve encountered have always been in low ohms audio taper pots.

interesting; i've found linear volumes to be obviously more even on basses and clean guitars. do you play with a lot of overdrive or compression? those situations lend themselves better to audio volumes.

agreed that lower-value audio volumes are more even than higher-value audios; 250k audio volumes don't jump near "10" as much as a 500k audio volumes, and 1M audio volumes act like on-off switches.

linear volumes are without a doubt easier to blend two pickups with, as audios put the fastest part of their sweep right where the balance is most sensitive to any change, just off of full-up.

 

[khutch]

The volume control on a P bass really is just a volume control and I am not surprised that audio tapers work best for that. The volume controls on two pickup passive basses are wired backwards of a normal volume control, which may or may not have any bearing on this discussion, but more importantly they are not really used primarily as volume controls. Their primary purpose in a Jazz bass is to blend the two pickup signals. For that you want a control that changes gradually near full volume so you can get subtle blend settings and then rapidly near zero so you can just turn that pickup off. As compared to an audio taper (which changes evenly through its entire range in theory) the linear taper does exactly what you want. Or if not exactly what you want, exactly what a lot of other people want! There is no right or wrong answer, it is a matter of personal preference as much as physics.

 

[Zeus_Mutation]

This subject has been difficult for me to grasp.
I figured best to try both. That way I can see what I prefer. On a P-bass I've got the standard Fender 250 vintage pots. So straight forward, feels like a great base point. I've finally purchased a P/J and thought, since I'm adding new pickups, why not try new pots. Especially because I want to see if blending these two pickups will be what I want? Maybe I'm just a P guy at heart, maybe I'll use them individually?

Then I started reading about preamps and now my mind is all messed up… add info about a ToneStyler and I'm officially blown! It has me saying just get something basic and be done with it. Oh, and the bridge pup is a SD Hot Stack, not a Qtr Pndr.

Thanks everyone!!

 

[SamanthaCay]

do you play with a lot of overdrive or compression?

Well I do tend to lean towards having a tad bit of overdrive, but not much, certainly not enough that there ends up being any discernible difference other then highlighting the highs a tad.
Although that's only on fretless and fretted with rounds, I also have a p with flats that is set as clean as possible.
No compression though, aside from what comes naturally.

 

[walterw]

then i'm scratching my head here, because the difference with every bass i've tried it on is obvious, and obviously in favor of linear volumes if you want even level changes from full-up to off.

do you tend to run all the volumes below "10"? that's an old jazz bass trick to keep the (audio) volumes out of that last jumpy part of their taper, at the cost of output.

 

[Frozen J]

I'm pro pot!

 

[SamanthaCay]

then i'm scratching my head here, because the difference with every bass i've tried it on is obvious, and obviously in favor of linear volumes if you want even level changes from full-up to off.

do you tend to run all the volumes below "10"? that's an old jazz bass trick to keep the (audio) volumes out of that last jumpy part of their taper, at the cost of output.

Nope, and being that I've as well literally played/worked on hundreds of basses most with audio pots presumably, and generally don't have problems with their tapers I'd imagine that this is probably a difference from one human ear to the other.

I may be wrong but I bet if we could study the audio curve of a significant pool of people we'd probably see that there are many variance's in the curve from one to another.

 

[walterw]

Nope, and being that I've as well literally played/worked on hundreds of basses most with audio pots presumably...

me too, but i will say that i see many if not most newer import basses with active stuff (schecter, LTD, things like that) actually coming with linear volumes!

these work just fine too, although having the preamp eliminate all the cable loading does change things a little; it seems to make audios a little more "linear", less of a big drop off of "10".

 

[JimmyThunder]

I bet most people keep their knobs on 10 or 0 and never know audio-vs-linear even exists.