Putting my bass on steroids

[Jazz Ad]

IMHE, insulting others, namedropping, shouting out your resume and similar variants of flexing your internet muscles never improved one's bass tone.
I suggest for OP to stay away from this, bring your bass to a luthier and get a pro setup with fresh strings. Best improvement you can get without resorting to heavier modding.
Now to really put it on steroids, use outboard effects. This way they will still be of use when you cange instrument. A SansAmp for example it a good way to dope your bass.

 

[WyreAndWood]

Try it yourself. Do you need everyone to hold your hand when you try new things out?
And fer gawdsake: Read the damn post!

Enuff. I've had my say. Tally-Ho…

 

[Hopkins]

Well ya see,that's where we,I guess,will always disagree. And bonus points for at least acknowledging that you have tried.
The first thing I will always go to and change in most guitars I get,is open it up and drop in quality CTS log pots and upgrade the pubic hair thin wiring to a lower gauge spec wire. if it's needed(and todays guitars,even CS usually do).
Does the wire make more of a difference than the pot upgrade to me? Yes.
Most pots today are usually linear on both vol. & tone.
I prefer log on both. I prefer a gradual(perceived-lets not open another can of worms) taper to blend.

Now,for some of the posters to come in and attempt to p*ss on my 30+ years of knowledge with their holistic point of view will always get my back up,especially when their ignorance is bleedingly obvious.

Accept that there are always 2 ways for all and they are not always right nor wrong.
Now…move along.

Try it yourself. Do you need everyone to hold your hand when you try new things out?
And fer gawdsake: Read the damn post!

Enuff. I've had my say. Tally-Ho…

Dude, every post I have seen from you has been rude and uncalled for. Whats worse is you obviously have no idea what you are even talking about. About your 30 years experience forgive me if I don't believe an ounce of it. First of all, there is very little current passing through the wires in a guitar, switching from 22 or 24 awg wire to a bigger gauge will do absolutely nothing as far as tone. All it will do is make your control cavity more crowded. If you think that a pot and wire upgrade will make a bigger difference than a pickup swap, then you are the one whose "ignorance is bleedingly obvious". This whole thing you are doing, joining this forum and trying to kick the door down, insulting the knowledge of everyone on this forum when you have no clue really makes you look pretty sad.

 

[gip111]

Speaking of the pots and caps, there's an easy free way to find out if they're worth replacing. I'd say bypass them and connect the pick up right to the jack and see how that sounds. I have found on cheap bass guitars this simple mod opens up the sound, on some more than others and this will let you know if you need to replace electronics.

 

[Ric5]

I don't think pots or cap make a lick of difference unless you change the pots' impedance or the cap's value. They will last longer, but tonally, I've not been impressed by any "upgrades" to pots and caps.

Cheap pots can sound dull ...

Some bridges can make strings sound more dead ...

A cheap bass can be fun to upgrade ... It is good experience for working on basses in the future.

 

[Nev375]

Cheap pots can sound dull ...

What do you mean by dull? Scratchy? Not working?

Because nowhere in any electronics book has a formula for frequency response in a tone circuit included anything other than capacitance and resistance.

--Sorry, most of my frustration is directed toward mr "TallyHo" up there. But seeing pots brought up again as a solution for tone improvement made me snap.

That's like replacing a substandard driveshaft on a car to make it go faster. It might be a good thing to upgrade, but speed is not what you are gaining. You gain less likelyhood for disaster.

 

[kucor]

talking about quality pots that would possibly make some difference, CTS aren't even close to one. that pot would cost $50 or more.. CTS is low end pot build to last long time, nothing more, It "sounds" same as cheaper Alpha pots we found in Squiers..

 

[Hopkins]

Glass jaws.
1. I made a post I thought would help.
2. Another anklebiter comes out snapping and foaming at the mouth calling my post rubbish.
3. I in turn retaliate.
4. The girls wet their panties at my post,yet still fail to read what and why I posted what I did.
5. Now almost everytime I post,the dogsquad come out yipping and yapping.

Opinions I have. Arseholes I see.
Sorry to the OP for the stink I inadvertently created,but the flies just won't leave it be

I've given reasons as to why you are wrong, you have given no reason as to why you may be right. So explain to me how using a using a larger gauge wire is going to help when we are dealing with a current no more than a few millivolts. Explain to me how a CTS pot will sound different than an Alpha pot if they are both reading the same resistance across the terminals. I'll hold my breath.

 

[Ric5]

What do you mean by dull? Scratchy? Not working?

I usually buy pots from stewmac or carvin. No problems with either. But I bought some mini 250k ohm pots from another site and I wired up a jazz bass. It had less life and treble response than I expected. I changed out the pots and it sounded better. Maybe it was the cheap pot? maybe a bad solder job? Except I soldered it both times. I think it was the pot.

There are some people who have claimed they can hear the difference between cheap capacitors and expensive capacitors. I have never noticed a difference there.

 

[Thor]

It's actually the pigs, not the dog squad. Subbed.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

Before bridge, think about electronics other than pups, pots, capacitors, or basically, wiring harness.
This is one of the places where price point makers save money.
IMHO, this is at least as important as the pups. You cram a good pup signal through crap, it will come out sounding like crap. So I would do changes in this order:

1. wiring harness
2. pups
3. strings

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

Replacing the pots, caps and wiring will make NO audible difference if you replace things with the stock values.

Changing out with stock parts, yes, but if you replace with optimum (gofast) parts, you definitely will get a better sound. It will probably also be a hotter signal which will give you better sound.

 

[Hopkins]

Changing out with stock parts, yes, but if you replace with optimum (gofast) parts, you definitely will get a better sound. It will probably also be a hotter signal which will give you better sound.

Resistance is resistance. If a cheap $0.12 pot reads 250k ohms on a meter, and the most expensive pot you can find reads the same resistance there will be absolutely zero difference in tone, or output. The sweep may be slightly different, so volume levels, or more or less high end can be bled off through the cap with both pots at the same position, but if you set them to the same resistance, even if they are at different parts of the sweep, they will sound exactly the same. This is a fact. Quality in pots comes from longer life, and consistency in how close they are to the advertised value. It has nothing at all to do with the tone.

 

[WyreAndWood]

It's actually the pigs, not the dog squad. Subbed.

Funny you say that,pigboy.
To quote another George:
"All pigs are equal,
Except some are more equal than others."
I'm sure even you can see the irony in that.

No. I still say annoying,yappy little ankle biters.


* look. I'm not going to educate those who have obviously never even held a soldering iron,let alone popped the lid and done any work inside their guitar/amp/fx etc.
I have. And as I keep repeating,before the bleeding know-alls came jumping on me and as now 2 other informed posters have confirmed,upgrading from budget pots to CTS/Bournes will be better and cheaper than buying again budget after market items such as GFS pups. FFS! Save the extra $20 and get a SD or DM. Really…
Wiring I won't argue the toss over because if I'm changing pots,as I suggested on a budget gtr I would go *ahem* the whole hog and do the complete damned harness + jack.

But for all of you who came down on me for whatever agenda I know not,just do as said prior:
Try it yourself! As it is you who come across as the fool. Not I. It is quite plain to me that you have never even held an iron in your life. Correct? Ok then.

Much love to all…

 

[Hopkins]

Funny you say that,pigboy.
To quote another George:
"All pigs are equal,
Except some are more equal than others."
I'm sure even you can see the irony in that.

No. I still say annoying,yappy little ankle biters.


Much love to all…

I can't wait till you get banned. You are neither helpful or correct, and you post very arrogant comments, now you are addressing them to mods, who do a very good job keeping this forum civil.

 

[Ragoo]

Needs more popcorn.

 

[WyreAndWood]

* I was right,weren't I.
You've never held a soldering iron and know squat.
Oh! And I didn't need to hold my breath for that

 

[Hopkins]

But for all of you who came down on me for whatever agenda I know not,just do as said prior:
Try it yourself! As it is you who come across as the fool. Not I. It is quite plain to me that you have never even held an iron in your life. Correct? Ok then.

Nope, I don't even know what a soldering iron looks like. I have managed to own a small business where I do everything from set ups to custom builds, not to mention putting together a few fx pedals, all without ever touching a soldering iron

 

[rujulian]

I put a babicz full contact bridge on a squier jaguar bass...very satisfied with the results..

 

[lowfreqgeek]

* look. I'm not going to educate those who have obviously never even held a soldering iron,let alone popped the lid and done any work inside their guitar/amp/fx etc.
I have. And as I keep repeating,before the bleeding know-alls came jumping on me and as now 2 other informed posters have confirmed,upgrading from budget pots to CTS/Bournes will be better and cheaper than buying again budget after market items such as GFS pups. FFS! Save the extra $20 and get a SD or DM. Really…
Wiring I won't argue the toss over because if I'm changing pots,as I suggested on a budget gtr I would go *ahem* the whole hog and do the complete damned harness + jack.

Well, as an educated electronics engineer with 15 years professional experience designing and building electronics on a nearly daily basis (including MANY bass wiring jobs), my professional opinion is that you don't know what you're talking about.

Unless there's something *wrong* with the OEM pot and wiring harness (entirely possible), changing them out won't "improve" the sound. There may be other reasons to change them out - such as for consistent feel, longevity, etc. - but sound isn't one of them, assuming they are not defective to begin with.