Removed the Blend pot from my J

[Mushroo]

let me see if a get this
if i have more pots going trough my signal, more loss of bright and output? even at minimal leves?
that could be the reason that i see many bassist take out the tone control? i have even seen a bass with no volume or tone control and it sounded awesome(and that bass was a cheap peavey)

Hi Therex,

Yes, that is correct--most pots have a slight effect on the sound even if they are turned all the way up. It is a very small difference, though. You can get pots called "no load pots" that are completely bypassed when full up, but they are not the norm.

I have one bass with no volume or tone controls, and it sounds awesome. However, it would probably sound awesome with controls, too. And cheap Peaveys can be awesome basses, there are a lot of fans here on TB!

 

[Cristo]

I just found a good one. AllParts sells a 500K blend with the MN taper. It's perfect in every way. At the center you have around 500K to ground, and only about 100 Ohms to hot. So it's exactly like having two 500K volumes on full.

You have to wire it up the correct way though... if you do it backwards it wont work right.

I just converted one of my basses from two 500K volumes to this blend, and it sounds exactly the same. I did A/B recordings to make sure.

You have to wire it this way. If you swap the output and ground connections it wont work right.

Just to be clear -

You installed THAT specific pot in a Jazz with passive pickups, and it worked correctly:

• No loss of volume at the center position
• Linear blending (25% towards neck pickup=25% neck, 75% bridge tone)
• No other tone loss or anomalies

The webpage just states "audio taper" which leads me to think of the usual log pots which would give you almost no blending until the end of the control travel.

In other words, that pot worked like a blend pot "should" work?

If so...