• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Stoner/DOOM Bassists thread part 37: Ancient Alien Fuzz

But wouldnt this defeat the purpose, since the signal would clip/overload at one of those bottlenecks, and negatively affect/flatten/compress your base tone? God conversing with us laypeople must be tiring for you engineer types :D

Not exactly, its a conversion more so than a bottle neck if i understand correctly. I'm not an engineer, nor really an engineer type, I've just been messing with pedals, guitars and sound recording for so long that i've picked up on alot of the basic principles and their applied usage.
 
to add on to skips thing. the impedance is more relevant when you discuss the output impedance of the source and the input impedance of the sink (think pedal or amp) if the input impedance of the pedal/amp is very very high say >10M its almost irrelevant what the output impedance of the source is since most sources are much much lower output impdance like a guitar or bass or pedal so there is not loading effects or changes due to impedance difference.
 
you could try wiring the pups to the volume jack. Might causes a lot of loading on the pups themselves. Assuming a 50k volume pot that like 10 times less resistance than a normal 500k volume put in a guitar or something which would really dump down the high end a ton.
 
Wiring the pickup to the volume pot then to a jack sounds so much more simple that all of this...KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid

The customer service at Sterling by Musicman kindly (and quickly!) emailed me the schematic of the electronics on the Ray35. After staring at it for about 2 hours and filling a notepad with sketchy drawings, I've decided to keep it even simpler and go straight pickup -> output jack.

I do know from doing some guitars and basses that the impedance of the pots has an effect on output and tone, and that generally active setups use different impedance than passive, so wiring up the current volume pot in passive would be an inaccurate test. And really I want to know exactly what the pickup sounds passively with no other variables, so taking it straight to the jack makes sense.

edit: Nick you beat me to it on the vol pot post.
 
Just be aware toast that it will have more high end wiring it pickup to output jack, so once you put a volume pot in there you will lose some high end. How much you lose depends on the value of pot you choose: 1meg = minimal roll off, 500k = moderate roll off (used on humbuckers usually), 250k = most roll off (usually used on single pickup guitars, and p-basses / j-basses). Since its a humbucker pickup I would probably recommend going with a 500k pot if you decide to wire it passive.

Maybe you could add a toggle and a volume pot, send the pickup to the toggle, one out to the active preamp, the other to the passive volume pot and then send both to the output jack. Would probably require some wood routing though to mount the extra pot.
 
Just be aware toast that it will have more high end wiring it pickup to output jack, so once you put a volume pot in there you will lose some high end. How much you lose depends on the value of pot you choose: 1meg = minimal roll off, 500k = moderate roll off (used on humbuckers usually), 250k = most roll off (usually used on single pickup guitars, and p-basses / j-basses). Since its a humbucker pickup I would probably recommend going with a 500k pot if you decide to wire it passive.

Maybe you could add a toggle and a volume pot, send the pickup to the toggle, one out to the active preamp, the other to the passive volume pot and then send both to the output jack. Would probably require some wood routing though to mount the extra pot.

Yeah I'm considering that, but the humbucker has separate leads for each coil, so it appears 2 active leads and 2 grounds, all going to the switch. If I wanted to keep the coil switching ability then that toggle would be a bit more complicated. Going to try it wide open pickup to jack initially and go from there.

Sort of my whole concept here is to simplify my on-board bass controls and shape tone through pedals, hoping the Grey Stache is versatile enough to handle the extra high end. Since its totally different than the "zing" coming from the pre-amp I'm optimistic.
 
Yeah I'm considering that, but the humbucker has separate leads for each coil, so it appears 2 active leads and 2 grounds, all going to the switch. If I wanted to keep the coil switching ability then that toggle would be a bit more complicated. Going to try it wide open pickup to jack initially and go from there.

Sort of my whole concept here is to simplify my on-board bass controls and shape tone through pedals, hoping the Grey Stache is versatile enough to handle the extra high end. Since its totally different than the "zing" coming from the pre-amp I'm optimistic.

Ahhhhhh i gotcha, you could also try wiring it in series to the output jack and parallel to the output jack if its got 4 leads. Just for the sake of variety. I totally understand the simplicity idea, its exactly why i love P-Basses.

Holy crap. Wake me back up when we stop talking about physics and are talking about smoking weed in churches again.

Will do. :D
 
nerds.jpg