To knob or not to knob?

[BOOG]

Hey everyone! Hope the pandemic isn't too harsh on all of you

There has been something brewing in my head for a little bit, brought on by my own Jackson CBX V.

I've been looking at her, playing and thinking to myself "All these knobs on the body, I don't need those."

My bass has a a very typical set of knobs such as volume/tone/high/mid/bass and the more I see them, the more I realize how of little use they are to me. The only one I use is the tone to roll it off a bit because it makes the sound a bit more punchy to my ears,
otherwise all I use is the amp knobs.

I do understand that this might be different if you're on a stage but come on, I've never even played her outside of the apartment, let alone any stages.

Suddenly all these classical fender Ps and Js look way more inticing, which I find really funny because when I started playing bass I absolutely hated the look of fenders, I thought they looked "generic".

But, alas... The more my playstyle and outlook on bass playing evolves the more I start to realize what I like/dislike about different instruments and my taste is evolving, accordingly.

A year ago the thought of owning a fender was so bad it felt almost insulting and now I start thinking to myself "... what if I owned one?".

Slippery slope.

What do you make out of it? Do knobs on basses annoy you, do you use them, do you care?

Thanks

Thank you for taking time to genuinely share an honest, self assessment. It’s refreshing.

There is beauty in the simplicity of the classics.

 

[Horseflesh]

I only have one bass and I don't know what "my tone" is yet so I want a lot of flexibility. Being new to the instrument, playing around is fun. Gimme all the knobs and then some.

 

[SgtHulka]

Who needs knobs at all? Are you a man or a mouse!? Wire directly to the output jack and use only your amp as God intended!

 

[dennis james]

Simplicity in both basses and amps is a beautiful thing.

 

[dkelley]

Here they are.View attachment 4174593
And the next one will be same.View attachment 4174595

Ok, that's officially the prettiest and most clever fretless bass I've ever seen!

 

[arbiterusa]

What do you make out of it? Do knobs on basses annoy you, do you use them, do you care?

They bother me immensely from an aesthetic viewpoint. I also don’t use them. That being said, you don’t get much choice on most non-Fender basses these days, you’re getting five knobs minimum like it or not.

 

[drumvsbass]

It's a natural path. Complexity to simplicity. Another reason why every bassist should start with a Pbass.
Here's a thought that I used to like floating when I was working music retail...
Guitarists are so into tone, yet hardly any guitars have active EQ. There are a few, but so few and not in the same way that bassists have, and most guitar amps have a only a 3 band eq, a gain and a volume. Bassists who are so into tone have 4 band sweepable parametric EQ's with HP and LP filters on their instruments and amps that have 12 band graphic eqs, a compressor and a limiter etc...
Of course there are bassist tone monsters that are using passive instruments, but where then is 'THEIR' tone coming from? Fingers, pickups, and tone knobs?
In the end, active EQ on an instrument is just more EQ. If you need it, it's there, if not ignore it. I could count on one hand the number of times I have ever touched the mid knob on my Zon. But I am grateful for the treble knob to comb back the hair, and the bass knob to destroy PA subwoofers. I only ever miss the bass knob when I am on a passive P.

 

[JW56789]

After years of playing active basses and a couple Alembics (knobs ! knobs !), several years ago I bought my first Precision Bass, a Squier P5.

It was really, really strange at first, ONE pickup and TWO knobs, a real cut-back for me. Over time, I came to appreciate the simplicity and the 'rightness', if you will. I dig it now, but it was a real adjustment, and now it just seems magical, and reminds me once again just how much tone is in your hands.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

All those knobs give me a headache in the same way that Chase Bliss pedals do. Anymore than 3 knobs requires an explanation, in my book. At some point you have to stop "tone sculpting" (aka - trying to figure out why your sound is not quite "epic") and just PLAY SOMETHING.

 

[BlueTalon]

My first real bass was a black Rickenbacker. After playing it for a year or so, I realized I never used the tone controls or the pickup selector, so I replaced the white pickguard with a black one I made, using only the two volume controls and replacing the pickup selector with a phase switch (it seemed like a good idea at the time.) I never used the phase switch, and decided I could control my volume at the amp, so my second pickguard had no controls at all on it. That was was textured blue acrylic with a mirror backing, and looked cool as anything.

Sadly, that bass was stolen.

 

[Hevy T]

No knobs!View attachment 4173646

Hi Robin

 

[NoiseNinja]

Personally I got just one single Model P, P pickup, installed in my main, which otherwise is a P/J bass, wired directly to the output jack socket, with 2 out of the original 3 pots still sitting there, equipped with, to me, aesthetically pleasing knobs, with a purely cosmetic function, the hole from the original 3rd pot I've used to install a regular front mounted output jack socket, to replace the stock side mounted barrel type one.

I do however ponder on perhaps installing a J pickup as well, in which case I plan to add a volume and tone pot, exclusively controlling the J pickup.

Cause in my experience volume and tone controls can indeed be useful, depends though, on the quality and taper of the pots, the pickup configuration and individual pickups of the specific bass, and in general the rest of your setup and settings, and of course not least the application and context of it all.

Do be aware though that while the output of /a pickup/s wired directly to the output jack socket will increase ever so slightly the tone it/they produce/s in addition will become a bit brighter as well, compared to it/them being in a circuit with volume and tone pots, that is of course unless you counter for that by implementing a fixed resistor equal to the combined max value of the pots the pickup/s originally was wired to.

 

[Alper Yilmaz]

My custom-made basses (two Foderas and one of the Erkan Sizarlars) have no control on the body. These three basses have preamps in their cavities (Foderas have Foderas, and Erkan Sizarlar has one by Audere) with trimpot tone controls and volumes maxed). I set them first time I played them and that's it. I used to have a Fodera Matt Garrison with all the controls which only collected dust.

I do not touch the controls on my '73 Jazz Bass either, but do not want to change it to a controls-in-the-cavity design just for the sake of authenticity. I play around with my Precision's passive tone control depending on the context. The Precision in my go-to bass mostly when I play in other people's projects (jazz or rock), particularly in the studio, and therefore, depending on the tonal requirement the passive tone control comes handy...

What do you make out of it? Do knobs on basses annoy you, do you use them, do you care?

 

[lbbc]

After having several basses with several knobs and switches (all wonderful basses)....I am back to a passive pj bass with simple controls.

 

[castlev]

I'm a guitar player first, bass player second, so I have it in my head to keep the eq flat for active, or full up for passive. Also I go full on neck, or bridge, or both and I don't really use blend knobs. On my main player, I plan to delete the tone controls and install a 3 way toggle switch. I was thinking of useful things to put in place of the tone controls like maybe an onboard adjustable noise gate and compressor. I bet I can find something small enough that sounds good on eBay or AliExpress. Give me 2 threshold knobs, 1 for the gate, 1 for the compressor, with preset decay and attack/release. I think it would go a long way.

 

[micguy]

I love the first example. Beautiful wood and what appears to be a Nordstrand pickup. I’ve been a fan of the Precision body style since I first saw one back when I was a teenager in the ‘60s.

It is a Nordstrand (Zen Blade) pickup - great people to do business with. The wood is from Warmoth (another good source). It's also 7.28 pounds (and balances great).

 

[Slidlow]

Ok, that's officially the prettiest and most clever fretless bass I've ever seen!

More detail here
6 string Fretless with Ebony Neck

 

[EatS1stBassist]

Hey everyone! Hope the pandemic isn't too harsh on all of you

There has been something brewing in my head for a little bit, brought on by my own Jackson CBX V.

I've been looking at her, playing and thinking to myself "All these knobs on the body, I don't need those."

My bass has a a very typical set of knobs such as volume/tone/high/mid/bass and the more I see them, the more I realize how of little use they are to me. The only one I use is the tone to roll it off a bit because it makes the sound a bit more punchy to my ears,
otherwise all I use is the amp knobs.

I do understand that this might be different if you're on a stage but come on, I've never even played her outside of the apartment, let alone any stages.

Suddenly all these classical fender Ps and Js look way more inticing, which I find really funny because when I started playing bass I absolutely hated the look of fenders, I thought they looked "generic".

But, alas... The more my playstyle and outlook on bass playing evolves the more I start to realize what I like/dislike about different instruments and my taste is evolving, accordingly.

A year ago the thought of owning a fender was so bad it felt almost insulting and now I start thinking to myself "... what if I owned one?".

Slippery slope.

What do you make out of it? Do knobs on basses annoy you, do you use them, do you care?

Thanks

One of the main reasons I love the P bass!

 

[Spectre Gunner]

One of the nice things about making your own basses is...you get to do things the way you want to.

One example: a single pickup bass, but with some additional flexibility. The pickup is wired in parallel, then loaded down with capacitance - by changing the loading, you get the sonic equivalent of different pickups, and each "mode" gets a different flavor of tone control - this thing will give you a palette of sounds you can't get from standard tone controls. Add a switch to switch between the 2 modes (you can set up two sounds you like and switch instantly between them), and:

View attachment 4173693

Example 2: I like the snarl you can get from two pickups on a jazz bass, but I DO NOT like the hum that can happen or the way VVT controls act. So, with both pickups on all the time (literally hard wired together, so it's one humbucking pickup), I have the the bridge pickup further away from the strings (this is actually a better way to blend pickups than with controls - assuming you always want the same blend). I also realized that I only use a fairly narrow range of tone settings most of the time, so the tone control on this thing only does the range I use (it's about the most subtle tone control out there, other than a broken one). Net result is a very simple user interface - a volume control, and a tone control that doesn't have any tones that I won't use:View attachment 4173702

Anyway, the point is, most folks live with whatever the factory gives you in the way of controls. But, if you know what you like and use, you can do things your own way - either modify what you have, or build what you want. To me, that's the point of a custom bass - it's your instrument, made for you, designed around the the way you play and want to interact with it - you don't have to adapt to it, it's been adapted to your needs. This is also why signature basses are often the worst instruments for most people - it's an instrument designed around an artist's needs, not yours.

I do custom wiring for folks. Although I draw on what I've learned doing my own basses, I've never made one for a client that was a complete clone of any of my basses - I chat quite a bit with the person, find out what they need, and (hopefully) make just what they want.

I agree that signature basses are rarely going to be as good as a custom bass built to a player’s specific needs and desires. However, sig basses typically cost much less than a custom. At least that applies to major brand customs. I don’t know what a good luthier would charge.

I think a signature is a good choice as long as you like whatever innovations or mods the artist did to the bass. One signature bass I will have some day will be a Lake Placid Tony Franklin Fretless. I like everything about it and it helps that I think highly of Tony after spending some time with him and attending one of his clinics.

 

[micguy]

I
I think a signature is a good choice as long as you like whatever innovations or mods the artist did to the bass.

In my case, I am the artist, the luthier, and I sign the headstocks on my basses with my initials (I figure it's actually theft proofing, as nobody would recognize who built them), so to me, in more than one way, all my basses are "signature basses".