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To knob or not to knob?
- Thread starter Katoosie
- Start date
My first good bass was a mid 70's Rickenbacker 4001 mapleglo. I just used the volume knobs for the most part. I used my amp for the majority of my tone adjustments, as I still do today. My biggest mistake with that bass was putting Rotosound 66's on it. They ate the frets down to nothing fairly quickly, since I played (practiced), quite a bit every day. After needing numerous fret jobs, I wound up selling the bass for next to nothing back in the early 80's, when the Ric resale value wasn't what it is now. I never used the Roto 66's again.
No, Music Man Stingray 5 with 3-band EQ and pickup switch: series, single coil, and parallel.
Your project is a beautiful start. Only one suggestion (which may not be do-able): find a good piezo pup and bury it out-of-sight below the bridge. Then the "look" will be the same as the picture in this thread. No magnetic pup to blemish it. . .
Absolutely agree! and knob count should be limited from 0-2
I hadn’t thought that way but it’s an idea. I wanted to get as close to a P type of sound but I’ll think about the piezo as well. Maybe an on-off switch is a thought. I dunno. It does look nice as is though.
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You might consider routing the P pickup in from behind. Leave the look of the bass as is.
I’m a big Nordstrand fan. I have them in both basses in my avatar pic at left. The new bass will go that way too.
The form versus function rule applies here. If you can achieve all of your desired tones sans knobs, great. If you need to fine tune your sonic spectrum by using multiple pickups wired in series, with the volumes at different levels and then switch to a lone humbucker for the chorus; good luck with just a plain chunk of wood where the twelve switches should live. The ultimate goal is flexibility. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Sonically speaking, the shortest distance between two tones is the fewest amount of switches and knobs. If you can simplify the method of supplying a wide variety of tones, do it. A P bass is one of my favorite instruments and it has been proven to be anything but a one trick pony. Hope this helps.
On my active bass: two bland pickups + blend + 3 band EQ .... five minutes spent finding the settings finding that give the character that I want to work with .... since then those 4 knobs have been ignored.
As little boys learn, just because it's there, it doesn't need fiddling with.
I love the active 3 band preamp, that said, I'm the guy that sets it where I want it and then I just play..I don't spend anytime in a show changing..the only change I ever make is spliting the coil on my hb for certain songs...eq stays the same...If the bass I like has a v t and thats it..fine, if it has 6 knobs fine..so long as I can get the tone i like from the bass all is well...
I go back to simple is better---volume and tone on the bass, volume,bass, mid and treble on the amp, passive electronics. I imagine all of the many other controls would be helpful but I don't really want to spend time learning them. I like to play bass with simplicity---maybe because I learned bass in the 60's when what you got was passive, volume and tone on your bass. I appreciate the separate volume knobs on my Squier SS Jaguar Bass because I turn off the J bridge pickup and only play with the precision neck . Other than a brief flight into a Jazz BaSS BACK IN THE 60's I have always been a one pickup bass player: Mustang,Precision, EB-O.
I remember when the BC Rich Bitch bass came out with all the knobs and switches, I really wanted one. It looked sooo cool. That was b4 I started gigging a lot. Trust, the more you play live the less knobs and switches you want.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
When I restored this Eagle, it took a bit of work to rewire it. I really only use the neck pickup, volume and tone. But it’s not like the other controls get in my way
I'm not sure if the US circuit is built differently, but I used to have an NJ Warlock with all of the knobs and switches and every one of them was "this way sounds good, this way sounds not so good" so I didn't touch them at all once they were set to "sounds good". Every so often I would pop a battery in and play with the booster, though.
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
Interesting question. I have three basses with five knobs, and that's my limit. My minimum is two: a pair of passive P-style basses.
That said: one of my basses has five knobs in a row (as opposed to a pentagon or whatever)... and it bugs me a little. I wish I'd ordered four knobs, with one being a stack knob.
Here it is, my wacky (but pretty) custom Nordstrand:
Yeah, I hate knobs. I've never seen the point of tone controls on the bass when I already have them on my amp - more for me to mess up the sound with! Simple is best...
