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Double Bass Tone and volume controls on double basses

JimmyM

JimmyM

Apr 11, 2005
127,255
125,174
Plymouth NC
Disclosures
Endorsing: Yamaha, Ampeg, Line 6, EMG
#1
How come uprights, or for that matter, pretty much any acoustic instrument in the viol family, don't have volume and tone controls on their pickups a la electric guitars or basses? Is it simply a matter of not wanting to drill holes and having no place to put pots? Or is there another reason? I imagine people who don't double on electric wouldn't care so much, but I do. I would think that life would be so much simpler if you could just reach down and goose a knob on the bass when something is ka-flooey rather than have to make the change on the amp where it affects the electric, too.

I guess you can buy a preamp and tape it to the tailpiece, but I think there could be something a little more simple and less obtrusive. I'm just curious as to why it's not done.
 
#3
Good one, Phil! You can't do all that stuff with technique. It's all in the knobs and switches and active electronics and effects and amps and preamps and stuff.

No, but seriously, bearing in mind that tone comes from the player, there are still times when you need to flip a switch or hit a dial. And I'd like a way to do it within the bass itself so it doesn't affect my electric settings. I also don't want to have to add on a box to do it. But it doesn't look like that's an option.
 
#5
Just one more thing to plug in, stick a battery in, use up 2 outlets with an oversized wall wart, or lose.

BTW, I don't want to modify my bass. I want my cake and eat it, too.
 
#8
I have an old Schaller magnetic pickup on one of my basses that has a built in volume control, also an old 1950s DeArmond pickup with one (it also sounds like dog sh*t). For a long time I also ran an Underwood thru an Ernie Ball volume pedal.
 
#17
Okay, got it.

What a manufacturer needs to do is make a little infra-red remote like for your TV but that controls the amp. My hi-fi preamp has one - why doesn't somebody make a guitar or bass amp with one?

And you could also use it to turn off the TV in the bar when they put the football on in the middle of your gig.

Oops, shoulda patented that before posting it here...
 
#20
A passive volume control on a piezo pickup is problematic. It would have to be very high resistance, and this would cause problems with frequency response, noise, and driving cables. You could insert an active buffer between the piezo and the volume control, but now you're hanging batteries on your bass.

Magnetic pickups are low impedance, so it's easy to add a volume control. I have one on mine. It's handy.
 

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