Thanks.
It’s a Frankenstein Squier VM body with Warmoth roasted maple/ebony neck.
The only Squier parts left on it are the body, control plate and neck plate.
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It’s a Frankenstein Squier VM body with Warmoth roasted maple/ebony neck.
The only Squier parts left on it are the body, control plate and neck plate.
That’s what I was thinking of doing. I never really back off the volume, keep it on 10, so the taper of it being a Master Volume wouldn’t bother me either way...
So I installed the ungrounded blend pot, but I didn’t cut the traces. I figured that I shouldn’t mess with it in case I screw it up.
After soldering it up, turns out that the bridge solder lug is a bit loose at the rivet where it clamps to the water, and the bridge pickup signal would pop in and out. Since I don’t have another blend pot on hand and I didn’t feel like reversing all the soldering I just did to reinstall a two-volume set up, I put a dab of crazy glue where the lug meets the wafer. Hopefully it will hold for some time.
Oh, and I had to blast it with some pot-cleaner because it was a bit scratchy, too.
Nothing is ever easy...
But otherwise, it sounds good and there is a good amount of actual audible pickup blending occurring.
I will get another pot to keep as a back-up...
After soldering it up, turns out that the bridge solder lug is a bit loose at the rivet where it clamps to the water, and the bridge pickup signal would pop in and out. Since I don’t have another blend pot on hand and I didn’t feel like reversing all the soldering I just did to reinstall a two-volume set up, I put a dab of crazy glue where the lug meets the wafer. Hopefully it will hold for some time.
Oh, and I had to blast it with some pot-cleaner because it was a bit scratchy, too.
Nothing is ever easy...
But otherwise, it sounds good and there is a good amount of actual audible pickup blending occurring.
I will get another pot to keep as a back-up...
After I cleaned the blend pot, everything sounded great. I put the bass down for an hour and then plugged it in again, the pot was even scratchier than before and spit and popped every time I touched it....
It seems that just about every blend pot I owned over the years gets this way over time.
I went back to two volumes. F-it.
It seems that just about every blend pot I owned over the years gets this way over time.
I went back to two volumes. F-it.
OK, after some prompting i finally made a diagram of the whole thing, done in my apparently now traditional goofy MS paint style
View attachment 2779754
it also works just fine without cutting the traces, you still get the smooth blending between pickups and you still avoid extra loading loss from the blend pot; the only drawback is that when you're cranked over to one pickup you still get a slight bit of the other, "off" pickup in the mix. (you don't really hear it though)
if you're a player who mostly shades between the two pickups rather than running either one solo, then this will work nicely without cutting the traces on the blend pot.
@walterw
I'm about to wire up my PJ with this but would like to have the pickups wired in series. I think I have it figured but do you happen to have a schematic for that? I can't find any series schematics for the ungrounded circuit with a blend pot. thx!
what kind of J pickup?
if it's a true single coil that's gonna be really noisy, while if it's some sort of humbucker that's gonna be four coils all wired in series, so probably really dark and muddy.
either way, i don't think the "ungrounded" blend thing applies here, that's just for parallel pickup wiring.
Yeah, regarding ungrounded for parallel, but not possible for series, I can't figure a way around that.
Here's two pickups in series with blend. Basic schematic not showing tone or master volume for clarity. That 'ground' (blue) that can't be removed does 2 things. 1. Provides a path to turn the pickup on or off by shorting it's output to itself. 2. Provides a bypass around the other off pickup. On the positive side, you can do a no-load trace cut at the orange dot. Makes the pickup go full volume.:
I wonder if this is possible. Might be tricky to do. Cut a no-load gap near the center position, just to one side of the centered wiper arms. The pickups would be full volume when the wiper is anywhere in the 10-10 track. Orange dot shows approximate area to cut.:
anyone know what value M/N balance i should go to in this 2011-ish orange SR300?
Will probably wan't to cut the end of the track and go no load if this bass will do that. Has vol, bal, stacked bass-treble and some puzzling type of alleged mid control; seems more like a low mid-boost to me. or is it supposed to be some kind of shift-able mid boost?
Can the stock A/C balance pot(s) array be modded to no load?
Will probably wan't to cut the end of the track
Can the stock A/C balance pot(s) array be modded to no load?
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So, I ended up getting some Bill Lawrence J45's for my fretless and while there was some tone improvement it was marginal at best which is somewhat surprising as they were (as far as i'm aware) original Squier VM pickups.
Anyway, I ended up getting some black tapewound strings and I've found the sound I like! That's the good part.
The bad part is that now i'm not touching any metal while playing I am noticing quite a bit of noise from this bass. If I touch the bridge it is still very quiet.
It is also badly exacerbated by the preamp pedal I've been using to even out the volume and tone when I switch from my P bass (preamp off) to the fretless jazz (preamp on with extra gain).
I am thinking of trying to install a thumb-rest ramp made of metal and grounded with the bridge.
The other thing I have noticed with this extra noise is that it is worse when I have the blend pot set in the middle which I would have expected to be the quietest setting. Have I wired something wrong?
Anyway, I ended up getting some black tapewound strings and I've found the sound I like! That's the good part.
The bad part is that now i'm not touching any metal while playing I am noticing quite a bit of noise from this bass. If I touch the bridge it is still very quiet.
It is also badly exacerbated by the preamp pedal I've been using to even out the volume and tone when I switch from my P bass (preamp off) to the fretless jazz (preamp on with extra gain).
I am thinking of trying to install a thumb-rest ramp made of metal and grounded with the bridge.
The other thing I have noticed with this extra noise is that it is worse when I have the blend pot set in the middle which I would have expected to be the quietest setting. Have I wired something wrong?
I am going to give this another go, but in a different bass, converting it from VVT that has one cheapie Volume pot and a good stacked V/T pot. I will actually make it B/V/T as I want the Blend pot to be first in line. I believe it will get the most use out of the three. I bought a brand new 250k MN pot rather than trying to reuse an old scratchy pot I had in a box. I have just cut the traces successfully and will do the job when I get some free time.
I converted my fretted Squier some weeks ago. This time I went for an MN50K pot and it works even better. I think you could go as low as 25K. Those low values allow you to control and finetune the otherwise abrupt change in tone due to phase cancellation around the middle position.
Has anyone seen this on StewMac? Emerson Pro CTS Blender/No-load Pot | stewmac.com
Would this be able to take the place of cutting the traces and what not?
Would this be able to take the place of cutting the traces and what not?
Passinwind
I know nothing.
- Dec 3, 2003
- 23,042
- 45,890
- Disclosures
- Designer/Toaster Tech @ Passinwind Electronics
I dont really know anything about this stuff, but would you mind explaining the difference? Obviously there are visual differences in the pots, but the description seems the same if not similar
Passinwind
I know nothing.
- Dec 3, 2003
- 23,042
- 45,890
- Disclosures
- Designer/Toaster Tech @ Passinwind Electronics
That's just a volume pot for "blending" an extra pickup in a 5-way Strat switching format. There's only one resistive wafer, and the taper is wrong for what we'd want anyway. We need two wafers and no resistance change from the midpoints (12 o'clock) to the clockwise end on one wafer and the counterclockwise one on the other. So no free lunch today, sorry.
Does this array have the same affect as cutting the ends of the traces?OK, after some prompting i finally made a diagram of the whole thing, done in my apparently now traditional goofy MS paint style
View attachment 2779754
it also works just fine without cutting the traces, you still get the smooth blending between pickups and you still avoid extra loading loss from the blend pot; the only drawback is that when you're cranked over to one pickup you still get a slight bit of the other, "off" pickup in the mix. (you don't really hear it though)
if you're a player who mostly shades between the two pickups rather than running either one solo, then this will work nicely without cutting the traces on the blend pot.
