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Yet another pot question

S

SebbyNC

Mar 17, 2005
180
4
Guadeloupe
www.myspace.com
#1
I'm not sure if the info is somewhere on the forum, but it's not easy to use the search function for that.

So, what I want to do is add a piezo bridge to my active bass. I already have the bridge and buffer (all Hipshot / graph Tech) and what I need is to add a volume pot for the acoustic signal. Mys bass has 5 pots already, 1 vol w/ push-pull, 1 balancer, 3 EQ pots (Noll TCM3 preamp). To avoid drilling a new hole in the bass, I'd like to replace the volume pot with a stacked Vol/Vol push-pull pot.

My question is, does such a pot exist? I mostly see Vol/Tone or vol/Bal stacked pots, but does I guess a Vol/Tone would be useable for Vol/Vol, right ?

A secondary question is, what value should I use vor this volume pot? I can't seem to find its value on my current pot, and I quite confused between values for passive and active instruments: I often see values of 500-250k for passive, 50-25k for active... but is it only for tone/EQ pots, or also for volume? All I know is that Graph Tech recommands to use 250 or 500k for their acoustic volume.

I know I'm a complete noob when it comes to electronics, so please be gentle with me... If the info I'm looking for is compiled somewhere, thanks to tell me where. Maybe someone could write a sticky post to make everything clear and in a unified source.
 
#3
I've yet to see a stacked V/V pot with a switch. You can try a stacked V/V pot and get a mini toggle for your switch function. As long as the pup's aren't active then you can use either a 250K or 500K value for your volume pots..
 
#4
Thanks, but as I said I don't want to drill a hole in the bass if I can avoid to do so.

Indeed vol/vol stacked doesn't seem to exist, at least I haven't found such pots on the online catalogues so far, but correct me if I'm wrong, tone and volume pots are identical, it's only the addition of a capacitor that turns a volume pot to a tone pot. So I was thinking that a so called "vol/tone" stacked pot could actually be used as a vol/vol pot as long as I don't add any capacitor, but maybe I'm wrong?

Would something like Invalid Link Removed work?
 
#5
250K/500K pots are used for passive systems with high impedance outputs, or when the volume control(s) is placed before the input of the preamp.

25K/50K pots are used for active pickups, the EQ on preamps, and sometimes for the volume control if it is placed after the output of the preamp.
 
#7
SebbyNC said:
Thanks line6man, I was expecting a useful answer from you.

Are there any pros/cons regarding the positioning of the volume pot, before or after and active preamp?
Click to expand...

After the preamp gives you a bit better control over the volume, without as much treble loss as you roll the pot down.

The disadvantage would be that you can't do an active/passive switch unless you are ok with losing the volume control in passive mode.
Having a volume after the preamp also means you cannot have a volume/volume setup if that's what you prefer to blends or pickup selectors.
 

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