JapanAxe

Just re-read your OP and noticed ‘read tab fluently’. I think that’s quite unusual, but unfortunately not that useful (in this context). With one tribute band I have had the keyboard player send me the ‘bass pad’ in standard notation, to learn before the gig; otherwise I’ve been expected to learn the set myself.

Yes there are some 'genre' tributes but I think it can be trickier to pitch. For instance, if you did a Britpop show, you would somehow need to differentiate your act from a thousand pub bands knocking out covers of Oasis, Pulp, Blur etc. It's important to have a unique selling point (USP). If all this sounds very business-oriented, that's because it is!

Be aware that is a long and expensive road. You need to pick an artist with enough well-known material (with maybe some album 'deep cuts') to fill a 2-hour show, and a strong enough base of diehard fans and/or well-heeled (usually mature) punters to pay for tickets. Some acts really require lookalikes as well as soundalikes. If the material is heavily produced/orchestrated, you may need synched tracks to fill out the sound. Then you'll want a professional-quality showreel for you or your booking agent to send out to venues. If a venue already has a tribute to your chosen artist, they may not wish to take a chance on an alternative. Just some things to think about...

It’s about who you know really. I dep on rhythm guitar (mostly) and bass (occasionally) in a Dire Straits tribute that plays theatres and arts centres all over the UK. I met the BL through a mutual friend who was putting together a scratch band for a wedding - not something I recommend btw!

Yes I'm trying to avoid that. Here's the P-bass circuit. The pickup is connected to lugs 1 and 3 of the 250k pot so always sees that impedance (in parallel with whatever it's plugged into). Here's the VVT Jazz bass schematic. Each pickup is connected to lugs 2 and 3 of its corresponding volume pot, so it sees everything from 250k (volume up full) to zero (volume at minimum). At (say) 20% it is seeing just 50k resistamce to ground. The OP circuit avoids this by adding resistance in series with the volume pot, forming a potential divider that can be used to reduce the output of either pickup. As I said in the OP, there are plenty of people who are happy with this, and it sounds like you get on with your blend setup. That's all good, I'm just looking for something that works for me

Thanks, I came across these when I was looking into options. I drew out the circuit in the OP and added in the second cross-connection as per the lower diagram, then compared the two. The OP circuit simply puts a resistance (let's call it R) in the path of one of the pickups at a time, to attenuate its signal. The effect of adding the cross-connection is to add a second resistive path in parallel: At zero attenuation there is no difference. At maximum attenuation the resistance in series with the pickup is now ½R instead of R. At the halfway point, it becomes ⅜R instead of ½R, so the taper of the blend has changed. Also with this circuit you wouldn't get the effect of completely disconnecting a pickup if you cut the resistive tracks near the end. It would be a quick and easy thing to try though. In the upper diagram, the second cross-connection is tied to ground, which is a different approach altogether and has the effect of loading the pickups, which the OP circuit doesn't.

I mentioned earlier today I had 'another idea' - I've implemented it, and it works! When thinking about what didn't work for me about the stacked-knob setup, the main issue was the tone pot taper, where there was little effect until the bottom quarter turn of the pot. I removed the extra 56nF caps and added a 510k resistor between the wiper and the 'hot' lug of each tone pot, thereby converting the existing 500k tone pots to 250k with a somewhat different taper. The tone pots behave much better! Curent plan is to to stick with this, but also acquire a 3-control plate and build it as Vol/Switch/Tone or Vol/Blend/Tone. Watch this space...

That’s the thing, once you back off a stacked volume control or a VVT volume more than one notch out of 10, I don’t hear any further change. EDIT: Hoping for more variation on a blend…

Well spotted! The bass came without the correct 6-32 intonation screw (actually a bolt). The original would be 1 7/16in (39mm) long. I sourced some 2in bolts and cut one a bit longer, as I suspected the original had been lost because it didn’t adequately engage with the bridge saddle. This topic is crying out for a PhD thesis!

What does the Turbo switch do? I’m kind of afraid to ask…

Yes that may be the way to go. I keep having to remind myself that this bass is basically a MIM Roadworn with some extra relic’ing, not a vintage instrument! A couple of Christmases ago I woke at 4am, and was still awake at 5am, so I got up and (with the help of a YT video) replaced the heater roller in my laser printer. That put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. In the meantime I’ve had another idea…

I decided it would be good to keep at least some of the stack-knob look by turning one volume/tone pair into master controls, and replacing the other with a rotary pickup selector or blender, using just the chromed volume knob. But can I hell get the volume knobs off? It feels like the screws have been tightened with one of those air tools that tyre fitters use. I have tried WD40 and heating the knob with a soldering iron, so far without success. The grub screws are slot-head types, and as I apply more torque the screwdriver blade starts to distort, or the blade cams out of the slot - you can only do that so many times before the screw is mullered. Any tips folks? And if you're wondering why I'm sat doing this on Christmas Eve, we've just had tea with the grandkids, and Mrs JapanAxe has sent me to my music room while she does some last-minute wrapping!

Exactly what I was going to recommend. I recently put one on my main lead guitar pedalboard to mix in wet-only signals from two delay pedals. It works a treat and was stupidly inexpensive - less than £50 on Amazon, even cheaper on eBay. It’s a clone of the discontinued OBNE Signal Blender.

I’ve never hankered after the series option, in fact I rarely use it on my Dingwall NG2. I’d be interested to see how the two volume controls interact in series mode.