Jazz bass - tone pot capacitors/ tone ?

[Wonky2]

I recently bought a brand new fender american standard jazz bass to replace one i foolishly sold.

The new model comes with the 60's custom shop pickups as standard. Now I'm not sure what pickups where in my last am Stan butt he tone is massively different, particularly with the bridge pick up. It doesn't have nearly as much mid growl as my 1995 american standard.....

So, I have some options...... One is obviously to swap the pick ups... The other is to try different capacitors on the tone pots....that is if anyone can tell me this will make the change I'm looking for?

I know nothing about this but I figure any experimental swaps can easily be changed back.

Has anyone one this or can any one advise what capacitor I should try ?
Is it just capacitors or the tone pots themselves that I should be looking at?

The tone control at present seems to have minimal effect when turning down from full for the first half of a rotation, the most apparent change in tone is all at the bottom end of the dial, ie when fully off its dull and muted but the first few degrees of turning the knob seems to have the most significant effect on tone? From half way up to full the difference is negligible ?



Thanks
Wonky

Edited November 8, 2014 by Wonky2

[HowieBass]

That doesn't sound right to me; the basses of mine with passive tone pots seem to act evenly right through the range. BTW you talk about 'tone pots' but surely the bass is wired as VVT (meaning a single tone pot). Tone pots can suffer with age if they're in need of a squirt with switch cleaner but this clearly shouldn't be so with a new instrument; maybe the tone pot is faulty? One other thing to check is make sure you have a decent cable just in case you're using one that's poor (poor quality cables are very noticeable with passive EQ basses and often seem fine with active basses). HTH

[Wonky2]

Doh! Yep silly me, VVT....

The tone pot just doesn't seem to have a huge effect until its two thirds of the way down. There is some effect, but not what I'd call an even spread of a tonal range ?

My leeds are old but they are whirlwinds and seem to be working fine?

I do have a new amp, mesa scout 15........ It could be something I've dialled into the parametric eq cancelling out what I'm dialling in on the bass?
Thinking about it, that makes sense........

But one thing for sure, the bridge pickup doesn't have that same mid sounding growl that my last american standard had. The only thing that has changed is the pick ups. The old one had the standard Alnico pups whereas this bass has the 60's custom shop pups in it.
May have to try getting my hands on some of the alnicos just to see ?

[iiipopes]

They both probably have 250kohm pots and .047 tone capacitors. Since they are both relatively recent Am. Std. instruments, there has not been enough time for the caps to drift. Did you raise the bridge pickup on the new instrument to the point they were on the old? Pickup distance from the strings will affect the presence and articulation of the pickups in a significant way. Moreover, the '60's Custom Shop pickups may have had the magnets de-gaussed slightly in order to get a "vintage" tone, which means different things to different people, and would definitely take the edge off the tone of the pickups.

[Wonky2]

Its possible?
I took a real critical look at it all last night. Amp set flat. The issue with the tone pot having very little effect until two thirds of the way down and then all of the adjustment in the last third of the rotation.......

Well, the volume pots are the same !!!!!

Turning each pick up volume up from fully off there is a SIGNIFICANT increase in the volume on the last third of the rotation.??? The first two thirds being audible but low but having no real increase or decrease within that two thirds of rotation , other than off.

This is the case, individually on both vol pots and the tone?

I've never noticed untill a sat down and critically examined the effect of the rotation of each pot against the effect it gives.

When there all open full it sounds great and they are all working. Not creaks crackles nothing.

The bass is a brand new 2014 model american standard, the amp is a mesa walkabout and the leads are whirl wind. So not exactly crappy gear.....

Anyone, any ideas?

Returning the bas for inspection would be tricky as it was bought on the hush as a fender staff sale (A favour from an old friend)

Edited November 13, 2014 by Wonky2

[PlungerModerno]

Isn't this more down to Potentiometer specs?

At least when it comes to where the pot starts having an audible effect & how swiftly it changes - e.g. the capacitor value, the pot value, the pot type (Audio or Linear).

As I understand it Fender uses Linear taper pots? - judging by the above experience anyway (half the range sounds the same).

For a simple VVT or V/Balance/Tone there should be a wide range of wiring options to get the exact response you want - but You may need modern sounding pickups if you want a harsher sound than the CS pickups can offer.

Here's a useful vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdfIZEB2rdM#t=122

Edited November 13, 2014 by PlungerModerno

[Captain Rumble]

I cant give any clever technical help but my experience is very similar I was given an old mex jazz in need of some tlc so after sorting neck, frets etc I found that the volume controls did 80% of their control over the last 10% of their travel and the tone control did almost nothing. On inspection I discovered it was not wired up correctly so decided to buy new CTS pots and cap and rewire, the result of which was the overall tone dropped down a little (not a bad thing) and generally a nicer tone to my ears but the volume controls acted exactly the same and tone pot now had an impact but only after the last 30% of its travel. I then tried an Audere JZ pre but after a while decided I preferred the Passive tone and therefore back to square one. I have now fitted one of Kiogons vol blend tone kits already set up on a new bell plate result is I now have a progressive vol control, a far more effective and progressive tone control and I wish I had done this at the beginning. I think my feeling is there are a number of ways to set these things up and that no 2 electrical components are the same and therefor the way they interact will be different so experiment till you achieve what you require