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Passive Tone Control - Open, Closed or Both?


Guest MoJo

Tone control poll  

84 members have voted

  1. 1. Particularly if you play a passive bass, how do you set your tone control?

    • Wide open
      25
    • Closed shut
      2
    • Vary it to suit
      57


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2 hours ago, discreet said:

Full on - and take care of any EQ from amp or DAW. With a passive bass you really want all the output the pickup has to offer.

Strangely, I find that rolling the tone off, appears to accentuate the mids and helps it to fill out the mix in a three piece

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2 hours ago, MoJo said:

Strangely, I find that rolling the tone off, appears to accentuate the mids and helps it to fill out the mix in a three piece

So it will - but I find I get more control over mids from the amp, particularly one with low and high mid controls - or better yet, a parametric or semi-parametric mid control. But it's whatever floats your boat, obviously. :)

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34 minutes ago, discreet said:

So it will - but I find I get more control over mids from the amp, particularly one with low and high mid controls - or better yet, a parametric or semi-parametric mid control. But it's whatever floats your boat, obviously. :)

My Rumble 500v3 combo has got 'low' and 'High' mids as well as the 'Vintage' button which pushes the low mids. I tend to boost the low and high mids a tad (about 1 - 2 o'clock) and back off the 'bass' to about 10 o'clock. I find the Rumble 500 quite 'bass-heavy' if everything is set flat.

Edited by MoJo
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1 hour ago, MoJo said:

My Rumble 500v3 combo has got 'low' and 'High' mids as well as the 'Vintage' button which pushes the low mids. I tend to boost the low and high mids a tad (about 1 - 2 o'clock) and back off the 'bass' to about 10 o'clock. I find the Rumble 500 quite 'bass-heavy' if everything is set flat.

There you go, I have the same combo and find 'all flat' is quite often my default setting. If I need to get more... 'front and centre' I'll add a touch of low mid or high mid or both... but that also depends on whether I'm using series or parallel switching on the bass. :)

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Good topic!

When I first started bass and want much good, I used to roll all the tone off and it disguised sloppy, clanky playing.

Eventually I played with it fully open, which accentuates any sloppy playing, and made a concious effort to iron out those playing errors. It took a while but improved my playing and technique no end.

I now mainly use the tone pot fully open and then roll it off a bit which seems to give a nice sound with a bit of punch.

Edited by la bam
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Direct pickup coupling, à la Anthony Jackson, is even better than volume only : my newly ordered Leduc U-Basse 6 strings fretless will only have a balance (blend) control.

And just 666 posts on the counter right now.

😁

Edited by Hellzero
The number of the beast
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1 hour ago, discreet said:

Yes, coupled with turning both pickups up full and backing off the bridge pickup a smidge...

Exactly, although I back off my bridge pu more than a smidge as I've replaced the log pots with linear ones, which makes fine adjustment easier.

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