Best pots and capacitor to get the most tonal range

[Brian D]

Hi

i’m long in the tooth but fairly new to this forum.

i have built my own semi acoustic bass fitted with Fender Precision pick ups using a standard Precision wiring diagram to wire the circuit.

The tonal range of my guitar is very limited and the tone pot changes the sound but the difference in sound across the tone pot range is minimal.

Are there any changes I can make regarding pots, capacitor and wiring which may give me a wider range of tones.

Thanks in advance

 

[Geek99]

There’s a ten position tone switch you can get that has various caps in it- that might work ? varitone? 
 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/163390758215

 

[PaulThePlug]

Artec QTP £12

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252597657610

Edited April 12 by PaulThePlug

[Geek99]

That’s a bit guitar centric I would think - heavy metal preset not massively useful on semi acoustic bass  

[Lozz196]

US Standard Fender Precisions have 250 pots and 0.47 capacitor. Changing the tone to 500 might free up some more room on this.

[Jono Bolton]

What pots and cap have you got in there already?

[Geek99]

https://www.google.co.uk/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjh4fWHsL-FAxXOl1AGHf0VCwsYABAFGgJkZw&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4eH1h7C_hQMVzpdQBh39FQsLEAQYASABEgIK_fD_BwE&sph=&sig=AOD64_3CUk1HOLaNYkNOk1Xbkmt4-dzuHQ&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwj18vCHsL-FAxX4WEEAHb2hDnUQwg8oAHoECAQQDA&adurl=

[paul_5]

calling @ki0g0n

 

John makes excellent controls for passive basses and is more qualified than most to weigh in here.

 

I'd go with a 500kΩ pot and a 47nf capacitor, but that's just my taste. depends how much of the top end you want to roll off - a smaller value capacitor (e.g.22nf) will allow more top end through when the tone control is at 0%.

[itu]

There's also a component called step attenuator. Using metal film resistors and a rotary switch you can build something like this:

 

The maths behind this is simple, whether you want to build a lin or log pot.

[LITTLEWING]

On 13/04/2024 at 07:09, Lozz196 said:

US Standard Fender Precisions have 250 pots and 0.47 capacitor. Changing the tone to 500 might free up some more room on this.

FWIW I did a little experiment with my old Squier P bass and swapped the tone pot for a 500 leaving the volume at 250. Holy moley, it speaks now big and clear without being at all harsh. At the end of the day it is essentially a humbucker and needs a little extra voice. 

Tip of the day - check out the actual value of a pot before you fit one. I measured the volume pot and it was reading 230. I went through my sh*t drawer and found one that actually read 251 (which I fitted while everything was on the bench) and the said 500 was about 497 so both near enough to ‘breathe’ properly.
 

[BigRedX]

In a way it's great having all these tonal options on the instrument but in a another way it's a liability because there are more possibilities for things to go wrong. I once played the first few songs of a gig with the tone control wound nearly all the way off as it had been knocked when putting the bass in its gig bag after sound checking. The E and A strings sounded fine but I was wondering why the higher notes weren't cutting through as they had an hour ago. When I discovered what had happened I was mentally kicking myself. And this was on a bass that only has three controls - volume, tone and series parallel for the pickup.

 

I find having all these options useful for working out what I like, but invariably there will be one setting that sounds (to me) much better than all the others, and once I have found it I'll probably never touch the controls again. I'd have my favourite setting hard wired into the bass and no controls at all.

[itu]

26 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I'd have my favourite setting hard wired into the bass and no controls at all.

2 switches: ON/OFF, tone

or

1 rotary switch including previous choices.

[NancyJohnson]

I ran an old Precision bass for years, this went through several pickup configurations and arguably the best was when I just wired a 1/4 Pounder pickup straight into the output jack.

 

Not pots, just pure signal; this fed a POD (and later a BDDI), then into the effects return of whatever amp I was using.  Lovely.

 

End of the day, I always play with everything open; this just takes it a step further.  We obsess too much - just let the bass ring and let your outboard kit and amp do what they're supposed to do; shape and amplify.

[Guest]

On 13/04/2024 at 18:42, paul_5 said:

a smaller value capacitor (e.g.22nf) will allow more top end through when the tone control is at 0%.

 

When I had Ps with .022 caps what I found was that they let more mids through when the tone was on 0% — the knob would remove the treble whilst leaving the meat intact.

 

I've found that with rounds plus a pickup like a Dimarzio, a .022 cap is good; with flats plus an old fashioned alnico pickup, a .047 is good.

 

I once had Dimarzio with a .047, and the sound with the tone turned to 0 was pretty dismal.

[NickA]

Go active. Trouble with passives is that you're drawing current through the pickup, which robs the high frequencies.  The more low pass filter you put in the worse it gets, plus you get a change in tone when you turn the volume knob down.  Precisions aren't noted for tonal range, after all.  Sure some people like all that, but you get a better tonal range with a few buffer amps.

 

Or like NancyJohnson says .... straight to the (high impedance) amp and let the amp do the tone shaping. 😁

[bremen]

16 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

I ran an old Precision bass for years, this went through several pickup configurations and arguably the best was when I just wired a 1/4 Pounder pickup straight into the output jack.

 

Not pots, just pure signal; this fed a POD (and later a BDDI), then into the effects return of whatever amp I was using.  Lovely.

 

End of the day, I always play with everything open; this just takes it a step further.  We obsess too much - just let the bass ring and let your outboard kit and amp do what they're supposed to do; shape and amplify.

Works for me, too. Still got the controls, but fitted a bypass switch.

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 19/04/2024 at 15:34, BigRedX said:

In a way it's great having all these tonal options on the instrument but in a another way it's a liability because there are more possibilities for things to go wrong. I once played the first few songs of a gig with the tone control wound nearly all the way off as it had been knocked when putting the bass in its gig bag after sound checking. The E and A strings sounded fine but I was wondering why the higher notes weren't cutting through as they had an hour ago. When I discovered what had happened I was mentally kicking myself. And this was on a bass that only has three controls - volume, tone and series parallel for the pickup.

 

I find having all these options useful for working out what I like, but invariably there will be one setting that sounds (to me) much better than all the others, and once I have found it I'll probably never touch the controls again. I'd have my favourite setting hard wired into the bass and no controls at all.

Couldn't agree more.

 

I have one pickup of all my basses wired directly to the output jack socket.

 

All additional control of the tone/sound of my bass happens off board, and when just playing regular traditional bass, that is basically just my trusted EHX Black Finger, tube driven optical compressor, which though I use with minimal compression dialed in, more as a tube preamp stage, and then directly into an amp with pretty much flat EQ controls and a single 15" cabinet.

 

When I was younger I was obsessed with the idea of getting a bass with as many pickups, controls and tonal options as possible, the more, in my mind, the better instrument, which was stupid since even back then I also just used one fixed setting for everything.

 

Edited April 21 by Baloney Balderdash

[NickA]

I also pretty much use one fixed setting for everything on my active twin humbucker bass ... but that fixed setting needs two humbuckers, two active filters and a blend control! 😂.   Amp dead flat EQ, no effects. 

 

Joe Dart seems to use a direct wired, usually single pickup, bass but a whole truck of off board processing.  Many ways to kill a cat.