P bass tone control

[Pow_22]

Afternoon all. I recently noticed that the tone control isn't doing much at all on my 57 RI P bass.  In the off position it has the expected nice deep, muddy 'Motown' type tone but within the smallest of turns it is a brighter tone that I would more expect at the end of the sweep and from that point on not much changes.  I'm reasonably OK with a soldering iron and p bass controls are very basic but would my first point of call be the tone pot itself or maybe the cap?  Pretty certain the controls are original so would be around 40 years old so absolutely that wear and tear could be at play here

Edited May 21 by Pow_22

[PaulThePlug]

I'd say Pot rather than Cap...

Try a Squirt of Contact Cleaner and a Wang-ing of the pot... Vol too while ya in there...

Edited May 21 by PaulThePlug

[franzbassist]

The pot will have less of an impact on the overall tone than trying different cap values, although a 250K pot will be inherently darker than a 500K one.  That said, choosing between linear and audio pots can vary how you hear the change in tone as you dial the pot up or down.

 

If it were me, I'd clean the pot and try a new version of the same cap first, and then take it from there.  

Edited May 21 by franzbassist

[Aidan63]

audio pots can vary a lot in the taper, and availability does vary so it maybe the manufacturer fitted a less than ideal pot as that was all they could get at the time, or the supplier sent the wrong spec ones and they used them anyway; one of my Squiers has similar lack of sweep, but another has pretty much the best of all my instruments, both have stock 250kOhm pots, which look the same externally, same capacitors, nominally same pickups; and I've found some CTS pots great, some less so, even though same size and value, because they are different models with different tapers: noticeably when stock dried up during Covid choice was limited and deliveries sometimes fulfilled with what was on the shelf