Having both passive tone control AND active EQ work at the same time?

[ObeyDaRiffness]

I'm setting up a project for a partscaster bass and I was thinking about having both a 3-band eq for onstage song-to-song versatility but I would also like to shape my sound in a different way, by low-passing with a regular passive tone control... by my very limited understanding of basic wiring I see no reason why this wouldn't work but for some reason I've never seen any mention of it on the internet, non even in g****r forums *gasp*.

Any help?

 

[Watchootognbout]

Passive tone control with a bass with EQ?
Isn't that why an amp has controls?

In all seriousness,there would have to be some kind of push/pull dual mode active/passive pots.

 

[ObeyDaRiffness]

In all seriousness,there would have to be some kind of push/pull dual mode active/passive pots.

Yes, I have seen basses that had both active and passive eq, but they work separately, you have either one or another, while I would have liked to have them work at the same time

 

[Watchootognbout]

Yes, I have seen basses that had both active and passive eq, but they work separately, you have either one or another, while I would have liked to have them work at the same time

Yes.That's what I was indicating.
Pots with stacked values.
But I don't think anyone's developed pots that work that way yet.

 

[thehindteet]

the sadowsky "vintage tone control" does just what you're describing.

 

[jbrew73]

excellent idea. i really wish both my active basses had a tone control. i test wired one in on my spector once and really liked the ability of being able to crank up the treble but cut some of the edge off the top with the tone knob.

 

[ObeyDaRiffness]

Meh, I just thought about simply using an eq pedal for the active part...

but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun, right?

 

[ObeyDaRiffness]

excellent idea. i really wish both my active basses had a tone control. i test wired one in on my spector once and really liked the ability of being able to crank up the treble but cut some of the edge off the top with the tone knob.

So it can be done just by inserting it in the circuit?
I would like to do the work myself if possible, but if it gets too complex I'd probably just have someone else do that.

 

[Watchootognbout]

excellent idea. i really wish both my active basses had a tone control. i test wired one in on my spector once and really liked the ability of being able to crank up the treble but cut some of the edge off the top with the tone knob.

Personally I use my amps EQ when my bass is in the passive mode.

A/P switch.

When passive,I have found that I can duplicate the same tones I get when active.

 

[ObeyDaRiffness]

Yeah... I think after all the best thing to save money and time would be a bass eq in a convenient place you can tweak when needed... like not on the floor but somewhere you can quickly tweak betwen songs... either that or just directly tweaking the amp if possible.

But it would be a little too impractical and most importantly, lame looking, also with the preamp on the bass you would be more familiar with the EQ the frequencies and know every time what you're going to get. Also it would be very useful to switch between sounds during solos (not that anyone has ever let me soloing XD )...

 

[jbrew73]

So it can be done just by inserting it in the circuit?
I would like to do the work myself if possible, but if it gets too complex I'd probably just have someone else do that.

i had the volume and tone wired just like a standard set of emg active pickups and the output that would normally go to the output jack went into the preamp.

im sure there are other ways to implement it but i wouldnt feel comfortable offering advice on something that i'm not experienced with.

 

[winegamd]

You can do this with Aguilar preamps. The OBD-3 wiring instructions show how to insert the tone pot. It would likely be similar with other brands as well.

 

[Jughead6]

My Warmoth Jazzmaster IV build has passive pickups feeding into passive tone control then into a bypassable two band EQ preamp i.e. the passive tone control is always functional.

Circuit diagram sketch attached.

 

[eastcoasteddie]

You can do this with ANY preamp. Thanks to @line6man for this diagram, I did it to two of my basses with perfect results.
The reason I did this mod is because the Treble boost/cut frequency of most preamps is different than a standard .047 cap roll off. Sometimes you want a more passive sounding treble cut, this gives you the best of both worlds.
With A/P switch, tone control is in the circuit in Active and Passive:

You will need to obviously have a separate tone pot. For my Jazz, I did a 250k stacked pot and wired Volume on top with Tone control at the bottom. It's difficult to see with black knobs...(and never mind the chrome blend knob - i was able to obtain a black one...)

(With all black knobs)

 

[ObeyDaRiffness]

Thanks everybody... it was actually kind of stupid in retrospect, but it was never addressed anywhere, so I though there was something that wouldn't have worked... silly me!

For my Jazz, I did a 250k stacked pot and wired Volume on top with Tone control at the bottom.

Is it possible/practical to stack any kind of controls on a stacked knob? I was planning to have a "reverse" tone control (hi-pass filter) on top to cut bass stacked onto the pup blend.

 

[anotherhomeysan]

Pretty sure the Sire basses have tone in line with active controls.

 

[scuzzy]

i have this on my nordstrand equipped DP custom in my sig. at first, I was thinking it was a pretty dumb idea. after using it, I am planning to put one in my newly acquired MTD Kingston 5 string with active 2 band eq (actually just ordered the needed parts 10 mins ago). it is an incredibly usable addition to an active EQ circuit, and I think you will see them appear more often.

 

[eastcoasteddie]

Is it possible/practical to stack any kind of controls on a stacked knob? I was planning to have a "reverse" tone control (hi-pass filter) on top to cut bass stacked onto the pup blend.

The Blend control has a specific design with the center detent and the dual-tier connection point.
The 250k stacked pot I used is like having one Volume control stacked onto another, and they work independently of each other. The same thing that is used on the Flea jazz bass with Stack-knobs. The blend control has one knob and each tier's value is reverse proportional to which direction the knob is swept, and in a sense, dependent on each other.

As far as I know they are widely available as 250k and 500k, and maybe with 250k top and 500k bottom. You'd have to custom order different values, though I have used a 50k stacked pot for an active treble/bass control with a preamp. This one had a Center-detent.

I'm not sure of what you'd need or what value(s) pot/capacitor for bass-cut.

 

[Hevy T]

The new generation of the Ibanez SR 650 and 750 with the CND pickups have this setup

 

[ThuzzleFump]

My Carvin PB4 has a master tone control that works in active and passive modes. It also is the control for switching between active and passive (push/pull knob).

In passive it works like any passive tone control. In active it interacts with the treble and bass controls so it's a master tone control. Nice feature.