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

[Lonnybass]

I haven't built a bass without an active EQ + passive tone control in several years, and have no plans to do future instruments without the combination. It gives far greater control over the top end, especially with dialing off any harshness of new strings while still retaining a nice glassy top end, or trying to have a nice bright sound without the brittleness associated with certain EQ points through a powerful tweeter-equipped cabinet.

 

[KickingBass]

As some have stated, Sire basses have a passive tone knob that can work in both active and passive mode alongside the other active tonal controls. It works pretty well. It acts like a tone should but I'd be hard pressed to describe exactly what it does.

 

[Toptube]

Fender Jaguars have a passive tone which works while the active circuit is engaged.

 

[phillipkregg]

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

Yeah, I don't really understand why this sounds so unusual to folks.

Sadowsky does it, Skjold does it, even the Sire basses work this way. Most basses that I've seen that have a passive tone and active EQ work exactly this way. The only one I can think of that doesn't is the Fender American Elite basses.

 

[Passinwind]

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?

Sure. I've been working on that concept for a luthier friend for a couple of years now. We started with just active bass and midrange and a passive tone control that isn't bypassed when in active mode. But my friend also has at least three different active treble modules available, and any of them will work fine with a passive tone control also in-circuit. This not too different from the way many people use a variable HPF and their Bass control in tandem to get more complex and maybe nicer sounding frequency response curves. The famous Pultec EQ circuit works something like that too. And of course knob haters gonna hate even more...

 

[Passinwind]

Yeah, I don't really understand why this sounds so unusual to folks.

Sadowsky does it, Skjold does it, even the Sire basses work this way. Most basses that I've seen that have a passive tone and active EQ work exactly this way. The only one I can think of that doesn't is the Fender American Elite basses.

IIRC the Noll preamp switches between cut-only in passive mode and active boost/cut in active mode, all on one dual pot with one knob. I think that's a cool feature, but of course it just depends on what one wants.