ditching volume control for sd bass preamp/active tone?

[Jedi Clampett]

I am making a minimalist bass with one pickup. I am using a telecaster control plate which allows for 2-pickups and a slider switch.
I plan on purchasing a sd 2 band bass preamp. I have the choice of ditching the vol control and using a hidden thumb pot instead. That allows me to use both bands in the former vol and tone post spaces.
A vol pot is vital on electric guitar since vol swells are a primary guitar technique. I am assuming that I can ditch the vol pot and few would notice. Do you use the vol pot alot in your bass playing? Trying to get a feel for the consequences of ditching the pot.

If you feel a volume pot is vital for bass playing, I can use the concentric pot and keep the vol pot. So just wanting your opinion?

[One Bad Monkey]

Re: ditching volume control for sd bass preamp/active tone?

For myself, I use the volume pot more to mute my sound (I play a lot of ampless gigs, where I'll kill the volume and put the bass on a stand for set breaks). However, when I'm playing the volume pot is always at 100%, so unless you were playing in a room where you really needed to use the volume pot on your bass to help adjust, I don't see any reason why your idea wouldn't work.

Give it a shot and report back! With pics!

[Jedi Clampett]

Re: ditching volume control for sd bass preamp/active tone?

For myself, I use the volume pot more to mute my sound (I play a lot of ampless gigs, where I'll kill the volume and put the bass on a stand for set breaks). However, when I'm playing the volume pot is always at 100%, so unless you were playing in a room where you really needed to use the volume pot on your bass to help adjust, I don't see any reason why your idea wouldn't work.

Give it a shot and report back! With pics!

I build electric guitars for family members. I am not one of those meticulous craftsman types, but my quality is pretty good. Never going to sell any of these guitars and I also use leatherwork from a Master Leather artist in Taos who is beyond amazing.

Every guitar I build starts with a concept. The first thing is that the guitar needs to be unique and not available commercially. Then it has a theme. My wife's guitar is called "Eagles and Horses" and is a tribute to the memory of John Denver. The current build has an aztec theme. Every theme is researched. This bass guitar has a southwestern theme. I mostly buy my paddle necks then shape the headstock and build the bodies from scratch. I have alot of spare parts buying from holiday sales at GC over the last 20yrs. This guitar starts out in life as a used Squire '51 Precision, looks like a telecaster bass. All hardware is ditched. I will likely veneer elm burl to the top and back and finish with gun oil. The neck is getting an amber tint nitro finish.

The electronics concept is to have many practical options with just a single pickup. As with guitars, I generally set tone controls on the amp and are redundant with most basses since the guitar and the amp have tone controls, so like the option of switching controls out of the circuit or them being non-existant.
With this guitar controls will fit into a telecaster control plate (it is a gold engraved tele plate from eldorado made for me) so that gives me 2-post and a switch. So the pots will be the bass and treble sd onboard 2band eq and the switch is a yamaha superswitch that will control all parallel, series, coil switch and bypass. I will have to do some experimentation to find the effective settings and delete the similar settings. One of the design criteria is to push the envelope for control options, while at the same time being easy to use. So when you use the switch every setting gets a different tone or it is a bypass.

So with this thread, I am basically (pun) asking if you use the volume control? because if you don't, then that leaves room for a pot. Using the volume control to shut off the guitar at the gig, can easily be done with the level switch or a small switch on the control plate.

[dg27]

Re: ditching volume control for sd bass preamp/active tone?

I tend to leave my amp settings consistent and do use the vol pot to back off at times. Years ago I always left it on 10, but not now.

Also, on one my basses I have a DPDT to switch from series to parallel. I find that making that change does necessitate using the volume pot.

[Jedi Clampett]

Re: ditching volume control for sd bass preamp/active tone?

I am making a minimalist bass with one pickup. I am using a telecaster control plate which allows for 2-pickups and a slider switch.
I plan on purchasing a sd 2 band bass preamp. I have the choice of ditching the vol control and using a hidden thumb pot instead. That allows me to use both bands in the former vol and tone post spaces.
A vol pot is vital on electric guitar since vol swells are a primary guitar technique. I am assuming that I can ditch the vol pot and few would notice. Do you use the vol pot alot in your bass playing? Trying to get a feel for the consequences of ditching the pot.

If you feel a volume pot is vital for bass playing, I can use the concentric pot and keep the vol pot. So just wanting your opinion?

I may have confused some, the bass has one pickup and two pots, not two pickups. So on the control plate, two holes for pots and a place for a switch