A Passive Tone control is a low pass filter comprised of a three-way variable resistor (potentiometer), and a capacitor.
How does a passive tone control work?
The passive tone control on your electric bass guitar is a subtractive device. The capacitor allows high frequencies to pass or be bled to ground, and the pot allows you to control the amount of signal delivered to the capacitor. A tone control can only reduce frequencies being let through and not add anything extra. In fact, where the tone control is commonly placed is commonly the cause of lackluster results.
Can my bass have better use of the tone control?
Yes. The way in which many electric bass guitars have the passive tone control implemented is less than ideal for what this little circuit can accomplish. Using a Fender Jazz Bass as an example, the main issue is the placement of the tone control in the signal chain. A common Jazz Bass issue, as many owners are full aware, is that unless the neck pickup, bridge pickup, or both are at full volume the tone control “feels weak.” The reason for this is due to where the control is in the signal chain. The illustration below is the standard Jazz Bass wiring common to many if not all Jazz Bass models that utilize three controls.
Absolutely! The tone control can be changed out and replaced with a tandem tone pot, along with rewiring how the pickups are connected to the controls, resulting in much better control of your instrument’s overall tone. The illustration below is an example of how you can rewire your existing controls.
Where can I find this tandem tone pot?
Best Bass Gear currently stocks one version of this particular pot. It is available here:
This is not a stacked potentiometer, but rather a pot that has 6 connections and a single shaft. Using a tandem tone pot not only has benefits of allowing tone control on both neck and bridge pickup independently, but also allows two different capacitors to be used for each pickup. For example, you may want less high frequencies to come through on the neck pickup, but prefer more for the bridge pickup. In that is your goal, you may want to use a 0.047µF for the neck, and a 0.022µF for the bridge.
What capacitor value should I use?
The answer to that question depends on what you are looking for out of your tone control.
Using higher value capacitors shifts the frequency cutoff point, cutting further down into the upper midrange and heads towards the lower midrange.
A lesser value moves the cutoff frequency point higher preserving more of the high midrange when the control is used.
For an instrument with passive pickups, a good starting point is in the range of 0.022µF to 0.047µF. With active pickups such as EMGs, 0.1µF would work. From there, you can experiment with many different values to get a feel for what is possible and pleasing to your ears.
What types of capacitors should I use?
Electrolytic or tantalum capacitors are not recommended.
Recommended capacitor types are Paper in Oil, Ceramic Disk, Mylar, or Poly-Film. There is no significant advantage or disadvantage to using one over another, as performance will be generally equal no matter which type you choose. The value of the capacitor (as in its capacitance and not price) is more important than what the capacitor is constructed from.
on your electric bass guitar is a subtractive device. The capacitor allows high frequencies to pass or be bled to ground, and the pot allows you to control the amount of signal delivered to the capacitor. A tone control can only reduce frequencies being let through and not add anything extra.
While passive tone controls can only cut a specific frequency (and this is typically limited to high-frequency roll-off ), an active tone control can cut and boost several frequencies at a time. This is determined by the number of frequency bands in a given system.
A tone control circuit is an electronic circuit that consists of a network of filters which modify the signal before it is fed to speakers, headphones or recording devices by way of an amplifier.
There are two types of tone control circuits, passive and active. The passive kind consist of the pots, resistors and capacitors. There is an amplifier tube before the tone circuit and another tube amplifier after the tone circuit but there are no tubes directly involved in the tone control circuit itself.
Even if you could design a system with a flat frequency response, and you cannot if only because the speakers alone would never have a flat frequency response across the audio band, your listening room cannot have a flat frequency response; ergo, tone controls are absolutely necessary.
The passive voice has a subtler tone than the active voice has. Sometimes your writing needs this tone, like when you want your reader to focus on the action being described or the action's target rather than on who or what is performing the action.
It will depend on what you, the writer, want to convey: if you want to draw attention to the doer, use the passive voice; if your intent is to put the focus on the action, then you should go for the active voice.
Lower pot values like 250k, allow high frequencies to more easily leak off to the ground (the inaudible part of the circuit). This can make a bright pickup sound pleasant, or it can make a dark pickup sound muddy. Higher values, like 500k, produce less high-frequency signal loss.
It's there to counteract the relentless string tension that would otherwise pull the bass's headstock toward the bridge and render the instrument virtually unplayable. The truss rod can be adjusted by either a socket wrench, an Allen wrench or a screwdriver, depending on the manufacturer and the age of the bass.
In most cases, the EBC will not increase the internal gain setting thus protecting your system from square waves and distortion. Set your gains for maximum bass levels and use your EBC to reduce the amount of bass when desired.
The Bass knob controls the mix level of the frequencies in the lower section of the audio spectrum. The knob on the subwoofer is controlling the gain on the signal going into the amp. Turning the Bass knob down only changes the relationship of the bass frequencies with those of the treble frequencies.
Passive volume pedals are basically a potentiometer mechanically turned by a pedal, and work much the same way as the volume knob on a regular magnetic pickup guitar. A quick way to identify a passive volume pedal is it doesn't normally need power.
Tone pots are connected using only terminals 1 and 2 for use as a variable resistor whose resistance increases with a clockwise shaft rotation. The tone pot works in conjunction with the tone capacitor ("cap") to serve as an adjustable high frequency drain for the signal produced by the pickups.
This allows you to adjust the amount of bass or treble frequencies output by the bass. Passive basses often have just one tone knob that cuts the treble frequencies.
The tone and volume controls in a typical bass (practically all of them) are wired in parallel; neither is "first." The tone control shunts treble frequencies to ground, the volume control shunts all frequencies to ground as their respective controls are turned towards zero.
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