Muddy neck humbucker??? Try a BASS CUT circuit!

I can't believe I didn't catch on to this sooner. For years my relationship with humbuckers has been one of ambivalence. For a raft of reasons, but mainly not digging the neck pickup tone.

Recently I have been replacing the standard tone circuit in a few of my strats with a Passive Treble Bass circuit (PTB ala Leo Fender) when it hit me - "why not do this with humbuckers?" - Duh!!!
Like most things, I am not the first to think of it, and a quick web search revealed numerous methods of accomplishing this.

I have now fitted two variants into two of my humbucker equipped guitars and it has been nothing less than a revelation. It's actually a bit emabarrassing that I had not discovered this sooner, especially since it's not a new concept. I have used a fixed high-pass filter in a standard tone circuit before, but this approach is so much better.
I can see these guitars getting played a whole more now and not ultimately being put back in their case with a feeling of "meh".

So your take-away should be this:
If you're not happy with the tone of your neck humbucker... install a Bass Cut!

I won't post any links, as diagrams and info are readily found online and there are different variations for different applications to choose which suits your scenario best.

Thanks for that!
Im going to start my research now!


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Hey Oli.
Just thought I'd add a bit to my recent (and on-going) bass cut experience for you.

If you can source C1M pots for the bass cut pot, it's worth doing. So far I have done a 4 control set-up (standard 2V/2T) and a 2 control (standard 1V/1T).
In the 4 control (Vol/Vol/Treb Cut/Bass Cut) I used a C1M for the bass cut, and the 2 control I used 2 x 500k pots, but with a 1M resistor on the bass cut (as per one schematic). I prefer the sound and feel of the C1M pot.

I have some other mods to do on the 2-knobber, so I'll be switching it to a C1M pot when I do.

Where did you get the C1M pot?

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Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

Where did you get the C1M pot?

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Hi Cliff. Short answer is Tayda Electronics.

Longer answer: The only ones that Tayda stock are 16mm, which doesn't worry me. I'm not necessarily a "pot size" snob.
One reason for using their pots was they have splined shafts and since I wanted to use them primarily on strats, I wanted to be able to fit standard strat-style top hat knobs. This was before I made the link to applying the bass cut scheme to humbuckers.

I did find 24mm C1M pots (a bit more money) at Element 14, but the only shaft option available is a solid D shaft. Completely usable, but obviously require grub-screw type or push-on D-shaft knobs, which didn't suit me at the time. However I am considering ordering some anyway just to have in stock, and I do have quite a few dome knobs with grub-screws that I could use. Still have 4 or 5 16mm ones left too.

Cost per unit, including GST & shipping:
Tayda - 16mm C1M x 10 = $2.35 AU
Element 14 - 24mm x 10 = $4.08 AU

EIDT to add:
Just had a look at Tayda, and they do have other C1M pots with 6 & 6.35mm solid shaft as well, but all 16mm diameter casing.

EDIT #2:
Just had a look at Element 14's site again, and I was mistaken on the shaft type available. They are only available with a 6mm solid shaft (w/ screwdriver slot). Which is probably better than a D-shaft tbh.

FWIW, my original research (and order) was from 2019, so my memory had slipped a little from then til now :o

One other option, as it’s a tone control, would be to use a linear (B) taper 1 Meg pot, rather than the antilog (C) taper. It will bunch the main tone action up to one end of the pot travel, the same as when using a linear pot instead of a log/audio pot for tone control, but some people prefer that. It would certainly be an easier pot to find in full-sized and splined versions. You’d just have to reverse the order you wire up to the pot tabs compared to a C taper pot.

Simon makes a good point about using a linear pot backwards, and I considered it, but my first experience with using the PTB circuit was in G&L's and I liked the way it worked so tried to stay true to the original design. Just a smoother taper, so more gradual feel.

I could probably get use to a linear pot, but I'm happy with installing the 16mm ones. Just a matter of preference I guess.

Very much so. I prefer audio taper for tone controls, so if it was me, I'd try and source an anti-log pot.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Very much so. I prefer audio taper for tone controls, so if it was me, I'd try and source an anti-log pot.

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In the builds and mods I've done the past few years, I have reached the conclusion that I too prefer audio pots for tone.

Consequently I now have a boat-load of new & used linear pots in my parts drawer that will end up either in customer's guitars or on Marketplace :o.

Thanks. 👍

Sourcing 1m reverse audio pots takes me back...to 2009 when I last bought some. I ultimately got a couple from G&L directly. At the time they were advertising that all their pots were CTS...but it turns out that even G&L could not get CTS to supply them. The ones they sent me were a brand I'd never heard of, as was the original in my bass. Since I wanted a pot with a push-pull switch, I ultimately "made" one by destroying one of the [CME?] pots G&L sent me to get the wafer. I swapped the wafer with the one in a CTS pot with a switch, and to my surprise and relief it worked fine.

Not much has changed in the ensuing 12 years. I could find a couple couple alphas and a TT from Mauser (all 16mm). I could get them directly from G&L for 2-3x the cost of getting them from Mauser. Something new was that I could get a Bourns with a DPDT switch from Digikey if I was willing to wait at 24 weeks. The store in Thailand is definitely progress ;-)

The weirdest thing is that it is relatively easy to get a reverse audio 3M pot...which I guess is used in some fender amps. If my Franken-pot idea had not worked, I probably would have used one of those with a resister across the outer lugs to get it to approximate 1M.

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...but it turns out that even G&L could not get CTS to supply them. The ones they sent me were a brand I'd never heard of, as was the original in my bass.

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The stock pots in my G&L Tribute S-500 were made by and branded Mighty Mite (that continues to be one of my real "seller's remorse" guitars btw). They were a bit weird in that only half of the casing was metal. The rest of it was ABS plastic.

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Originally Posted by McCreed

They were a bit weird in that only half of the casing was metal. The rest of it was ABS plastic.

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What a place to cut corners! That's got to add just pennies to their bottom line...only at the expense of the reputations of both G&L and Mighty Mite.

I don't have buyer's remorse about my USA ASAT bass. I fell in love with it the first time I played it, and I got a good deal on it used. But the electronics were definitely not the draw. I had to replace a pickup because one of the coils stopped working (I am told this is not unusual because the wire is so thin). Although when I bought it the G&L website advertised that the pots were all CTS, none of mine were. Can't read the logo, but they look like ALPS and are stamped "Made in Japan." I put C&K switches in to replace the ALCO switches it came with. The wiring looked like a colorful bird's nest. Still does, actually. That I did not really improve. I also installed a battery box so I would not have to remove the entire control cover every time I had to change the battery... Great playing bass and the MFD pups make an incredibly broad spectrum of sounds either passive or active...And when I bought it the electronics worked fine. But the guts are not exactly "boutique" even on the USA made ones.

If anything, ALPS are better than CTS. Their faders are used in most of the big name mixing consoles.

This is what the Mighty Mite pots look like:
Attachment 40913

Funny thing is, they're not available on the Mighty Mite website. Only through other sellers.

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I don't have buyer's remorse about my USA ASAT bass.

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Yeah, me neither. I kick myself for selling it :o. And the MFD pickups do sound good! (they're worth a whole other thread)

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

If anything, ALPS are better than CTS. Their faders are used in most of the big name mixing consoles.

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Perhaps, but the ones in my bass were corroded and dirty. They look like they have an ALPS housing, but I can't be sure. It could well be that their grunginess had less to do with the mfg than the previous owner.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McCreed

This is what the Mighty Mite pots look like:
Attachment 40913

Funny thing is, they're not available on the Mighty Mite website. Only through other sellers.

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In keeping with my theme of being wrong about everything, those may not be too bad. Those are sealed pots...which might actually keep the dirt out and the lube in.

Don't know about the Mighty Mite site, but you can still get the MM branded ones on Amazon. I think those are actually TOCOS pots (a Japanese company)...they should actually be pretty good. They seem to sell for about the same price as Bourns or CTS.

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In keeping with my theme of being wrong about everything, those may not be too bad. Those are sealed pots...which might actually keep the dirt out and the lube in.

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LOL! Yes they are sealed, but I still ended up replacing the 250k one in my S-500 in less than a year of owning it. It was noisy, and IIRC, there was no way to clean the wiper with contact cleaner.

I still have it (for some reason???), maybe I'll take another look at it and see what's what.

Noisy pots can be an indication of DC present on the input of a valve amp. There is no DC blocking cap on the input circuit on almost every valve amp (despite DC blocking caps being common between preamp valve stages), but the first preamp valve can go slightly faulty and start putting some DC on the circuit. This can make pots seem like they are dirty, when you are hearing sudden changes in DC that act like noise spikes.

Yes, it can be the pot, but it might not be. First check if there’s any DC voltage on the end of a cable plugged into the amp. Anything more than a couple of millivolts and you could try swapping round the first valve with another of the same type. A buffered effects pedal between the amp and guitar is another quick way to check for DC issues, as the pedal will definitely have DC blocking caps, so any noisy volume or tone pots will be down to the pot itself.

Of course you may have both issues!

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That's good to know, and I'll put that in my "memory bank".

However, in my case it was through either an analogue amp sim or a solid state amp (Roland Blues Cube) and at the time I had a dedicated buffer as well.

Of course not knowing then what you stated above, I just assumed "bad pot". I changed it and the problem was solved!

Which reminds of a story from back in the 70's when I had a different experience involving "bad pot"... :o