Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

With a master volume setup on my bassmy toggle/mv/tone setup is comb filter city in mid pos.
Is a blend pot better?
But is VVT only way to have both pups up with 0 combing?

A blend pot or separate volume controls will eliminate the phase cancellation as long as you're biasing pne pickup over the other. In some cases a .01uF capacitor placed in line with one of the pickup leads will also do the trick un some cases.

So even with VVT, if both volumes are full up there will be comb filtering heard?

Yes, that's right.

lumgimfong wrote:So even with VVT, if both volumes are full up there will be comb filtering heard?

And volume drop from the impedance of two coils in parallel dropping to roughly half of one pickup coil.

And yes. That can actually be one advantage of having an in-line capacitor to the bridge pickup: .0047 on a 4001/3 and .01 on a 4002. It lowers the fundamental on the bridge pickup and turns the signal 90 degrees in phase at the frequency hinge point of the capacitor, which helps with both comb filtering and the impedance halving volume drop. After I found out that the 4002 has a .01 capacitor years ago, albeit to both pickups, then 1) I put a push-pull in my 4002 to take it out of the circuit on the neck pickup when desired, and 2) I put a .01 inline to every J-bass bridge position pickup I have, whatever the bass is. Yes, it lowers the output of the bridge pickup slightly, but the advantages of countering the comb filtering and overall drop in volume due to the impedance drop of having both pickups in parallel to me is worth it.

So no master volume, no toggle, no blend. Just VVT. You will still get comb filtering?

lumgimfong wrote:So no master volume, no toggle, no blend. Just VVT. You will still get comb filtering?

Only When both volume controls are at the same level. vary one or the other, and a fuller tone will return.