itu

Pots may work, if the preamp is that very common "passive mix - active tone" system. The other tone is 30 k linear but there are no visible texts on that blend or vol.

For me the most helpful idea was to put dots (3., 5. etc.) to the side of the fretboard. You may use tape or nail lacquer. Use flageolet notes (harmonics) to find the exact positions.

From the somewhat foggy picture I can see that your neck pickup live wire is cut. It should be soldered back to its place. The treble (?) pot (lower left corner) has not got cover and may be in bad shape. I suppose it may be the same value as the bass (?) pot, linear 30 k. Pickups are passive, there is no power supply to them. Dual opamp (JRC 4558?) gives a hint that it is for tone control. It may provide some boost, too. Blend pot is probably passive. Somewhat sharper pictures of the front and back of the board would give quite a lot of understanding, what it is there for.

Pickup preamps do not have to be boosters. So you may get exactly the same output from an active or passive system. Then we usually talk about a buffer, not about an amp/booster. Active tone control itself may be a buffer, but the adjustments may be that powerful that the system is a frequency dependent booster (or cutter). Pickup can be hi-Z or lo-Z and there may be an amp after it - or not. I would first concentrate on sound and if needed, then tone tweaking possibilities. Bad pickup will sound bad even after a good preamp. I suggest you to find the suitable pickup first and then continue through the signal path, that is: Pickups - Active/Passive blend - A/P volume - A/P tone - output.

https://guitarelectronics.com/active-passive-true-bypass-switch/

Please give some more information about your system. There are just few pickups that are active by nature. EMG is the most known. It has a lo-Z coil and an amp integrated to an epoxy filled case. Only works with battery. Most systems on the market are passive with just active tone controls. This kind of tone capsule is easy to bypass with a DPDT-switch. If you buy a pot with such a switch, you do not need to make extra holes to your instrument.

When there was only vanilla ice cream, nobody asked for strawberry. I have played many very good sounding basses, but there have been different issues that have prevented me buying many of those. I have had the possibility to acquire the bass I like, not the the one that does not fit. My preferences are that 19 mm spacing (all of my basses do not have this), wide but shallow neck, 4 or 5 strings, light SS string set, 34 - 36" scale and light weight. This narrows the selection available but there are so many alternatives nowadays that I do not complain. I could play some 12 pound Jazz or Höfner B-bass or Steinberger L-2 but they do not represent me the optimal. I have studied playing while young but practically I am a weekend warrior nowadays. A suitable instrument helps me to go to gigs and rehearsals. I enjoy my instruments, because I feel like at home with them and I can concentrate on the details of the playing in stead of doing a workout. Sometimes I forget the quality of my instruments but visiting a local shop or playing someone else's instrument reminds me of my own, personal equipment.

The bass front and back are like B&W or positive/negative. For sure that was naturally intentional.

https://www.benedettipickups.com/micros-custom I do not know for sure, but they might be able to help you. That attachment bar to the fretboard caught my eye.

As you can see it from the diagram: https://www.bestbassgear.com/wiring-diagrams/2B-4b_epoxy.pdf the system is active tone control only. The signal route is: pickups - blend - volume (with the bypass switch) - active tone control - output This is the most common way to do it. With the switch you can bypass the active tone control and the system is like any other passive system with just volume and blend.

Which amp, which cable... your description was quite sparse.

Some ideas, maybe: https://soulman.fi/

I may repeat myself, but that Nordstrand has passive blend (pan, balance) and volume. This is no different to an Artec or Glockenklang or Darkglass or Aguilar et al. that offer only active tone control. Sound differences are related to opamp (battery life varies from 200 to 1000 hours) and frequency choices. Not that they are bad, but not completely active. There seem to be just few companies that have active blend: EMG (their fully active sets), East (that can be switched to fully active OR passive) and Noll (see the Mixpot).

The age-old 5532? Reminds me of old mixer and Alembic designs. It is a dual opamp (NE5534 is the single version), that has low noise, consumes quite a lot of power (for an opamp) and has a low impedance output (this is the reason for relatively high power consumption). There are better and newer solutions, but NE553X has good performance even today. After some search, I found a spec sheet of the NE5534 from July 1979!

Center detent. They are Bal, Treble and Bass.

Real active mixer (that I think East is) has no load effect on pickups, while you turn the pots (they are not related to the signal route the same way). My opinion is that it has the best quality soundwise. Price is around £200. If you are after an active tone circuitry, there are simple pots after the pickups and then the active tone capsule. This way the pots put load to the pickups and affect the sound. These are very common and there are lots of options from a relatively good £20 Artec. I do not think that the quality changes that much if you pay £100 more for a similar design. There are still those Vol or Bal pots that cost £2 each and their quality is, well, mediocre. Which do you think you and your quality instrument deserves? How much that bass of yours cost?

BreadBin was faster but I do have the same question: Is it really active with Vol Vol Tone Tone or rather Vol Balance Treble Bass?

I can not see the op amp types but all resistors are metal film ones (best choice noise wise). It would be nice to see, what is inside those steel boxes (shields) in the preamp. The other has to be the power transformer (leftmost) but how about the other? Those toroidal transformers in the power amp are serious.

This is something I am not so sure about. Usually op amp -based solutions consume low amounts of current depending on the op amps. Older ones like NE5534 (Alembic, anyone?) may consume 4 mA and modern counterparts less than 1 mA. This is the most current hungry component in your preamp. A 9 V battery capacity is around 500 mAh. If the preamp consumes 1 mA, this leads to 500 hours of playing. EMG claims that their pickups run 1000 hours, so they consume 0.5 mA. If you run your preamp (in the bass) with less than full signal, it actually dissipates some of its power, so warms up. My choice is the sound, so I run full signal from the bass.

According to the schema, the 1/4" input has a buffer (most likely hi-Z to lo-Z) before going in to the input transformer. This makes sense, as this X-former obviously is a lo-Z unit. I would see no reason to use a DI-box in front of it. I would point out, that certain bass preamps, and I mean those in the bass itself, could drive the lo-Z input. This would be possible with an XLR-XLR, or a 1/4"-XLR (1+3 to ground and 2 to hot) cable. Wal, Vigier... probably most basses with active output. Would be worth trying. I see no reason to use two buffers before the X-former.

From their pages: "We also machine the tuner holes in the headstock to suit normal tuners which have a 17 mm (11/16") bush. If you want to fit smaller Gotoh or Hipshot tuners we can machine the hole to 14 mm. The neck is not supplied with tuners as standard but it is not difficult to fit your existing tuners. All our necks are supplied with step-by-step fitting instructions and you do not need any specialist tools." Just visit their pages and you can see the necks and options. You can ask for tint (mine has green excluding the fretboard), top-nut for special string gauges, matt (yes) or glossy, every neck has a functional string retainer... And they are very helpful. Dawn even called me by phone that the neck was ready to be shipped - two, three weeks earlier than expected. Top marks! http://www.status-graphite.com/ No, this neck is not fretless, but an example of a Status neck.

I think this thread would be more informational if there were separate questions for: - gauges (sets or individual strings, like E: 30/35/40/45/XX...) - material SS/Ni/other - RW/HR/FW I am not very good in making a questionnaire that shows percentage of different answers. Who is able to make one?

My choice was a plain humbucker: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/337754-mourning-the-passing-of-gas/?do=findComment&comment=3701429

I needed (yes, yes...) a dark sounding bass. I went to a luthier and asked him to help me. I bought a Status MM neck, and I had an old humbucker (Q-tuner, clear and red). He asked me few questions and handcrafted the body from birch. He put all parts together. She is close to a Precision by heart, but still a modified custom that is far better than any P-bass that I have played. Because this dark lady was made for me, she's not a beach, sorry, bitsa. So have you ever been thinking to enhance the best features of your favourite bass and take away the annoying details? Have a meeting with a luthier and amaze yourself. Weight, shape, size, colour, scale length, pickup...

I would give a Status Graphite neck a try. I have two of their necks (fretless J and fretted MM). Lined fretless is a bit like cheating yourself, as it is not very ergonomic to try to see the fretlines. Side markers are a must to me: many double bassist do not need them.