The Last Bass Outpost

Well I think it also depends on what impedance your pickups are.

I had to change the pots on my modified JCS because they didn't match the Gibson Lo-Z pickup I put in.
I believe the JCS had 250 K Ohm pots installed. That didn't work with the Gibson Lo-Z pickup.
But now I have 2.5 K Ohms  (Yes that's correct: 2.5 K) like it says in the wiring diagrams from the Les Paul Bass / Triumph.
It wasn't easy to find them by the way...

I've been looking for 2.5K Triumph pots, Rob where'd you find them?  Actually, I think I'm still trying to figure out what taper the original ones were.  Do you know or did you just assume audio/log (some schematics show linear for some pots, log for others, and sometimes even a 3rd marking that I'm not familiar with - there are more than 2 pot tapers available).

And Yes, Rob, Hi vs Lo Z will change things significantly, but one HiZ pup vs another, is not that much diff (the Z is in the same ballpark) - the reason that they recomend 250K's for single coils is because they're usually too trebly (a matter of taste, some people love that skewed tone, which is why no-load pots and wiring straight to the jack are popular mods).  Humbuckers have double the inductance which acts as a low pass filter (just like a 1st over crossover on a woofer in a speaker cabinet), that's why buckers are darker than single coils (exception being great big hoinkin granddaddy coils like the original EB pup which have heela inductance as well - basically the more and/or thicker wire around more magnet = more inductance = less treble).  500K's are used on buckers to preserve what treble they do have; 250s are used to tame the treble on singles so they sound fuller (as per DrBassman's fancy).

I have found that the lower resistance of the 250k pots enhances the lower frequencies and gives a fuller sound to the bass, IMHO of course.  The higher the resistance, the more you bleed of the low end output of the pickup.  I used four 500k pots on my recent NR repro TB and it sounds thin to me, so the 500k tone pots are coming out soon for 250s.

I first noticed it with a 72 Telecaster bass I rehabbed.  It has 1 meg pots and no low end at all!  It took all of the mud right out of that old humbucker pup.  So, that one will be redone with a 500k tone pot to bring back some of the missing lows.

This is backwards; lower Z bleeds more treble thru the tone cap (higher Z prevents these freqs from being bled off, giving the brighter sound - the illusion of less bass).  You are noting this effect in reverse - it's like how some people call the baritone switch a bass boost.  You are not adding bass buy doing this so much as taking away treble.  Leave the stock 500K pots and turn down the tone control for the same effect with less work/money spent on new pots.

Because of the value of the tone caps on basses, 'treble' that is bled off may include some mids as well.

A much cheaper and IMO worthwile way to mod your tone is to play with the value and quality of the tone cap.  Or no-load pots.

My Idea, that I will execute as I aquire the appripriate basketcase candidate, is to put some Triumph pups in a short scale hollowbody.  The Trons doon't sound like a bad idea tho.

LOL - he's even got a genuine Gibson stool.

NO!  Nobody mentioned that thing here (yet - way to ruin the thread  )

You old-timers are silly sometimes - roller bridges won't work on carved tops not because of the added height requirement, but because they require a large flat mounting surface (parallel to the strings) which just does not exist.

Also, though a break angle is nice on an archtop instrument, it is hardly necessary (just makes setups easier... but also increases the bridge height requirement... see previous point).  He could go with a carved top here if he wanted to (and doesn't have issue with the 3 point, or some other post-mounted bridge).

I know it's a geetar, but this SG appears to have a carved top - interesting!