Hotter signal?

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Tim Bishop

Need some clarity. Unless I am misunderstanding you here Ken, I did not know you made a 'passive' bass . You stated above "The Circuit has bs/tr controls only, not separate active volume boost". Did you make any or many basses without the 'active' circuit or were there just a select few and which models (if model specific)?

The Smith Soapbar Pickups are always and have always been passive, period. The Volume control is always passive regardless of the Circuit in the bass. A passive bass means no battery at all which we made quite a few in the early 1980s. The active section of a Smith bass is the Bass and Treble on the older ones and later the added Midrange controls. The volume control is still passive. Basses made later with 4 and or 5 knobs have a trim pot inside to raise the active level output overall. We set this so that the flat EQ'd volume is the same as when the Bass is in passive mode. The Volume control is still passive.

The active by-pass (push/pull volume) can only work if the volume control and the pickups are passive. The Balance control are basically the pickup mix control and passive as well. When you lift the volume knob, everything still works but the tone +/- controls (bs/md/tr). This is why the Bass will work when the batteries go dead.