The “tone” pot on a passive bass is a RC (Resistor, which is the potentiometer wired as a variable resistor + Capacitor) low pass filter. The pot controls how much of the original signal is grounded, so it’s somewhat a “level” control for the filter. The capacitor value controls the cut frequency of the filter. A higher value will cut trebles at a lower frequency, so the filter will give a darker sound when you lower the tone pot.
In a bass, 47nF is a pretty standard value that works with more or less every pickups with good results.
My new pickup is very clear, so I want the tone filter to be a bit more on the darker side, to help me tame the trebles when I want to. 68nF is not a huge value but still one step darker than a 47nF cap. 100nF can work too, for those who want to go in the very dark territory.
So for my DiMarzio’s 47nF is the exactly fit.
Tomorrow I’ll get my EMG GRZ for exactly the same bass config (but another bass) - I expect that to be less dark. So that could be resolved 68nF??!
The Stellartone Tonestyler is interesting, which has 9 capacitors and you can switch between them on the fly, or bypass it entirely. It sounds really good on my Squire Mustang with the Lollar pickup.
Yeah absolutly, there is a nice fat bump in the low-mids and a very strong punch, but it’s not a dark pickup at all. It’s even very well balanced, for such a powerful pickup.
This was a bass that found me for very cheap…its brand name is Segovia, and it was made in Korea in the factory that produced the Vester brand (80s-90s)…I think it might be a relabeled stock dump of a Vester made around the time Fender sued them (and Vester shut down)…it was meant to be my first project bass, but after getting it home it became apparent it had an awesome neck so I wanted it as an everyday bass (it has '62 pbass neck dimensions but with jumbo frets, and even has a flamed maple back!)
so I just changed the pick ups to the EMG Geezer P set (twice the cost of the bass!) and covered the pick guard…it is now my BEAD bass and sounds and plays so well
if I named basses it would be the iron man bass
yeah it is very nice…the electronic parts had seen better days but with the new pickups it is equivalent to my MIJ p basses and I really like the jumbo frets for BEAD…it was a real bargain at about 15% of the price each of my Fenders cost me
yeah @Mike_NL for the pick guard I just got a roll of permanent adhesive vinyl (harvest yellow), cut to general shape, stuck it on the pick guard and carefully ran a box cutter with a new blade around the edges to trim it to fit
After long testings with various tubes in various orders, here is my current choice for the preamp of my SVT. Only vintage tubes. The Real is a yugoslavian high-end (selected) tube, and the Mullard and RTC are famous english ones.
the Model P 
Thanks for the explanation!
