This may become a long thread. Or may die on the vine like many of my queries.
How do you Stickists control your volume? Volume pedals, pickup volume, a combination of both?
Coming from playing bass guitar in a band setting, I always ran the bass "full out" and controlled volume w/ a volume pedal.
But with the Stick, I dunno.
I will hopefully soon be playing with a musician (multi-instrumentalist) in his studio, listening thru (very big) studio monitors. Two flying, two on the floor.
I have always been "shocked" at the sound of the Stick "live" (I play with headphones) and had problems controlling it. Not the overall volume per say, but it seems it has too much high-end, and adjusting tone controls - a floor unit (PODX3) is difficult. No real tone control on a PASV4 - not a roll-off. Am I missing something? Pickup vol. control seems to take that edge off pretty quickly, just bring up the volume on the pedal board?
I'm sure this is discussed on Basschat and guitar blogs, but I'm dealing with BOTH at the same time. 12-string DBR, playing the role of the bass, plus rhythm guitar, plus melodys, arpeggios, etc.
Again, bassist mentalities, I'm tweaking tones to "blend in the mix", mainly because of listening to isolated bass tracks, and guitar tracks, of albums. Most are shockingly "thin".
Any help? Thoughts? Ideas? Transgressions?
Thanks in advance...for reading up to now...

Hey Marty.

I'm a big believer in volume pedals, one for each Stick signal. Ernie Ball Jr's are my preference, due to their feel, construction, and maintenance. The maintenance (string & pot replacement, which come up every couple of years or so) isn't entirely easy. But I've since educated myself on how to do it and where to find parts, since I love these.

I play live (not headphones). So the output and control is great to my ears. But the majority of my playing for the past 8 years is solo. And when working with a band (drummer mainly), the characteristics of a volume swell get drowned out. But that may be an amplification issue.

I've never really used any effect pedal until the last 5 years or so. Volume pedals are the exception. I've used those since I started playing Stick in 1996. This was due to my inability (at the time) to start a phrase softly, then grow in volume. I've since learned from Greg how to do a 2-finger rapid note with increased volume.

But the volume pedals stay. They are great and my feet constantly work in tandem with my fingers.

I normally run my 'Stickup' pickup volume knobs wide open and control the volume thru the amp. I play quite loud and if one side of the Stick seems louder than the other, I may adjust one side of the Stick lower than the other.

To be more specific, the affect of pickup volume on tone?

I leave both knobs on Stickup at full volume. Sounds much better than any other setting.

While seated, sometimes my right thigh will accidentally lower the bass volume knob on the Stickup. For some reason, the lowered volume knob output sounds more muffled as opposed to quieter.

Is this what you're asking?

George Price makes interesting use of the pickup module volume control in the video, but it does of course use up a playing hand...

with a PASV 4 pickup you might benefit leaving the volume wide open and using a preamp like a http://www.sfxsound.co.uk/SP2/ that will get rid of some of the thinness of sound you are experiencing. it has stereo i/o and basic tone and volume controls. the preamp gets rid of impedance mistmatch "tone suck" if you are going into an input that has an impedance lower than 1MegOhm , you'll see many discussions of preamps for this purpose for sticks with passive pickups on this forum if you do a few searches on preamp. the SP2 and the "cadillac" Stepabout preamps are the most commonly discussed ones. but there are others that work ok also i had a stereo presonus blue tube preamp that worked ok

The right thigh syndrome happens all the time! To the point where I've taken the knob off as to not accidently turn down the bass volume. But yeah, the affect of volume on pickup output, as to "roll-off" of high end, as opposed to just "volume". I would think guitarists would be more familiar with this, they always seem to be twidling with their knobs (the good ones anyway).

Volume pedals. On one or both sides depending on the gig. The tone is adjusted in the amp.

Edit:
I just realized that my post was bit short To clarify, I don't use the pedals for setting the general volume, that's done in amplification. The pedals are for playing violin-like attack notes, and I also route a delay or reverb to be faded in and take over, to "freeze a tone", when a pedal is in the toe-up position (muting the instrument input to the amp). With two such pedal setups, you may play a melody or chord arpeggio on one side and freeze a pad by the other fretboard, or put a foot on both pedals. But all that is just "sound design". I generally tap harder or softer for musical dynamics. (Oh, and a Tube Screamer to kick in now and then on the melody side, before the pedal of course, to cut noise when not playing)

I leave them up all the way up and control the volume by tapping harder or lighter. I’ve used volume pedals for swell effects, like Alex Lifeson does in Xanadu. However the same effect can be done with swell or tremolo effects. Regardless of which Stick I use, Stickup or PASIV , in general the Stick is a very dynamic instrument compared to a guitar or bass. I find going softer the sound does not die off as easily. I read an interview with Tony Levin on this subject many years ago, so I never had the urge to use a volume pedal on a Stick for volume effects. I do find the Stickup to work better. Depending on what amp the host may run me through, not all PA’s can handle the dynamics of a PASIV pickup. In some cases I have to switch to the rear pickups to reduce the output.

For cutting off volume I add a gain block in my Helix or QC effects chain to shut it off, typically for switching instruments in a performance using the same patch. Record a loop, play, switch off the instrument and turn on the second instrument .

Most of my use of volume pedals go into controlling the volume of loops. I like fading the loop in and out so the loop does sound stale at a constant volume depending on what I’m playing.