The philosophy governing the design of electronics for Odyssey instruments is that they should provide a wealth of tonal options, user-friendliness and ease of switching from one tonal colour to another, overall tonal balance without undue excesses, low power consumption and ease of maintenance / replacement of electronic circuits (without soldering) if such repairs prove necessary for any reason.
We have chosen Bartolini and Kent Armstrong pick-ups, the former for their full, warm humbacker sound, the latter for their exceptionally clean single-coil tone. All electronic circuits are the result of close cooperation between CHP and Odyssey.
This cooperation has produced circuits that are ideally suited to the distinct character of each of our models.
The sound's volume for all Odyssey basses is controlled either by a separate volume pot for each pick-up or by a master volume and a balance pot.
Tonal shaping for fretted instruments is done by a separate EQ pot for each of the low, mid and high frequencies, as well as a special "slap-switch" - a single flip of which accomplishes all the necessary adjustments for the crossing over from a finger-style to a slap sound (i.e. it activates one of the neck pick-up coils, it lowers the mids and it slightly raises the overall volume).
Fretless instruments have totally different tone sculpting facilities, where in addition to the volume controls there are three other pots: gain, active tone and passive tone.
The gain control regulates the sensitivity and power blend of the electrical signal, that is in the "0" position we get an all-passive tone, while turning the pot gradually results in a strong active sound.
Finally the active tone control provides a wide choice of tone colours, ranging from a super-deep bassy tone to a tone with greatly enhanced-almost trombone-like - mids, while the passive tone control permits the overall darkening of the instrument's sound.