Active pickup blending

[Eddododo]

Working on an onboard bass preamp;

For active pickup blending, is there a significant difference between wiring the pickups to the volume/blend pot and mixing those outputs at the input of a buffer (a) vs going pickup -> buffer -> mix (b), vs pickup -> volume -> buffer/mix (c)?








I'm trying to knock off a lot of cobwebs, but would I be right in assuming that mixing at the input of an inverting amp would be better, and would that advantage be irrelevant if I was mixing two already-buffered signals?

Certainly a lot of ways to approach it.. what I find interesting is that in the few dozen schematics, I've collected, only two or three of them buffered the signals before mixing.

For my pre, I lean towards option C, as it allows me to include typical loading / pot values / passive tone, but it would be great if I could save an op amp Or reappropriate it to another stage.