Bass Pickup Wiring

[skibum5545]

I just got myself a pair of G&L Magnetic Field Design bass humbuckers, and so I've started thinking about wiring for them. They are both 4 wire humbuckers (like this), leaving open a whole range of wiring options for me.

However, I really have no idea which features I want for maximum versatility. Which wirings are going to come in most useful, in your opinion and experience:

Coil Taps

-Just inside coils

-Just outside coils

-Choosing either coil from either pickup

Series/Parallel

-neck pickup

-bridge pickup

-between the two pickups

Volume Controls

-Individual per pickup (with or without toggle)

-Master plus 3 way toggle

-Master, blend, and toggle

Tone Controls

-Master Tone

-One tone per pickup

I can work out schematics and switching (push/pull vs. mini toggle vs. 3-way) by myself; I just was wondering which of these options would come in most handy, while keeping controls on the face of the guitar to a minimum.

Of course there is the ultimate combo, but it's probably not worth the work:

-4 Push/Pull pots: Volume for each coil, pulled up: tone for each coil.

-3 Mini Toggles: Series/Parallel for each pickup, and between the two.

-2 Momentary Mini Toggles: Momentary kill switches

Throw in an active preamp, active/passive switch, 4 band EQ on stacked pots, and you're good to go!

Or maybe not.

[lovekraft]

My suggestion?

5-way 4-pole wafer switch (Strat style) or rotary switch wired like this:

1 bridge humbucker

2 inner coils parallel

3 both humbuckers parallel

4 outer coils series

5 neck humbucker

preamp/3 band EQ/master volume

Edited September 11, 2004 by lovekraft

[skibum5545]

Thanks for the quick reply; I hadn't considered a 5-way switch, but it's starting to sound like a really cool idea!

On top of that would it be worthwhile to throw on one of Big D's bass varitone switches, or does that start getting redundant with the tone possibilities?

[lovekraft]

Absolutely not! My BC Rich custom shop has a varitone in it, and I use it more often than the selector switch. I would wire it A/B with the EQ, though, so one or the other, not both, were active at any given time, just to avoid confusion, and since the varitone is passive, you might want to add some more preamp gain when it's in the circuit. It would take some work to get it all adjusted so that there weren't any serious volume changes when switching from one to the other, but once you got it tweaked out, it should be really easy to use.

[skibum5545]

I'm probably not going to use a preamp in this bass, just to save time and money. I have a G&L with a MFD single coil, and it's plenty loud, so the boost probably isn't necessary.

It's good to know about the varitone switch, though. I'll keep that in mind!

[skibum5545]

1 bridge humbucker

2 inner coils parallel

3 both humbuckers parallel

4 outer coils series

5 neck humbucker

For options 1 and 5, is that in series or in parallel within each respective humbucker?

[lovekraft]

Series - just standard humbucker wiring. But that's because that's the way I like it, so do what sounds good to ya - I just love grinding that bridge humbucker through a little tube distortion so it cuts through the mix, and irritates those guitarists who think a bass player is for show.