Coronado Bass RI controls

[Baxter]

I had a topic a couple of years ago about the annoying controls on the Fender Coronado Bass reissue. As usual I procastinated until it was getting to the point of moving it on, but I really love it's looks and it fits with the sixties image of the band.
If you're aware, it comes with Fender Phonytrons (which are actually pretty good, i'll come to that ) and unfathomable Gretsch style wiring. So instead of intuitive pickup tone and volume controls its all really a bit of a mystery. I've pretty much just been running all the dials at 10 and using the amp for tone control. I was thinking of banging some TV jones ThunderTron or even Thunder Mags to beef it up a bit and have a proper look at the wiring
So I got together with my favourite guitar guy, George Russell. He reckoned he could rewind the pickups to TV jones specs so that was a bonus and as for the wiring - a download from the Ric website of of their 4001S mono wiring diagram and all of a sudden It's a totally different guitar. The standard arrangement of each pickup having the luxury of independently set volume and tone and the switch having neck/both/bridge all working as any sane man would expect it to is great. It turns out that the phonytrons kick out exactly the same as a ThunderTron never mind a standard FilterTron - the bobbins are wound as much as they'll take and are made if good quality materials...... so no work needed there. It's the new wiring that has really brought the guitar to life.
If you have one of these and you find it a bit flat and underpowered then get the wiring done - do away with that weird blending nonsense that means you can never run one pickup without the other. George was worried about the ric wiring bleeding power from somewhere (can't remember exactly but is was to do with pre or post tone contol to the volume pots) but I can vouch for its efficacy.

Hope this might be of use to someone

[Muppet]

Ok I'm interested, what next? "Get the wiring done" is a bit vague. New pots, all existing wiring just rewired, new wiring etc?

[Baxter]

Just re-do the existing wiring to the way that Ric do it. The diagram is available from their website.

The operation of the original gretchy wiring and the ric are completely different.

it used to operate like this;

both volume controls fully down to start with........

Switch to neck position bring volume and tone for neck pickup to full and it works like you'd think
bring the switch to the centre position - silence
Bring the bridge pickup volume up and both pickups start coming through. It works the same way with the bridge pickup too. So, with the switch in the centre position the volume controls are a blend of some kind - you can't have any volume on one without input from the other. It seemed that running both pickups full on was the only way to get any kind of decent sound out of it.

the ric wiring has

both volumes off......

switch to neck pickup - volume and tone fully contollable
switch to centre, guitar still fully on neck pickup
switch to bridge pickup - volume and tone fully controllable
switch to centre both pickups thundering... and volume and tone can be adjusted on each pickup so I can dial in my preferred tone - I just couldn't do it before. If you wanted a bit of power reduced on one pickup it impacted on the performance of the other.

Trust me it's now completely different. Someone said something about old les pauls in this context to me before so I'm guessing theres definitley a similarity of some kind.

[Baxter]

Aye Meddle, I've had a wee look at the 50s les paul stuff on the net, one guy summed it up as "Exactly. That's why the 50s wiring is 'wrong' from an electronics point of view, because it makes the two controls interactive - when both are below full, changing [i]either[/i] affects the setting of the other." which is pretty much the issue I had.
Well worth getting changed on this bass IMO.

[Muppet]

Ah ok so in summary, re-wire the existing 'Gibson' config for the Ric config. Straight forward enough once you discount doing all the gubbins through the F holes!

I attach the original wiring diagram if you're interested.

[attachment=232023:Fender Coronado Bass 0243200XXX Wiring and Control.pdf]

[whizzzy]

Thanks for this. I've modded my RI as per the above and agree that the pup selector switch now works in a much more logical manner. It has also overcome the issue when reducing the volume on one pickup where has a tone altering effect on the other. With both pickups set at max volume and no tone cut the overall sound of the bass remains unchanged, however I wouldn't have expected it to be any different. It definitely provides more flexibility in being able to dial up different tones though.

If anyone is contemplating the mod I would recommend that you remove the jack socket as it allows slightly easier access to the lower pots. Borrow or invest in a pair of cranked tweezers as well as this makes access through the f holes less fiddly.

[Muppet]

[quote name='whizzzy' timestamp='1479201482' post='3174634']
Thanks for this. I've modded my RI as per the above .....[/quote]

Good news - what schematic did you refer to (if any) to rewire?

[Baxter]

Good stuff Whizzzy, I'm much happier with the bass now.

[whizzzy]

I didn't refer to a schematic, I just followed the instructions which Meddle detailed earlier in this post. When you pull out the volume pots it is a simple case of switching the wires so that the [font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]pickups are connected to the wipers of the pot rather than the outer terminal. To allow the volume pots to pull out of the f holes far enough you will also need to undo the tone pots as well as the wiring between them is quite tight. Make sure you place a cloth or other protection over the front of the body as it could be quite easy to accidentally touch it with the soldering iron or hot solder. [/color][/font]