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Passive 'Wizard' pups into an active Warwick


warwickhunt
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All of my wiring experience re. pups in the past has been straight like for like exchange so I'm floundering a bit here!

I've received a pair of Wizard pups to replace my MECs in my avatar bass, can't get Andy on the phone (I realise he's a busy man and I'm not having a dig at him in any way, he's been great), however I need a quick answer re. wiring in these replacements (you know how it is... must get them in the bass NOW). As I whipped the pups out myself and spoke to Andy at some length he obviously assumed I'd be able to do the swap with minimal guidance and I appreciate his faith but I'd rather not b*lls it up :)

The MECs I've taken out have red (hot - to battery) and White (to controls) with a braided ground. The pups from Andy have a red and a green. Andy's email said that greens are starts, reds are ends and the humbucker can be series if I link the two reds together. Unfortunately I'm at a bit of a loss as this doesn't appear to be a straight like for like drop in, or is it?

I understand what series/parallel means but how do I achieve parallel if I don't link the reds?
Are the reds to go go to the battery (as per the reds from the MECs) and do the greens to go to the controls (effectively the white's from the MEC pups)?
Where is the ground on the Wizards or don't I need them?

I could just go with gut instinct and see what happens but I don't want to damage anything and I'd rather get it right first time. I can take a couple of snaps if it helps? I'll also do a quick Google and a search in the BC archives but if you can help just chip in!

Edited by warwickhunt
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[quote name='warwickhunt' post='49434' date='Aug 23 2007, 11:50 AM']All of my wiring experience re. pups in the past has been straight like for like exchange so I'm floundering a bit here!

I've received a pair of Wizard pups to replace my MECs in my avatar bass, can't get Andy on the phone (I realise he's a busy man and I'm not having a dig at him in any way, he's been great), however I need a quick answer re. wiring in these replacements (you know how it is... must get them in the bass NOW). As I whipped the pups out myself and spoke to Andy at some length he obviously assumed I'd be able to do the swap with minimal guidance and I appreciate his faith but I'd rather not b*lls it up :)

The MECs I've taken out have red (hot - to battery) and White (to controls) with a braided ground. The pups from Andy have a red and a green. Andy's email said that greens are starts, reds are ends and the humbucker can be series if I link the two reds together. Unfortunately I'm at a bit of a loss as this doesn't appear to be a straight like for like drop in, or is it?

I understand what series/parallel means but how do I achieve parallel if I don't link the reds?
Are the reds to go go to the battery (as per the reds from the MECs) and do the greens to go to the controls (effectively the white's from the MEC pups)?
Where is the ground on the Wizards or don't I need them?

I could just go with gut instinct and see what happens but I don't want to damage anything and I'd rather get it right first time. I can take a couple of snaps if it helps? I'll also do a quick Google and a search in the BC archives but if you can help just chip in![/quote]

Hi John
I would just copy the above to Andy's email. I've been speaking to him this week and everytime I've mailed him he's replied within a couple of hours. If you follow his advice and it goes wrong, you'll no doubt get replacement PUPs. Follow any incorrect advice from here - unlikely I know but possible - and it could be expensive!
Cheers mate, my new Wizards are in the post today
Chris

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Not entirely familiar with what you've got but....

Are these active pickups or passive ?

A PASSIVE pickup is just one long fine piece of wire wound around a bobbin. The ends of this fine wire are soldered onto the bobbin and then stronger connecting wires are soldered to these ends. The green wire will be soldered to the start of the coil and the red wire will be soldered to the end of the coil.

Either of the two can become the "earth" and will only do so when you connect it to the earth on the guitar electronics. To avoid polarity problems with multiple pickups, you would normally ensure the same end of each coil is attached to earth.

Two identically wired coils can be wired in series by connecting the red from one coil to the green of the other (effectively making one larger coil). They would be wired in parallel by connecting the two reds together and the two greens together (provided the coils are identically wired).

If the pickups are ACTIVE (i.e. the actual pickups are battery powered and not just the preamp) then I'm afraid I don'ty know as I've never had to deal with these.

Don't know if this helps ?

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Thanks everyone both posting here and PMs.

I've spoken to Andy, who kindly and very sympathetically talked me through the possibilities. He even went to the trouble of looking at the schematic on the Warwick website that I told him about and rang back to go through it again with modifications.

As I (and several BCers) thought, the MECs are active hence my slight wiring discrepancy, though Andy's pups are passive I can still utilise my active MEC circuit. However I am now up and running and I can't really stay long as I have to get back to my new bass :)

I may gone some time!

Thanks again one and all.

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[quote name='warwickhunt' post='49570' date='Aug 23 2007, 02:34 PM']Thanks everyone both posting here and PMs.

I've spoken to Andy, who kindly and very sympathetically talked me through the possibilities. He even went to the trouble of looking at the schematic on the Warwick website that I told him about and rang back to go through it again with modifications.

As I (and several BCers) thought, the MECs are active hence my slight wiring discrepancy, though Andy's pups are passive I can still utilise my active MEC circuit. However I am now up and running and I can't really stay long as I have to get back to my new bass :)

I may gone some time!

Thanks again one and all.[/quote]

Glad to hear it, I had this nagging "but he's bought passive PUPs" feeling but didn't want to say anything until you'd spoken to Andy. Keep us posted on the sounds John
Chris

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I was aware that the MECs were active pups (ie contrary to popular belief you can not just switch to passive setting when a battery dies and get through a gig, I tested that years ago) however, Andy and I had discussed the active/passive thing so I was aware that I may not be able to utilise my MEC preamp. Good news is that I now can utilise the MEC actives (it still lives) and if a battery dies then I do have a genuine active/passive bypass!

I'll hopefully be able to record the bass with Andy's pups in and A/B it with a stock identical bass that I have, I've actually just restung both with GHS Boomers to make it fair. I was initially trying to tame some of the nasally quality of the natural voice of the bass (partly down I suspect to the fact that it has hollow 'f' hole violin chambers. Initial impressions in the house are that I've gained mucho clarity and definition. I need to get the bass up to gig/band volume to truly appreciate the differences but as we stand I am impressed (particularly with Andy's customer service).

Cheers again guys

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  • 13 years later...

Digging up a post from the dead here......

@warwickhunt John do you recall having to replace the blend pot when going from active MECs to passive Wizards? I’m looking at replacing some gold active MECs with passives and so far I’ve found the balance pot is 22 or 25k but would have to be changed to 250k to work properly with passive P’ups. It’s using the BEC2 2 band MEC Preamp. 

I’m curious what effect the blend pot value has (and tight 😄

thanks

Daz

Edited by Dazed
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Blast from the past Daz!  :)  

I'm 99% certain that I didn't change anything else in this conversion, the blend pot would be as per the original MEC (mine was a stacked vol/pan pot).  I'm sure like me you'll be thinking; if it sounds OK without the changed pot... let's leave well alone.  ;)

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Yeah you wouldn’t believe how many hours I spent yesterday searching for info on this! 
 

That’s encouraging that you didn’t have to replace anything. I’m assuming it was a Warwick?........With F holes.... an Infinity or Infinette? And you were able to rework it to a proper active /passive switch that’s another bonus 😎

Shame this was over a decade ago as I’d really like to see how it was all connected up and copy it.

It’s a Pro2 I’m fiddling with. The bridge pickup is mostly lost on me so I’m planning to put beefier passive pickups in to hopefully improve the nasal thin sound. 

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43 minutes ago, Dazed said:

It’s a Pro2 I’m fiddling with. The bridge pickup is mostly lost on me so I’m planning to put beefier passive pickups in to hopefully improve the nasal thin sound. 

Let me know how you get on... I've been contemplating dropping either a pair of Bart pups or a pair of DiMarzio pups into my Pro II.  

I've always said that the rear pup is next to useless due to the location, though it is really the only downside to these basses.

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Most common "active" signal chain is:

pickups - blend - vol - battery powered tone stack - output

As you can see, the pickups are blended right away and the volume follows. Then there is the active tone stack, which may include treble, middle, bass etc.

If your pickups are simple, two wire hi-Z units and you want to go the hi-Z way, try a Bourns 250k MN or 500k MN.

If you want to try an active signal chain (lo-Z), replace the Bourns pot with a Noll Mixpot. It is an active mixer.

https://www.noll-electronic.de/guitar-electronics/mixpot/

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