Modded Jazz Bass Wiring?

[BruceBass3901]

Hi guys,

I did a search and saw that what I am asking was possible but could not find the details I am in need of so....

I am currently building a bass with twin J pickups and originally intended to wire it like a standard Jazz...

But, after a bit of thinking, I decided to try and go a bit mad wiring wise and could do with a little help from the BC gurus!

What I am looking to do is have the standard VVT controls AND a four position rotary switch with Neck only, both parallel, both series, Bridge only.

Has anybody on here wired a bass this way? And/or does anybody have a wiring diagram for this setup?

Thank you guys!

[neepheid]

Although it'll be illogically laid out (because it's a Gibson and as such will always have illogical nuances), I will be doing this very thing with my Gibson Ripper:



Ignore the orange/brown earth wires, that's a secondary earth. Red is hot, black is earth. This gives the following for this type of switch:

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 1: A -> 1, B -> 5, C -> 9[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 2: A -> 2, B -> 6, C -> 10[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 3: A -> 3, B -> 7, C -> 11[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 4: A -> 4, B -> 8, C -> 12[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]A is wired to ground, B takes the (reversed) hot of the bridge pickup, C is final output to the volume pot. X means no connection.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 1 should give both in series[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 2 should be bridge pickup only[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 3 should be both in parallel[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Position 4 should be neck only[/font][/color]

However, this then feeds to a single volume control (the blue wire coming out of connection C). How you'd go about doing this and retaining the individual volume controls I don't know for sure. Feed the pickups to the volume controls first and then feed the outputs of those pots to the switch then the output from the switch to the tone pot? Maybe that's daft.

Hopefully this will give you the beginnings of an idea, and someone with far greater knowledge than me will come along and tidy it all up

[brensabre79]

I did a similar thing with mine a while back except the series parallel was simply a dpdt on the volume control.

I wonder if aving two volume controls as well as a pickup switch will cause frustration. It's really easy to accidentlly turn the bass off. i.e. having neck pickup volume down then switching to neck pickup = no sound.

What I did as have Master volume, a 5 position switch (with preset variable resistors to balance) and tone control with a push pull on the volume to put the two pickups in series (which over-rides the pickup switch).

the added bonus is no need for an extra hole to be drilled into your bass!

Heres the switch wiring - just add tone

Edited September 16, 2014 by brensabre79

[BruceBass3901]

Thanks for the input guys! I think I have this figured out now but won't really know until I get it all wired up

[iiipopes]

Why not a conventional V-V-T with either a Fender S1 pot or a push-pull pot to get series-parallel? Much simpler.

[BruceBass3901]

The main 'problem' (if indeed you can really consider it as such) is that I have a 4 hole control plate but the jack is already mounted to bottom edge of the body, so a conventional VVT setup would leave me with an empty hole. So I thought a pickup selector switch would be a good way of filling it with something that actually had a purpose.

I am now considering having Volume-Blend-Tone setup with a toggle or series/parallel instead...

Still not sure which way to go though

[BruceBass3901]

Okay, I've decided to do away with the neck only and bridge only options, so now the rotary will only go between series and parallel with the pots wired to be VVT...

Can anybody see why this would be complicated to wire?

And can anybody hook me up with a diagram?

Edited October 1, 2014 by BruceBass3901

[brensabre79]

I wouldn't bother with a rotary for a simple series / parallel switch. the rest of the controls will be stock, so you just need to add in the switch into the 4th hole. Not even sure you can get a 2 position rotary

Here's diagram for a standard switch:

[BruceBass3901]

Well I did the deed and wired the rotary to be 2 position (I sourced rotary switches where you can insert a small pin to limit the number of positions from 12 down to 2) with series / parallel and it works a treat!

Finding a DPDT switch would have been preferred, but I could not find one which was large enough to take up the hole in the plate, let alone one in black to match the rest of the hardware!