Wilkinson WJM

[SubPlucker]

Hello everyone, i’m new here and looking for info about the wilkinson wjm pickup. It appears to be a combined jazz and musicman pickup - i.e. a single coil or humbucker in the same housing. JHS should fire their marketing department as there is scant information available about this pup. I was hoping for a wiring diagram or at least its dimensions so I can tell if it’s gonna fit in my bass. The best i found is a review of the Fret King Esprit here https://www.musicradar.com/reviews/guitars/fret-king-black-label-esprit-i-bass-573896 which praises the pickup and its vari-coil control which just looks like a blend control to dial out the j coil to leave just the mm coil.

Anyone ever used one? Trevor Wilkinson talks about it @ 1:49 in this video after a quick demo @ 0:43.

Thanks, Dean.

Edited February 24, 2019 by SubPlucker
correction

[paul_5]

I've just ordered a second one of these after fitting one in my fretless Jazz. I used a Stingray scratch plate as a routing template to get both the 'sweet spot' and the right sized rout. It looks to be identical in size to a 'standard' Musician pickup, as the scratch plate is a lovely snug fit around the pickup. 

 

There isn't really any information on wiring it up, so I had to get my meter out to check which coil is which; not even a sheet of paper in the packet...

 

Wiring is as follows: 

Red wire is HOT for J coil

Thick Black wire is GROUND for J coil

Thin Black wire is HOT for MM coil

White wire is GROUND for MM Coil.

 

 

 

[SubPlucker]

Thanks for the info. How does it sound? Are the coils noisy when soloed?

[SubPlucker]

For anyone interested, here is the wiring diagram for the Fret King Esprit bass which uses the WJM with the vari-coil feature. When this pot is fully "open" it shorts the j coil to ground, when fully "closed" you have both coils in series and then anywhere else you get a blend between the two. Note that this is unlike the typical musicman pickup which has the coils wired in parallel.

fretking esprit wiring.pdf

Edited February 24, 2019 by SubPlucker

[paul_5]

On 20/02/2019 at 17:43, SubPlucker said:

Thanks for the info. How does it sound? Are the coils noisy when soloed?

Sounds really good - nails the Stingray sound (well, maybe 95% there) and not noisy at all when soloed. Really glad I put these on my Jazz basses now.

[SubPlucker]

Cool but I don't really see what's special about this pickup. Most MM pickups I have seen are 4-wire affairs so that you could do this vari-coil idea with any of them. I think a series/parallel switch is more useful as I don't like the sound of the bridge J on it's own. Good to know it sounds good though, and it's not too expensive so that may be reason enough.

[Zheets]

The  two Wilkinson WJM pickups that I have uses Red and Green for Musicman coil while White and Black for for the Jazz coil.

Edited October 26, 2019 by Zheets

[LukeFRC]

On 25/02/2019 at 16:38, SubPlucker said:

Cool but I don't really see what's special about this pickup. Most MM pickups I have seen are 4-wire affairs so that you could do this vari-coil idea with any of them. I think a series/parallel switch is more useful as I don't like the sound of the bridge J on it's own. Good to know it sounds good though, and it's not too expensive so that may be reason enough.

A MM pickup will have one big polepiece per string, the jazz pickup has two small ones per string. They sound different enough that Leo Fender took a patent out on his early G&L pickups that could switch between them both

[jimcroisdale]

Ive just put one of these in my bass, in a "jazz" style setup.

Only thing i found was that the thin red wire was the MM coil hot, and the thin black wire was the JAZZ coil hot (opposite to stated above)

Sounds really good though - jazz coil only with the tone rolled off for that Jaco-esque tone, MM coil only with open tone for a more P bass sound, and both coils for a 'Ray sound.

I love it! 🙂

Edited July 3, 2021 by jimcroisdale