Options for wiring 2 pickups 2 volumes 2 tones?

[richrips]

Hi,
I've been researching this a bit recently and wondered if more light could be shed by those wiser members of the group (which today stands at 9141)??

i have 2 pickups in a bass with 2 volume pots and 2 tone pots with a pickup selector switch

problems:
1. The volume's interplay badly. if one is turned down, the overall bass volume drops very badly, unless the pickup selector is switched to solo the pickup that is on full volume.

2. The tones interplay badly. Can't get full tone from one when the tone is lowered on the other pickup.

3. The tone and volume interplay VERY badly. This is not a case of treble being removed from the sound, but a clear and definite case of overall volume falling very badly. This is frustrating as it means to go from an aggressive finger funk style to a warm fat blues sound i have to adjust volume, tone, amp volume, compressor threshold......etc etc

I have read that the only way this can be overcome is by putting resistors in series with the ground wire of each pickup, which can cure interplay, but reduces overall output... which is already a problem as the bass is somewhat dated and low on output as it is.

Are there any clever solutions to this problem which can isolate the output from each pickup/volume/tone 'group' without hampering output?

Let the wisdom commence!

cheers,
Rich

[obbm]

[url="http://www.fender.com/support/diagrams/pdf_temp1/basses/0190209C/SD0190209CPg2.pdf"]This[/url] is the wiring diagram for the stack-pot Fender Jazz which is the same - 2 pups, 2 vol , 2 tone.

This seems to work well in my Lakland PJ.

A further way to stop interaction is to put mixing resistors, say 10K from the output of each volume pot. I've never heard of anyone putting series resistors in the ground wire but I guess it has a similar effect.

Edited April 1, 2010 by obbm

[richrips]

Thanks obbm, that's a slightly different approach. Are there any other wildly different approaches out there? i'm keen to see if this can be done with no series resistors at all?

cheers,

rich






[quote name='obbm' post='793654' date='Apr 1 2010, 07:30 PM'][url="http://www.fender.com/support/diagrams/pdf_temp1/basses/0190209C/SD0190209CPg2.pdf"]This[/url] is the wiring diagram for the stack-pot Fender Jazz which is the same - 2 pups, 2 vol , 2 tone.

This seems to work well in my Lakland PJ.

A further way to stop interaction is to put mixing resistors, say 10K from the output of each volume pot. I've never heard of anyone putting series resistors in the ground wire but I guess it has a similar effect.[/quote]

[AlanP2008]

[quote name='richrips' post='795011' date='Apr 3 2010, 01:01 PM']Thanks obbm, that's a slightly different approach. Are there any other wildly different approaches out there? i'm keen to see if this can be done with no series resistors at all?

cheers,

rich[/quote]

What obbm has shown you there is the "standard" way of wiring that setup.

If you try to wire the volume pots in the same way as you would for a single volume pot setup - you will get exactly what you currently experience - big time interaction between the vol controls.

Don't faff around with resistors - it won't work as well as this will. (There is a reason why Fender and others do it this way...)

If you have separate tone & vol pots (rather than stacked, as in the diagram), then in the diagram, the vol port is the one "closest" to you (the "back" pot, as it were...)

Alan

[AlanP2008]

Actually, looking at that diagram again, there is no *clear* connection (ground wire) between the body of the top pot and the body of the bottom pot - and there certainly should be...

If there is foil on the back of the scratchplate, then that would probably serve to connect the boides of the pots together - but I wouldn't want to depend upon it, and I would certainly put an explicit ground wire in place...

Hmmm... seeing the diagram like that, then it is easy to understand how a newbie might have problems re-wiring their bass. Anyone who had already done it a few times would add that wire without thinking about it - but a first-timer just wouldn't know to do that.....

Alan