I'm almost finished making my L2500 Tribute into the bass I want it to be!

[fourstringbliss]

This may seem like G&L sacrilege but I'm about to replace almost all of the electronics on my L2500 Tribute. The only stock electronics that will remain when I'm finished will be the pickups! I've been in the process of making my L2500 Tribute into the bass I want it to be.

So far I've replaced the parallel/series switch with an outer coils/parallel/inner coils switch which really opened up the tonal palette for me. The final stroke will be installing the Audere 3ZB preamp I ordered today. When all is said and done I will have the following controls:

volume/volume stack
treble/bass stack
midrange
Z-mode switch (I can tell you more about this if you want)
outer coils/parallel/inner coils switch
250hz/500hz/860hz midrange frequency switch

The preamp will be an 18v system for greater headroom.

Apparently, when the controls are set flat, what I'll get is a clearer version of how the bass sounds in passive mode. When the controls are flat nothing will be boosted, but because the only DC - AC point is where the preamp connects to the output jack.

I'll let you know how things go, and post before/after sound clips.

[AmpliFuzz]

Hey, this is pretty interesting. How it's proceeding? Pairing the MFD's with a great preamp should be awesome. I'm very curious about the Z-mode switch effect on them.

Slightly OT, could you comment on the sound of both inner coils together? Does it give more of a 'MM-like single humbucker in the sweet spot' feel, or a Jazz Bass-ish hollow tone, like two singlecoils spaced apart paired? I tend to prefer the sound of the L-1500 or L-1505's single HB than the neck or bridge settings in the 2500, and having all three available would be awesome.

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by AmpliFuzz

Hey, this is pretty interesting. How it's proceeding? Pairing the MFD's with a great preamp should be awesome. I'm very curious about the Z-mode switch effect on them.

Well...

Okay, so I installed the Audere 3ZB...

Let me first say it's a first class preamp. David Meadows (the creator and business owner) is a world-class gentleman and a very helpful guy. The customizeabililty of the preamp is better than any other preamp out there.

It just didn't work for me.

I installed it according to the directions and ended up with two extra ground wires. It turns out that the G&L MFD pickups have a chassis that is grounded as well. When you connect the chassis ground wires to the corresponding wires on the 3ZB preamp you get a horrible static noise. If you leave them unconnected there's a slight hiss.

I've decided that I'm done monkeying around with my bass and I put it back the way it was before (stock except for the outer coils/parallel/inner coils switch).

Originally Posted by AmpliFuzz

Slightly OT, could you comment on the sound of both inner coils together? Does it give more of a 'MM-like single humbucker in the sweet spot' feel, or a Jazz Bass-ish hollow tone, like two singlecoils spaced apart paired? I tend to prefer the sound of the L-1500 or L-1505's single HB than the neck or bridge settings in the 2500, and having all three available would be awesome.

I actually love the outer coils/parallel/inner coils option! I don't miss the series setting at all. The outer coils give a Jazz Bass sound and the inner coils are similar but punchier and thicker. I've never played a MM style bass enough to know whether the inner coils sound that way, but they're sure punchy together. They sound guy at my church actually prefers the sound of just the inner neck coil - really punchy but clear.

[DavePlaysBass]

Originally Posted by fourstringbliss

The outer coils give a Jazz Bass sound and the inner coils are similar but punchier and thicker. I've never played a MM style bass enough to know whether the inner coils sound that way, but they're sure punchy together. They sound guy at my church actually prefers the sound of just the inner neck coil - really punchy but clear.

I agree. The inner coils get into Climax territory but they are deeper in a good way. If you were to install the S-switch like is on an American Fender, you can get on paper a Climax style series setting. I say on paper because I have not tried this yet. I am thinking of doing this with a single coil with bass boost capacitor. My instincts and experience with these MFDs is that this setting would kill.

Dave

[AmpliFuzz]

Originally Posted by DavePlaysBass

I agree. The inner coils get into Climax territory but they are deeper in a good way. If you were to install the S-switch like is on an American Fender, you can get on paper a Climax style series setting. I say on paper because I have not tried this yet. I am thinking of doing this with a single coil with bass boost capacitor. My instincts and experience with these MFDs is that this setting would kill.

Dave

So, to recap:

- fourstringbliss' wiring connects them in parallel, approximating the 1500's parallel setting, only better.
- the S-switch like setting connects them in series, like the 1500's series setting.
- the single with bass boost would be done with the two coils, one 'normal', one with the cap engaged. sort of the standard series setting, but using a coil from each pickup instead of doing it inside of each pickup. In fact, having the bass-boosted neck coil together with the bright bridge one should be pretty great. Or the opposite?

did I get that right? and most importantly, how to pull it off and keep the controls somewhat sane (no switch deluge)?

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by AmpliFuzz

So, to recap:

- fourstringbliss' wiring connects them in parallel, approximating the 1500's parallel setting, only better.
- the S-switch like setting connects them in series, like the 1500's series setting.
- the single with bass boost would be done with the two coils, one 'normal', one with the cap engaged. sort of the standard series setting, but using a coil from each pickup.

did I get that right?

After all of the time I've put into wiring and rewiring this beast, I almost hate to ask what could be done with one more switch in the mix. In all the wiring I've done I ended up frying the stock volume pot. The only 250k pot I had with coarse splines (so the knob would fit) was a 250k push/pull pot. So, now I have a unused dpdt switch just waiting to be used.



What could I do?

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by AmpliFuzz

So, to recap:

- fourstringbliss' wiring connects them in parallel, approximating the 1500's parallel setting, only better.
- the S-switch like setting connects them in series, like the 1500's series setting.
- the single with bass boost would be done with the two coils, one 'normal', one with the cap engaged. sort of the standard series setting, but using a coil from each pickup.

did I get that right?

Here is a link to some sound clips I've done showing my current switching options: L2500 Tribute Sound Clips.

The differences sound subtle in the clips, but they're more distinct through my amp. I recorded them using a headphone amp and it's obviously not the best recording source.

[DavePlaysBass]

Originally Posted by AmpliFuzz

So, to recap:

- fourstringbliss' wiring connects them in parallel, approximating the 1500's parallel setting, only better.
- the S-switch like setting connects them in series, like the 1500's series setting.
- the single with bass boost would be done with the two coils, one 'normal', one with the cap engaged. sort of the standard series setting, but using a coil from each pickup instead of doing it inside of each pickup. In fact, having the bass-boosted neck coil together with the bright bridge one should be pretty great. Or the opposite?

did I get that right? and most importantly, how to pull it off and keep the controls somewhat sane (no switch deluge)?

As for which coil to filter and which one to let go full range, that is subjective. I would probably start with the way you mention.

As for switch confusion and unusable switch positions, the more options you go for, the worse it gets. The bass boost caps really screw things up to. When you switch coils out of the circuit, the bass boost caps may actually switch them back into the circuit possibly at a different place.

I have put together a wiring diagram that would pretty much to all that was said. But it has some limitations. One thing I am worried about on the Tribute that I have is all the shielding and the fact that the pickups are grounded along with the green wire from the pup. Conductive paint really is not all that conductive and I think you could float the green lead relative to ground in the control area but Fourstringbliss's experience makes me wonder. In my L-2500 that was US made there was no shielding so it was not big deal to reverse the absolute ground point for one of the pickups. There are work arounds for this, but they also have limitations. I plan to throw a 3-way 4PDT switch into my Tribute L2K in the next few weeks and I will wire one the pups so the green lead gets floated and see what happens. I need to experiment a bit and see if I want to get rid of the preamp as well.

Dave

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by DavePlaysBass

As for switch confusion and unusable switch positions, the more options you go for, the worse it gets. The bass boost caps really screw things up to. When you switch coils out of the circuit, the bass boost caps may actually switch them back into the circuit possibly at a different place.

And for this reason I do believe I'm finished monkeying around with the bass itself. The preamp is on the way back to Audere where David Meadows graciously agreed to give me a complete refund (even on the knobs I bought!) and I will be instead purchasing an outboard preamp of some sort. Probably a Korg AX3000B or some other amp modeling multieffects pedal.

Originally Posted by DavePlaysBass

I have put together a wiring diagram that would pretty much to all that was said. But it has some limitations. One thing I am worried about on the Tribute that I have is all the shielding and the fact that the pickups are grounded along with the green wire from the pup. Conductive paint really is not all that conductive and I think you could float the green lead relative to ground in the control area but Fourstringbliss's experience makes me wonder. In my L-2500 that was US made there was no shielding so it was not big deal to reverse the absolute ground point for one of the pickups. There are work arounds for this, but they also have limitations. I plan to throw a 3-way 4PDT switch into my Tribute L2K in the next few weeks and I will wire one the pups so the green lead gets floated and see what happens. I need to experiment a bit and see if I want to get rid of the preamp as well.

Dave

I actually bought a roll of copper foil tape from Stewmac.com and did a complete shielding job on the control cavity. The G&L folks are smart and one good thing they did was to screw a ring tab into the shielded wood of the cavity and then run that to the bass pot. This makes a great connection with the shielding and avoids the problem of a possible cold solder point there.

The not so good thing they did was to have things grounded off on different pots and there's all kinds of opportunities for ground loops in there. I personally like to avoid soldering when I can so I used wire connectors to link all of the grounds to a wire that was already soldered to the back of the tone pot. It looks a bit messy but it sure is effective. Now I'm almost totally noiseless, even when soloing a coil.

[DavePlaysBass]

When you say complete soldering job, did you add copper tape in the pickup cavities? Did you run a seperate wire to connect the copper tape in the pickup cavity to the copper tape in the control cavity?

The stock Tributes are only painted if I remember correctly.

[fourstringbliss]

Originally Posted by DavePlaysBass

When you say complete soldering job, did you add copper tape in the pickup cavities? Did you run a seperate wire to connect the copper tape in the pickup cavity to the copper tape in the control cavity?

The stock Tributes are only painted if I remember correctly.

Okay, it's not a complete shielding job, but the control cavity is totally shielded with the copper foil. I had thought about shielding the pickup cavities but it seems to be working just fine without it.

[DavePlaysBass]

What do you mean then that you had two extra ground wires?