| Pickup wiring question.
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So, I have a bit of a mutt on my hands here... but the pup, pot, and output jack are G&L so I thought I might be able to find some help here.
I have a single large MFD pup mounted in bridge position. The original owner of this bass had the top redone and wanted only a volume control, NO tone/active electronics/coil select. While I admire the minimalist approach, it does lack some versatility.
Anyway, I noticed the sound was extremely thin and lacking any punch unless I had the bass control on my amp cranked. I also had to have the gain at about 80% to get a good signal. This is through a fender combo 150 (150watts-12" eminence).
I opened up the control cavity and what I see is that the green was grounded to volume, and then from there to the shielding; the white was run to the other side of the volume pot; the middle post was then run to the + side of the output jack. The yellow and back were soldered together and taped off. The output was grounded to the cavity and a ground was also run to the bridge.
I took the tape off the black/yellow and touched it to the middlle post of the volume pot and it instantly sounded louder, deeper, punchier, brighter, etc. But I can't see how this can be a "proper" wiring configuration.
So, I de-soldered everything and stripped fresh wire. I then eliminated the volume pot but kept everything else basically the same... meaning black/yellow together and taped; white direct to the output; green to ground. The sound was better then I started with, but not what I expected for series wiring.
So I know I need to replace my volume pot, but I can hold off on that...
So I then tried parallel. I connected the green and black to each other, direct to ground; white and yellow together, direct to the output. Overall much better than what I started with, louder than the series wiring and punchier, basically what I experienced when I had the black/yellow to the middle post on volume then that post to the output and the white wire to the one of the other side posts.
So, while I can live with the sound as it is much better... I am wondering if something is wrong. I had thought that series should be louder and punchier than parallel, but the opposite seems to be the case for me. Also, what might be going on with that first crazy wiring combo I tried with basically everything going to the volume pot? Any ideas what that actually produced as far as series/parallel/something not quite either?
I plan to eventually put in a coil selector switch and tone control(s) something like the l1000, but no active circuit, but for now at least want the best, passive, no tone control, no coil selection, sound I can get but I also want to make sure that nothing is wrong that will come back and bite me down the road.
thanks. | 
