That '52 Precision bass - what's with the wiring?

[idoru]

Seeing as nobody is paying attention in the original thread, here it is again:



Check out where the pickup positive lead is connected - anybody seen this before? It _should_ share the terminal with the green wire on the Volume pot. As it is, it connects to the upper terminal on the Tone pot, passes through what appears to be either a 15k resistor, or a 350pf capacitor, to the wiper lug and then back to the Volume pot.

Here's the standard diagram as drawn by Seymour Duncan:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support...gle_coil_pbass

Any suggestions?

c-

[mongo2]

That's normal, just to be sure I've checked pictures I have of the wiring of 4 other early P basses and they're all just like that one.

Here's one from a '55:

[Caca de Kick]

Yes the original '51-'55 pickup positive wire was attatched at the tone pot, and with a resistor is then bridged to the volume lug.
The Fender Custom Shop also faithfully recreated this wiring schematic on the CS 51 and 55 Precsions.

The lame thing about this is when you turn the tone knob down, the volume drops too. I'm pretty sure Leo did it to save the speakers in the amps of that period.
In 1956 the wiring was revised to what we know today. When I got my Custom Shop 55P, the volume drop bugged me, so I dug in and compared original pictures, and moved my wire.

[idoru]

Originally Posted by Caca de Kick

The lame thing about this is when you turn the tone knob down, the volume drops too.I'm pretty sure Leo did it to save the speakers in the amps of that period.

Cheers - that was my thought too. My 51 Reissue can generate some mean transients, and I'd read that the split-coil's more compressed output was a way of fixing that.

Did you find that you had more output when you wired it up to the volume pot, versus the tone at 10?

c-

[stevetat]

If it bugs you, just solder a jumper across the resistor. That's what I did with my CS 55.

[Caca de Kick]

Originally Posted by idoru

Did you find that you had more output when you wired it up to the volume pot, versus the tone at 10?

The original way, with the tone knob full up you still had full volume.
Since I like running my tone knob 1/2way open on my P's, with the wire moved over, no volume loss. Or like Steve says you can wire in a jumper and achieve the same thing...either way you're firing up the soldering iron.