combining several j pups into 1 giant pup

[jordan_frerichs]

how do i take several jazz pickups and combine them into one? would i just solder the left wires together, as well as the right wires, and then solder the 2 master wires and connect them to the pots? the idea was to take 2 basses, and compare there sound. each has 1 pickup, a volume control and an output. one has a simple pickup in one specific area, the other is a string of cheap jazz pickups from fingerboard to bridge, having them mixed as one giant pickup through the whole playing area. i was just curious as to how i would combine them as one superpickup.

[ctmullins]

Depends. You could wire them all in series, putting the "output" from one pickup into the "input" of the next. That would probably sound pretty thick and dull, though.

You could wire them all together in parallel, which is what you've described above. However, you'll have to make very sure that they're all in phase, or else you'll get weird cancellations that will mess with your tone.

Or you could do a combination - wire each pair in series, then wire the pairs together in parallel. Lots of permutations...

[T-Bird]

Hi.

While it most probably can be done, any two pickups with figure eight magnetic fields need "their space" to avoid field interference. Unless the interference sound is the one You're after of course .

It might not be so bad with bass as the higher frequencies suffer the most IIRC. I made a "humbucker" out of two similar guitar single coils back in the day, and at that time I couldn't understand why it sounded so..., well..., bad, to tell You the truth. Of course it wasn't a humbucker either, both of those coils were wound into the same direction.

The wide sensing isn't what people generally are looking in a pickup either, so I'd probably raise the bridge and the neck considerably first to test the arrangement without routing. Or alternatively make a "dummy" body for testing.

Try it, You might like it.

Regards
Sam