EMG MMTW Wiring help

maniac mikej · #1 10-03-2011, 10:49 AM

I checked EMGs website and did a forum search and got nothing, so I figured I'd make a new post. I recently got one of the LTD Surveyor 414s musiciansfriend was blowing out, and was thinking of rewiring the MMTW pup in it.
Right now it's series/single, which is really not very useful to me tonally. I was hoping to rewire it to be series/parallel, but have not been able to find a diagram. Can anybody help me out with this? I know there's a multitude of wiring gurus on here.

mmbongo · #2 10-03-2011, 12:53 PM

Is this the diagram you looked at? This pretty much covers what you can do with that pickup.

http://www.emgpickups.com/content/wi...s/EMG-MMTW.pdf

As you can see, it's a tri coil pickup, not a regular 2 coil pickup. So, I'm not sure if it's setup to be able to to parallel wiring. I'm far from an expert though.

maniac mikej · #3 10-03-2011, 01:01 PM

yeah thats the animal

mmbongo · #4 10-03-2011, 01:03 PM

Might be better off asking EMG. Looks like you'd lose the dummy coil if you want parallel, which wouldn't matter since you don't want single. You just want to treat C1 and C2 like a normal pickup.

maniac mikej · #5 10-03-2011, 01:16 PM

yeah pretty much. i was just hoping somebody here had some idea as to "what wire goes to what coil" and so on.

SGD Lutherie · #6 10-03-2011, 01:57 PM

The TW has two pickups inside of it. One is a CS humbucker, and the other is a stacked J style pickup. Each has it's own preamp and it's own output. You can use both at the same time even.

The idea was you switch from the CS to the J and it sounds like you are switching from a humbucker to a single coil.

EMG does not make any single coils, even though they call them single coils. They are all stacked humbuckers.

You also can't switch EMGs from series to parallel, and in fact they are always in parallel. You have no access to the actual coils, just the output of the preamp that the coils are connected to.

http://www.emgpickups.com/products/index/188/37/2

Quote:

The MMTW uses our popular ceramic and steel design for a nice transparent, not abusive high end along with a low-end that is just plain thunderous. Similar to our MMCS the TW has wide spread bobbins (1 inch) combined with a large coil surface area that gives the MMTW a most amazing bass tone. The single coil pickup is the same as our Jazz Bass (J) Pickup, strong in mid-range.

Quote:

NOTE:There are two separate pickups in the MMTW housing, and each pickup has two wires. The single coil uses the white and yellow wires, and the dual coil uses the green and blue wires.

maniac mikej · #7 10-03-2011, 02:14 PM

oh alright, thanks a lot man. I figured if anybody knew it it would be you.

FunkMetalBass · #8 10-03-2011, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

The TW has two pickups inside of it. One is a CS humbucker, and the other is a stacked J style pickup. Each has it's own preamp and it's own output. You can use both at the same time even.

The idea was you switch from the CS to the J and it sounds like you are switching from a humbucker to a single coil.

EMG does not make any single coils, even though they call them single coils. They are all stacked humbuckers.

You also can't switch EMGs from series to parallel, and in fact they are always in parallel. You have no access to the actual coils, just the output of the preamp that the coils are connected to.

MMTW | Electric Guitar Pickups & Accessories - EMG Pickups

I was under the impression that it was three coils forming an L-shape and that you switched between either the two side-by-side coils, or the stacked coils.

SGD Lutherie · #9 10-03-2011, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FunkMetalBass

I was under the impression that it was three coils forming an L-shape and that you switched between either the two side-by-side coils, or the stacked coils.

They do make it look that way, but there is an output for each pickup. Of course they could use three coils for two outputs since they are all connected in parallel to the preamps.

But their older literature says there are two pickups in the shell.

I guess we won't know until someone takes one apart!

maniac mikej · #10 11-19-2011, 12:31 PM

Ok, so I've decided to eliminate the switch completely from my bass. I never use the single coil mode, and just want to hardwire it as a mmcs or whatever is in there. Does anybody know what leads do what? I'm sure I'll have to solder something together and tape it off, but idk what color does what.

SGD Lutherie · #11 11-19-2011, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maniac mikej

Ok, so I've decided to eliminate the switch completely from my bass. I never use the single coil mode, and just want to hardwire it as a mmcs or whatever is in there. Does anybody know what leads do what? I'm sure I'll have to solder something together and tape it off, but idk what color does what.

Blue and orange connect together. Green is the output, and the shield is the ground. Tape off the yellow and white wires.