Reviving an old thread. I've had DC's in my 55-01 for years now. The new pickups never really wowed me. I know I'm in the minority. I'd put them in wired in parallel and into the NTMB-L preamp. I'm a passive-bass guy and the reason I got the DC's in the first place is because I like having coil switches for my tonal variations.
The bass has sat there for at least a year unplayed. I finally had the time to install the coil switches and it took me hours. I'm going to document how it's done in case anyone else wants to do it.
Some background info.
The switch you want is a DPDT (dual Pole/Dual Throw) on/on/on. There are copious notes out there on how to do this, notably check GuitarNuts.com and SeymourDuncan.com
The switch is symmetrical. If you turn it over the shorted poles react the same geometrically.
Forgive the ASCII art.
One extreme position will (independently of each row) connect the middle and the end lugs.
__/__
*-* *
*-* *
The other extreme position will connect the middle and other end lugs.
__\__
* *-*
* *-*
The middle position ties the upper left and lower right lugs as you look at the switch from the bottom.
__|__
*-* *
* *-*
We're going to number the lugs the way SGD Lutherie's documentation does it. I presume David is following a convention.
3 2 1
6 5 4
The generic form for the series/single/parallel switch is to solder a wire between lugs 3 and 5. I'll draw it like this. The editor is doing weird things with my spaces, so I'm going to use '-' as a space holder:
3 2 1
-\---
6 5 4
Series position is going to be when pins 3 & 2 and 6 & 5 are shorted together. Parallel position is going to be when pins 2 & 1 and 5 & 4 are shorted together. Middle position will be single coil. I'm telling you this so you can trace the simple circuit to correct errors. Series to the left, single in the middle, parallel to the right.
Output will be to the right.
3 2 1 ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 4 ---- Ground
Nordstrand uses the Seymour Duncan wire color codes convention. The Seymour Duncan has a great PDF with other vendors' conventions here: http://www.seymourduncan.com/pdfs/support/schematics/color_codes.pdf
With the Nordstrands, and I presume most other humbuckers with four wires coming off them, the pair of pickups follow the same magnetic coil winding orientations, so for single coil operation to make a humbucking pair like a Jazz Bass does you want either the outer two coils or the inner two coils. For greater variety of tone, I chose the outer two coils.
In order to do this, series position will use red and white wires connected in the neck pickup and black and green wires connected in the bridge pickup. I was concerned that when I used both pickups in series that there might be some weird polarity issue or something. There wasn't. It works perfectly.
So we know where two pins are tied together, which position gives us series, single and parallel options and where the hot and ground output pins are.
The wiring is identical for both switches, only the wire colors change. We will have wires off pins 3, 2 and 1 on the top and pin 4 on the bottom.
I've gone as far as my ASCII art will take me, I think. Draw this out and follow along.
For the neck pickup on the Norsdstrand DC's (and all humbuckers that follow the Duncan convention), single coil operation will be with the black and white wires. Black is hot, so it goes to pin 1. For single coil, the switch is in the center. The white wire is connected to pin 3. The jumper wire connects it to pin 5 and from there the white, red and green wires all go to ground (red and green wires are the other coil and are shorted together at the ground).
For series, pins 2 & 3 and 5 & 6 are closed. The black wire is still hot. The white (pin 3) wire connects to the red wire (pin 2) via the switch (white is also tied to pins 5 & 6 at this point, but they don't go anywhere), so the series connection between the coils is achieved and the green wire (pin 4) goes to ground to complete the circuit.
For parallel black (pin 1) and red (pin 2) are tied together via the switch and go to hot and white (pin 3 which takes the jumper to pin 5) is tied via the switch to green (pin 4) to ground.
Let me recap (remember that the '\' indicates that pins 3 and 5 are tied):
3 2 1 ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 4 ---- Ground
For the neck pickup:
W R B ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 G ---- Ground
Where W is white, R is red, B is black and G is green.
For the bridge pickup, just swap which coils you're using:
R B G ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 W ---- Ground
Troubleshooting: The easiest way I know of to verify a single pickup is to connect an ohm meter to the outs on the switch. The middle will be the nominal value of one coil. Series will double the value, parallel will half it if you've got the wiring right.
If you are doing this for a different wiring color convention you can reason it out using the steps above or you can translate it using the Seymour Duncan PDF linked above.
Good luck.
KO
P.S. I'm much happier with the pickups (what little I've played with them) now. I have removed the preamp and I'm in the process of wiring up the passive controls. I stopped to share this because it literally took me most of a day to get it right.
The bass has sat there for at least a year unplayed. I finally had the time to install the coil switches and it took me hours. I'm going to document how it's done in case anyone else wants to do it.
Some background info.
The switch you want is a DPDT (dual Pole/Dual Throw) on/on/on. There are copious notes out there on how to do this, notably check GuitarNuts.com and SeymourDuncan.com
The switch is symmetrical. If you turn it over the shorted poles react the same geometrically.
Forgive the ASCII art.
One extreme position will (independently of each row) connect the middle and the end lugs.
__/__
*-* *
*-* *
The other extreme position will connect the middle and other end lugs.
__\__
* *-*
* *-*
The middle position ties the upper left and lower right lugs as you look at the switch from the bottom.
__|__
*-* *
* *-*
We're going to number the lugs the way SGD Lutherie's documentation does it. I presume David is following a convention.
3 2 1
6 5 4
The generic form for the series/single/parallel switch is to solder a wire between lugs 3 and 5. I'll draw it like this. The editor is doing weird things with my spaces, so I'm going to use '-' as a space holder:
3 2 1
-\---
6 5 4
Series position is going to be when pins 3 & 2 and 6 & 5 are shorted together. Parallel position is going to be when pins 2 & 1 and 5 & 4 are shorted together. Middle position will be single coil. I'm telling you this so you can trace the simple circuit to correct errors. Series to the left, single in the middle, parallel to the right.
Output will be to the right.
3 2 1 ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 4 ---- Ground
Nordstrand uses the Seymour Duncan wire color codes convention. The Seymour Duncan has a great PDF with other vendors' conventions here: http://www.seymourduncan.com/pdfs/support/schematics/color_codes.pdf
With the Nordstrands, and I presume most other humbuckers with four wires coming off them, the pair of pickups follow the same magnetic coil winding orientations, so for single coil operation to make a humbucking pair like a Jazz Bass does you want either the outer two coils or the inner two coils. For greater variety of tone, I chose the outer two coils.
In order to do this, series position will use red and white wires connected in the neck pickup and black and green wires connected in the bridge pickup. I was concerned that when I used both pickups in series that there might be some weird polarity issue or something. There wasn't. It works perfectly.
So we know where two pins are tied together, which position gives us series, single and parallel options and where the hot and ground output pins are.
The wiring is identical for both switches, only the wire colors change. We will have wires off pins 3, 2 and 1 on the top and pin 4 on the bottom.
I've gone as far as my ASCII art will take me, I think. Draw this out and follow along.
For the neck pickup on the Norsdstrand DC's (and all humbuckers that follow the Duncan convention), single coil operation will be with the black and white wires. Black is hot, so it goes to pin 1. For single coil, the switch is in the center. The white wire is connected to pin 3. The jumper wire connects it to pin 5 and from there the white, red and green wires all go to ground (red and green wires are the other coil and are shorted together at the ground).
For series, pins 2 & 3 and 5 & 6 are closed. The black wire is still hot. The white (pin 3) wire connects to the red wire (pin 2) via the switch (white is also tied to pins 5 & 6 at this point, but they don't go anywhere), so the series connection between the coils is achieved and the green wire (pin 4) goes to ground to complete the circuit.
For parallel black (pin 1) and red (pin 2) are tied together via the switch and go to hot and white (pin 3 which takes the jumper to pin 5) is tied via the switch to green (pin 4) to ground.
Let me recap (remember that the '\' indicates that pins 3 and 5 are tied):
3 2 1 ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 4 ---- Ground
For the neck pickup:
W R B ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 G ---- Ground
Where W is white, R is red, B is black and G is green.
For the bridge pickup, just swap which coils you're using:
R B G ---- Hot
-\---
6 5 W ---- Ground
Troubleshooting: The easiest way I know of to verify a single pickup is to connect an ohm meter to the outs on the switch. The middle will be the nominal value of one coil. Series will double the value, parallel will half it if you've got the wiring right.
If you are doing this for a different wiring color convention you can reason it out using the steps above or you can translate it using the Seymour Duncan PDF linked above.
Good luck.
KO
P.S. I'm much happier with the pickups (what little I've played with them) now. I have removed the preamp and I'm in the process of wiring up the passive controls. I stopped to share this because it literally took me most of a day to get it right.
