ATK305 second pickup options?

[edpal]

There seems to be some confusion - this ATK305 has active electronics? Or is it strictly a pre-amp and not actual active pickups? There is a difference....guess I'll see what I get. Coming from fleabay.

 

[edpal]

Digging a little further I see the CAP Sonic Arch pickups are actually passives, with a pre-amp. Well, guess I'll be using the passve JAzz bass pickup I have here and saving the active I purchased.

 

[CoarseBass]

Almost all pickups are passive, its a point of confusion for practically the whole internet and everyone in a GC.

Active basses typically have passive pickups with active preamps, like most ATKs.

 

[edpal]

Almost all pickups are passive, its a point of confusion for practically the whole internet and everyone in a GC.

Active basses typically have passive pickups with active preamps, like most ATKs.

Well CourseBass I am of the opinion you are the one confused. Early active bass designs were just passives with a pre-amp strapped onto them. Modern actives like EMGs of last 5 years are not passives with an amp strapped to the front. Passives have magnets several times stronger and create voltage through induction - the movement of the strings excites electrons in the coil and generates voltage (like a low-efficiency generator). Which falls off badly with longer cords. Actives have substantially weaker magnets and their "pre-amp circuit" which is actually much more than that, actively charges the coil with current and the circuit is multiplying (amping) the fluctuations in the loading current. It is almost identical to the difference between dynamic and condenser microphones. The pre-loading of the coil on an active is why the pickups frequency response and note die-off is different between the two. Yes I know we have a tech writer for Bass player here who keeps propagating what i consider to be erroneous information. Pre-amping your passives won't make them [modern,actual]actives. It will make them louder and less susceptible to line loss.

My passive pickups can hold a truss rod adjustment allen wrench to them while I'm standing - my active EMGs barely register any magnetism with same wrench applied to them. Wrench to the floor.

Almost all pickups are passive, its a point of confusion for practically the whole internet and everyone in a GC.

Active basses typically have passive pickups with active preamps, like most ATKs.

Typical for Ibanez. I have a B.C. Rich Warlock of recent construction - true actives. This is my third ATK, I just hadn't bothered to open up the cavity on the Gary Willis or the 805e. But it does explain their inability to get that crisp, chunk-shunk sound while slapping that the Warlock can produce with no effort with. But the Warlock can't be dialed down to a warm, passive dub without killing the tone.

I wish manufacturers would stop calling instruments with a pre-amp and passives "Active" - they are creating confusion in the marketplace and people are comparing apples to oranges.

 

[steve_rolfeca]

Well CourseBass I am of the opinion you are the one confused. Early active bass designs were just passives with a pre-amp strapped onto them. Modern actives like EMGs of last 5 years are not passives with an amp strapped to the front.

I wish manufacturers would stop calling instruments with a pre-amp and passives "Active" - they are creating confusion in the marketplace and people are comparing apples to oranges.

Actually, CourseBass is spot-on with industry terminology.

Active bass = bass with preamp, uses batteries.

Active pickup = pickup w/internal preamp, uses batteries, May or may not be low impedance like EMG.

There's no early vs modern distinction in this regard, either. In fact, the reverse, EMG has gone from being active only, to doing a pretty good business with their HZ line of passives.

I've been an active EMG fan and user for over 20 years, and in all that time I've never seen any manufacturer muddy the water by claiming that their active basses had powered pickups if they didn't

Even to this day, the number of actual active pickups I've seen outside of EMG can be counted on one hand, and they weren't voiced to really emulate that signature EMG crispness very closely anyway.

Despite my love of the concept behind EMG's, the market has spoken, and a passive bypass switch has become a common and very popular option on active basses.

EDIT: while relative freedom from capacitance loading is an exclusive active pickup characteristic, a bright, open top end is not. The passive pickups in my passive Dingwall have far more air and bite up top than any pre-X series EMG.

So much so that my home made 5-string now sports a pair in a passive configuration, after twenty years of serving as a test bed for every EMG product under the sun.

 

[edpal]

I appreciate the comments...the terminology is confusing and yes, the products have changed internally and externally and the specs are often difficult to find. And judging exactly which pickup you have in hand is often impossible to tell with certainty.

So I received my anticipated ATK305 yesterday. Beautiful sunburst. I think I am going swap strings, go over the setup and give it 4-6 weeks before I do anything drastic other than put on a thumb-rest (ramp more likely, have that on my 805e). I want to make sure I'm not telling myself that only a neck pickup will bring the thunder. Lots of people seem to be happy with their one pickup basses.

Note: I see the ATK305 I received has a different pickup than the 805e's bridge. Same size but adjustment screws are in very different location.

 

[Massan]

I’m raising this amazing thread from the dead.

I’m doing a passive mod on my korean 90s atk300, along with the 3-way switch for bridge/neck/parallel coils instead of useless character switch.

1. Can anybody confirm that series is indeed impossible?

First, it's really odd that Ibanez chose to wire the three coils in series with each other, as opposed to wiring the dummy coil in parallel with the neck coil, which is what MusicMan and many others do with their triple coil humbuckers. Perhaps this was a tonal choice, as it would double the resistance of the neck coil when split. Who know? But yes, it does prevent the pickup to ever be wired in true series.
Yet, my pickup sounded great when I wired it up in what I thought was series, which was not what Steve found. Turns out, that I was running the neck coil in parallel with the dummy coil, which then was in series with the bridge coil. Oddly, having three coils running at the same time doesn't make it any more or less noisy than parallel operation. It's darker in character, with a more pronounced midrange, and sounds more musical to my ears. I'm going to stick with this combination parallel->series setup, as the parallel mode just sounds too scooped and bright to my ears.

Is this info still true?
I don’t like the way my default parallel setting sounds aswell - too scooped and processed to be usable but I blame that on the preamp and some resistors the tiny character switch board, because parallel should not sound like this.
It should sound more natural like this


Getting rid of that character switch should clear up the parallel setting, but I’m still interested in adding the series switch as described above by Benjamin Strange

2. Would it be possible with 3-way dpdt switch for neck/bridge/parallel and a separate 2way switch for parallel/series? Can anybody help with a proper scheme to achieve this?

3. Lastly, since the pickup is not the hottest even with the preamp, I expect it to be really weak without the pre.
What’s the best strategy to adress that? Going straight to the jack should increase the volume or should I bother with 500k or 1000k volume pot to give it some load?
The default pots are all attached to the preamp board and are 20kOhm, wchich is unusable for passive operation.
Plus they have longer shafts, so I gotta look up for the proper length ones, thats why I was thinking about maybe adding a resistor(or should I?) and going straight to the jack.

I’d really appreciate some help with this, I’m admittedly not that good with electronics so I’d like to sort it all out before landing my bass to the luthier for this upgrade.

 

[steve_rolfeca]

I’m raising this amazing thread from the dead.

I’m doing a passive mod on my korean 90s atk300, along with the 3-way switch for bridge/neck/parallel coils instead of useless character switch.

1. Can anybody confirm that series is indeed impossible?

Is this info still true?

I don’t like the way my default parallel setting sounds aswell - too scooped and processed to be usable but I blame that on the preamp and some resistors the tiny character switch board, because parallel should not sound like this.

Getting rid of that character switch should clear up the parallel setting, but I’m still interested in adding the series switch as described above by Benjamin Strange

2. Would it be possible with 3-way dpdt switch for neck/bridge/parallel and a separate 2way switch for parallel/series? Can anybody help with a proper scheme to achieve this?

3. Lastly, since the pickup is not the hottest even with the preamp, I expect it to be really weak without the pre.
What’s the best strategy to adress that? Going straight to the jack should increase the volume or should I bother with 500k or 1000k volume pot to give it some load?
The default pots are all attached to the preamp board and are 20kOhm, wchich is unusable for passive operation.
Plus they have longer shafts, so I gotta look up for the proper length ones, thats why I was thinking about maybe adding a resistor(or should I?) and going straight to the jack.

I’d really appreciate some help with this, I’m admittedly not that good with electronics so I’d like to sort it all out before landing my bass to the luthier for this upgrade.

Newer ATK’s have a revised pickup design. All bets are off as to how they are wired- I’ve never had one on my bench.

AFAIK, all older Korean ATK’s had the same pickup wiring, with the needed internal connections for truly separating the coils not brought out to the wiring harness.

I found that adding the active EMG blend control did a great job of “crisping up” the sound of the bass in active mode. I had been planning to replace the Ibanez preamp, but didn’t bother once I heard how it sounded with the EMG blend acting as a buffer.

I wasn’t looking for a passive tone out of the ATK at the time, so I cant comment on the output of the pickups if it was going to be run as a passive bass.

You would definitely want 500K pots if you were going to wire an ATK up for passive operation. My favourite mod on Fender basses, is to wire in a simple SPST switch to disconnect the tone pot When it isn’t needed.

This is not to get a volume boost, but simply to open up the top end. Fender’s “no-load” tone pot does the same thing, by notching the resistor track inside the pot, so it goes open when you hit the end of the rotation.

If you want to wire the pickup straight to the output jack, there’s no urgent need for a load resistor inside the bass. However, I’ve never liked that setup personally. There’s a softer attack when the volume control is backed off a bit on a passive instrument, and you lose that option if you remove the volume control.

Also, the load the pickup sees will then be totally dependent on your pedalboard. If all your pedals were true bypass, that could be a problem.

My preference for a passive setup would be 500K pots for volume and tone, with a tone control disconnect replacing the “slap switch”. Adding another switch for coil switching would be up to the user.

 

[Massan]

Newer ATK’s have a revised pickup design. All bets are off as to how they are wired- I’ve never had one on my bench.

AFAIK, all older Korean ATK’s had the same pickup wiring, with the needed internal connections for truly separating the coils not brought out to the wiring harness.

Thanks
Yes as I said mine is a mid 90s Korean atk300.

What do you think about that “serial” operation Benjamin Strange described earlier? The front+dummy coils in parallel and then serial with the bridge coil.
Would that work and how to do it via 3-way for neck/bridge/parallel, and a 2-way switching parallel/“serial”? That’s the only thing I’m not sure how to do properly

I hear you on the pots, its a studio only instrument so I think I’ll be fine going straight to the jack for now.

Thank you

 

[Massan]

Something I’m struggling to understand

First, it's really odd that Ibanez chose to wire the three coils in series with each other, as opposed to wiring the dummy coil in parallel with the neck coil, which is what MusicMan and many others do with their triple coil humbuckers. Perhaps this was a tonal choice, as it would double the resistance of the neck coil when split. Who know? But yes, it does prevent the pickup to ever be wired in true series.

So this states that all the coils are wired in SERIES to each other, (unlike MM where the neck coil is PARALLEL to the dummy coil)

Yet, my pickup sounded great when I wired it up in what I thought was series, ... Turns out, that I was running the neck coil in parallel with the dummy coil, which then was in series with the bridge coil. Oddly, having three coils running at the same time doesn't make it any more or less noisy than parallel operation

Is it a contradiction or I don’t get it?
Here Benjamin states that he indeed wired neck+dummy parallel.

Can anybody clarify?

 

[gregmon79]

I wish I had an EXACT guide on how to do this simple mod. I want to try it so bad! I have an OG ATK 300. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the earliest runs according to the serial number if I’m correct.

 

[Massan]

I wish I had an EXACT guide on how to do this simple mod. I want to try it so bad! I have an OG ATK 300. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the earliest runs according to the serial number if I’m correct.

If you just want the parallel/neck/bridge toggle as in the video - simply replace the character switch and its board with a 3way dpdt switch and follow the instructions posted by Steve in the thread
I’m doing the mod and I’ll post the sound clips when I’m finished
I’ll also do the “serial” switch just cause I’m curious

 

[gregmon79]

If you just want the parallel/neck/bridge toggle as in the video - simply replace the character switch and its board with a 3way dpdt switch and follow the instructions posted by Steve in the thread
I’m doing the mod and I’ll post the sound clips when I’m finished
I’ll also do the “serial” switch just cause I’m curious

Yes. This is really all I want to do. I need to go back and review the thread in full. Thanks!

 

[steve_rolfeca]

I don’t remember the exact details, but I plotted a schematic for my pickup. I think I might have laid out some configurations that worked in testing...

If you go back in the thread, you’ll find the diagrams.

 

[thrashcomics]

Howdy y'all. I am thinking about changing the preamp in my ATK1300 so that I can have a blend rather than a 5 way to switch between the two pickups. Long story short I need help wiring the ATK humbucker itself with a 4 way blade switch so that I have access to: neck coil - coils in series - coils in parallel - bridge coil. I know I can do it but just need help translating the ATK pickup color code to the attached diagram.

Thanks!!