• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Common alternatives for P-Bass wiring

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

Dec 23, 2007
659
670
London, UK
#1
Afternoon,

I think my p-bass needs to be opened up for a bit of surgery. I'm not confident that the jack is properly wired as my bass has cut out on occasion, and I think that's the reason for it. I've just been reading some other threads here and I was wondering, since I'm going to have to rewire the jack, and because I like fiddling with stuff, what else could I do.

So, what would people recommend for the re-wiring? What are the most common changes people make? I can get new pots, though I was just considering doing away with the volume knob as I only use it to silence my bass.

I think I did upgrade the wiring years ago, but I may well have done a bad job...

Thanks in advance,

dirtychinchilla
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#2
Your electronics may just be grounding out which is causing the short. I would pop it open and take a look for any loose connections or contact points. We are talking about a P-bass here, there isn't much to go wrong.

As far as changing electronics goes, is there something you feel the bass is lacking? If not, there is no need to change anything.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#3
DiabolusInMusic said:
Your electronics may just be grounding out which is causing the short. I would pop it open and take a look for any loose connections or contact points. We are talking about a P-bass here, there isn't much to go wrong.

As far as changing electronics goes, is there something you feel the bass is lacking? If not, there is no need to change anything.
Click to expand...

I think you're absolutely right, which is why I'll rewire the jack. I think it may be hitting the shielding sometimes.

In terms of lacking - no, nothing. But I like to fiddle :D
 
#4
dirtychinchilla said:
...But I like to fiddle :D
Click to expand...

You could experiment with wiring the pickup to the wiper or hot to wiper, and tone control between hot/ground or out/ground. How the volume and tone interact is changed for each of the 4 possible combinations...
20180212_162524.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#5
Since you have it opened up, the easiest mod is to go to a 500K tone pot. Gives you a bit a extra zing wide open, but you can dial it down a tad and since it's wired like a rheostat, it's exactly the same as the stock 250K pot when dialed back a bit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#8
I find a cap selector switch quite useful. If you get rid of the vol pot, I'd consider putting a rotary (or some other) switch in its spot, and keep the tone pot to dial it in... then again, differences may be too subtle for some...
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#9
SteveCS said:
You could experiment with wiring the pickup to the wiper or hot to wiper, and tone control between hot/ground or out/ground. How the volume and tone interact is changed for each of the 4 possible combinations...
View attachment 2912434
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for these. If I can understand what's going on, I may give one of them a go. I play almost exclusively rock music so I'm generally looking for a fairly trebly tone. I play with my fingers and have no desire to switch to a pick, so any extra treble I can squeeze out is valuable (without switching to Geddy flamenco style or something).

Coolhandjjl said:
Since you have it opened up, the easiest mod is to go to a 500K tone pot. Gives you a bit a extra zing wide open, but you can dial it down a tad and since it's wired like a rheostat, it's exactly the same as the stock 250K pot when dialed back a bit.
Click to expand...

Killed_by_Death said:
The extra zing will be more pronounced if you also change the volume pot to 500K Ohms.
Click to expand...

CapnSev said:
I personally replace the audio taper pot with a linear pot on all my P basses. It's a much smoother volume adjustment rather than the "on/off" effect.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all that. So, I'll probably get a couple of 500K pots. Having thought about it, I'll keep the volume pot in there as I guess I could need it some time, and there's no reason other than for fiddling to get rid of it.

These pots, should they be linear or logarithmic for the tone control?
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217 and Killed_by_Death
#10
dirtychinchilla said:
Thanks very much for these. If I can understand what's going on, I may give one of them a go. I play almost exclusively rock music so I'm generally looking for a fairly trebly tone. I play with my fingers and have no desire to switch to a pick, so any extra treble I can squeeze out is valuable (without switching to Geddy flamenco style or something).







Thanks for all that. So, I'll probably get a couple of 500K pots. Having thought about it, I'll keep the volume pot in there as I guess I could need it some time, and there's no reason other than for fiddling to get rid of it.

These pots, should they be linear or logarithmic for the tone control?
Click to expand...

Another vote for 500k pots. I prefer linear for vol and log (250k) for tone, but YMMV. If you looking for more top, you could add a bypass/bleed cap to the volume control then wind it back a notch...
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#14
I like the following on my Ps:
Assuming you have a standard output pickup (in the 9-12K resistance range)
-250K linear volume
-250K (or maybe 500K) audio tone with a .047-.068uF cap
-I'm surprised no one mentioned this, being that you said you like to tinker... Series/parallel switch (usually via a push/pull tone pot) so you can get the standard, series mid/low thick P sound and the parallel tone that has more clarity and a touch less output, yet still hum cancelling. It's a pseudo Jazz bass neck/SCPB tone. It is a mod that ultra traditional P players say is blasphemy. I have been doing this to my split coil Ps since the mid 80s when I read about it in a guitar magazine.
Pbass_1V_1T_mtSP.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#15
bigtone23 said:
I like the following on my Ps:
Assuming you have a standard output pickup (in the 9-12K resistance range)
-250K linear volume
-250K (or maybe 500K) audio tone with a .047-.068uF cap
-I'm surprised no one mentioned this, being that you said you like to tinker... Series/parallel switch (usually via a push/pull tone pot) so you can get the standard, series mid/low thick P sound and the parallel tone that has more clarity and a touch less output, yet still hum cancelling. It's a pseudo Jazz bass neck/SCPB tone. It is a mod that ultra traditional P players say is blasphemy. I have been doing this to my split coil Ps since the mid 80s when I read about it in a guitar magazine.
Click to expand...

Morning, thanks for that! I've just bought the two 500k pots, so I'm probably going to put them in. Is there normally a capacitor bridging some of the connections on the tone pot, though?

Have you got any demos of the difference between these two settings? The one video I watched doesn't seem to show that much. I basically go from full brightness and dial down to maybe 30% most of the time, and just switch between those two, so I don't know how worth it this would be, even though I like to tinker :P
 
#16
There are a few ways to wire a P bass, the version with the cap bridging between the volume and tone pots is common, too.
I don't have any demos of the series/parallel sound. Here's a video of a P with the S-1 switch, the series and parallel sounds are pretty evident here.



Side note: when looking for a video, I came across one where a guy showed how he did the series/parallel mod on a P after coming across the article in 'an old back issue of Guitar Player-March 1987.' Ha! That's where I originally heard of this mod and did it to my 1983 Electra/Westone X630B to try it out. Been hooked ever since.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217
#17
I can hear the sounds difference - is the thicker tone with them in parallel? To be honest, I don't think I've any need for the series tone as it's much thinner than I'd like to hear. The tone that I'm typically aiming for is a fairly thick grunge tone (think Audioslave or similar), with a trebly edge to it.

Oh wow, that's a nice link to the past!
 
#19
I have a controls bypass on my p, and when bypassed it has a little more output and treble (like having the pickup wired directly to to tge output jack). But I still can use the volume and tone with the flick of a switch. I can use the tone closed and then hit hit switch and and have a change in sound, or leave tge volume all the way down and use it as a killswitch of sorts.
 
#20
I finally got around to rewiring my bass this weekend. I'm afraid that I didn't do anything fancy as I'd forgotten how uncomfortable the whole thing made me feel. As much as I enjoy soldering, the part where you have to connect your ground and pickup wires up to everything else makes me stressed.

So I'm afraid I just wired them into the normal configuration. I replaced everything internally bar the pickup and ground wires that are attached to the body. New 500k pots, A and B type, and a new jack. Hopefully that means that I won't have any issues with the jack ever again.

I couldn't believe it when I plugged it in and it all worked! You always forget something, though, so I had the pickguard off a couple of times pushing stuff back in etc.

All sounds fine...I couldn't discern any notable difference, which is fine by me.

Thanks for all the advice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Uche_bass and SteveCS

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back