DiMarzio PJ Pickup Question

[Barnabus]

I installed these recently. The J pickup had 4 wires coming out of it and I wired it according to the supplied instructions:
1. Connected the white wire to the black wire
2. The green to ground
3. The red (hot) to the volume pot

Is this the wiring I want to make the J pickup sound like a J pickup in a Fender jazz bass?

 

[Chris Breese]

Yes.

 

[line6man]

I am not sure exactly what your asking, but i assume that you are looking for a single coil wiring, like on a traditional jazz bass?

If that is the case, connect the green white and black wires to ground, and connect the red to your volume pot.
If the white and green wires are connected together, the bottom coil is shorted out, leaving only one coil active,thus giving you a single coil.

 

[Bardley]

I am not sure exactly what your asking, but i assume that you are looking for a single coil wiring, like on a traditional jazz bass?

If that is the case, connect the green white and black wires to ground, and connect the red to your volume pot.
If the white and green wires are connected together, the bottom coil is shorted out, leaving only one coil active,thus giving you a single coil.

I have these pups and was thinking the coils are side-by-side. (I could be wrong) Doing this would only give you two strings.

IMO If you want single coil sound, get single coil pups.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

I am not sure exactly what your asking, but i assume that you are looking for a single coil wiring, like on a traditional jazz bass?

If that is the case, connect the green white and black wires to ground, and connect the red to your volume pot.
If the white and green wires are connected together, the bottom coil is shorted out, leaving only one coil active,thus giving you a single coil.

They are not stacked coils, they are side-by-side coils like a P bass. Each coil only pickups up two strings.

So for normal series wiring, the black and white connect together, green is ground and red it hot.

You can also wire them in parallel, but that's brighter and thinner sounding.

Since the strings are only picked up by one coil at a time, they sound like single coils. They only difference is the size of the coils. They are pretty close though, and don't hum.

 

[line6man]

I could have sworn that DiMarzio's were stacked humbuckers.

In that case, i guess that there isnt a way to do a single coil wiring from these pickups then.

 

[SGD Lutherie]

I could have sworn that DiMarzio's were stacked humbuckers.

In that case, i guess that there isnt a way to do a single coil wiring from these pickups then.

But they aren't really humbuckers in the usual sense, they are linear humbuckers, so just as with a P bass, they are single coils. It's just two single coils. There's no overlap as with standard humbuckers.

Switching a standard humbucker into single coil mode produces a much different tone due to the removal of the phase cancelation of the highs, and reinforcement of the lows which give humbuckers a fat tone.

The Model J can be switched into parallel though, which renders a very bright tone. I had a Model P and J in a fretless bass once with series parallel switches. It was a very versatile setup.

 

[Barnabus]

Thanks for the replies on this. So in a sense I've got a second P pickup in the J position with my current wiring. I'd like try adding a switch to so I can toggle between both pickups (both the p and the J pickups) running either series or parallel. I'v done this on a P bass before.

Can just one switch be used to do this for both pickups?

 

[line6man]

Thanks for the replies on this. So in a sense I've got a second P pickup in the J position with my current wiring. I'd like try adding a switch to so I can toggle between both pickups (both the p and the J pickups) running either series or parallel. I'v done this on a P bass before.

Can just one switch be used to do this for both pickups?

For series parallel, you need both poles of a DPDT switch...
IMO, you would have alot more tonal flexability with seperate switches anyway.
I can draw you a schematic if you need it.

 

[Raton2008]

humbuckers in the usual sense, they are linear humbuckers, so just as with a P bass, they are single coils. It's just two single coils. There's no overlap as with standard humbuckers.

Switching a standard humbucker into single coil mode produces a much different tone due to the removal of the phase cancelation of the highs, and reinforcement of the lows which give humbuckers a fat tone.

T

 

[mgmadian]

The Model J can be switched into parallel though, which renders a very bright tone. I had a Model P and J in a fretless bass once with series parallel switches. It was a very versatile setup.

I'm thinking of doing this with my fretted 75 P that has a Model P now (would probably add a Model J, but am considering an UltraJazz, in the bridge position).

With the caveat that it's so subjective... would you consider the either the Model P or Model J in parallel (by itself) to be too bright? I'm imagining the possibilities of combining one (series) with the other (parallel)... and of course doing this using a pickup selector (I'm not a fan of passive blends) that also allows series combination.

 

[DavePlaysBass]

In a PJ, the P typically is higher output than the J. If you take a split coil J and run it in parallel, you reduce the J output relative to the series J. This would make the P to J output difference worse (most likely).