Diy j bass pickup kit

[Ben Bass1]

Hi Low Commotion!

Without a diagram (I'm attempting to draw one in a graphics program) here's the basic layout.

Neck Bass side - Coil 1 - Neck Treble side - Coil 2
Bridge Bass side - Coil 3 - Bridge Treble side - Coil 4

I'm going to hook up coils 1 and 2 in series for operation as neck pickup.
I'm going to hook up coils 3 and 4 in series for operation as bridge pickup, of course.

Also when Neck and Bridge are in operation together (all coils on) of course the Bass won't need any special attention with regard to typical CCW wound neck, CW wound bridge as the humbucking has already been achieved by splitting the coils and winding in opposition.

For simple operation (and I may do this yet...) a series wire could be used to join the treble and bass coils all tucked inside the J Bass pickup cover, but I'm looking for some more switching options. So that wire link idea would have to go.

I know many folks seek way too many switching options leaving them without many additional "musical" sounds and also some of the wiring schemes could be called "The Decision Paralysis Circuit" as they're so elaborate!

That said, I think there might be a decent tone using coil 1 and 4 at the same time, not sure.
As for coils 3 and 2 together, I'm not so sure at all, I doubt that one would be useful.
Of course, I'd have to fit these into a J Bass, be it with push/pull pots or whatever, that's not a problem.

Perhaps switching for these could probably be lifted from a Les Paul HH diagram, with coil splits.
I think if I use the slug and screw coils from a HH diagram with coil splits (push/pull pots, 2 Vol), I might be able to apply it to the 4 coils in this Bass.
I'm working it out now as to whether I can offer these options to this Bass player.
I have experience making pickups for Strats and Teles and a few humbucker sets for LP, just haven't done much Bass or extensive humbucking work yet.

Any thoughts appreciated.

With regard to the different wire gauge, I cut the bridge flatwork in half, wired that with the same turns and AWG as yourself (Thanks so much!). Then I cut the Neck one in half and wound one half... Couldn't get enough turns on one half before the coil became too big and this was CNC, tight wind, no scatter. If I wound the other half in similar fashion, the Neck pickup wasn't going to fit into the cover and the coils would rub together in the middle. This is due to the narrower pole spacing on the neck pickup. I'm sure you know this, just adding it here for the benefit of the thread. So... 43 gauge might be the only way to achieve a basic output from a split neck position J Bass pickup. If the turn count is in the ballpark, they'll be OK. I mix a lot of 43 and 42 gauge on Gilmour strat sets with rwrp middle and they work fine. (Gilmour Bridge 14,000 turns 43AWG C/W, Middle 7750 turns 42 AWG CC/W and they work well together and are silent when run in parallel)

I'll do my best to get back in here with some pictures. Forgive me, a road crew has put an earthmover through the internet cable and connection is sporadic!
Thanks for your time Low Commotion.

If you think the HH diagram can be adapted, by all means chime in with a diagram or whatever you can come up with, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts.

Cheers, Ben.

 

[Low Commotion]

Hi Low Commotion!

Without a diagram (I'm attempting to draw one in a graphics program) here's the basic layout.

Neck Bass side - Coil 1 - Neck Treble side - Coil 2
Bridge Bass side - Coil 3 - Bridge Treble side - Coil 4

I'm going to hook up coils 1 and 2 in series for operation as neck pickup.
I'm going to hook up coils 3 and 4 in series for operation as bridge pickup, of course.

Also when Neck and Bridge are in operation together (all coils on) of course the Bass won't need any special attention with regard to typical CCW wound neck, CW wound bridge as the humbucking has already been achieved by splitting the coils and winding in opposition.

For simple operation (and I may do this yet...) a series wire could be used to join the treble and bass coils all tucked inside the J Bass pickup cover, but I'm looking for some more switching options. So that wire link idea would have to go.

I know many folks seek way too many switching options leaving them without many additional "musical" sounds and also some of the wiring schemes could be called "The Decision Paralysis Circuit" as they're so elaborate!

That said, I think there might be a decent tone using coil 1 and 4 at the same time, not sure.
As for coils 3 and 2 together, I'm not so sure at all, I doubt that one would be useful.
Of course, I'd have to fit these into a J Bass, be it with push/pull pots or whatever, that's not a problem.

Perhaps switching for these could probably be lifted from a Les Paul HH diagram, with coil splits.
I think if I use the slug and screw coils from a HH diagram with coil splits (push/pull pots, 2 Vol), I might be able to apply it to the 4 coils in this Bass.
I'm working it out now as to whether I can offer these options to this Bass player.
I have experience making pickups for Strats and Teles and a few humbucker sets for LP, just haven't done much Bass or extensive humbucking work yet.

Any thoughts appreciated.

With regard to the different wire gauge, I cut the bridge flatwork in half, wired that with the same turns and AWG as yourself (Thanks so much!). Then I cut the Neck one in half and wound one half... Couldn't get enough turns on one half before the coil became too big and this was CNC, tight wind, no scatter. If I wound the other half in similar fashion, the Neck pickup wasn't going to fit into the cover and the coils would rub together in the middle. This is due to the narrower pole spacing on the neck pickup. I'm sure you know this, just adding it here for the benefit of the thread. So... 43 gauge might be the only way to achieve a basic output from a split neck position J Bass pickup. If the turn count is in the ballpark, they'll be OK. I mix a lot of 43 and 42 gauge on Gilmour strat sets with rwrp middle and they work fine. (Gilmour Bridge 14,000 turns 43AWG C/W, Middle 7750 turns 42 AWG CC/W and they work well together and are silent when run in parallel)

I'll do my best to get back in here with some pictures. Forgive me, a road crew has put an earthmover through the internet cable and connection is sporadic!
Thanks for your time Low Commotion.

If you think the HH diagram can be adapted, by all means chime in with a diagram or whatever you can come up with, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts.

Cheers, Ben.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Without a diagram (I'm attempting to draw one in a graphics program) here's the basic layout.

Neck Bass side - Coil 1 - Neck Treble side - Coil 2
Bridge Bass side - Coil 3 - Bridge Treble side - Coil 4

I'm going to hook up coils 1 and 2 in series for operation as neck pickup.
I'm going to hook up coils 3 and 4 in series for operation as bridge pickup, of course.

Also when Neck and Bridge are in operation together (all coils on) of course the Bass won't need any special attention with regard to typical CCW wound neck, CW wound bridge as the humbucking has already been achieved by splitting the coils and winding in opposition.​

Yes, you must pay attention to the coil direction and the magnet polarity for all four coils. All four coils work with each other. That's how humbuckers work. The induced signal (hum) is cancelled by the second coil because it it reverse wound, reverse polarity. Even if the coil is in the opposite pickup. You will see that in my setup, each adjacent coil is RWRP with the other. So if you look at coil 1 and 2, these two coils are RWRP with each other and coil 1 and 3 is RWRP with each other, and coil 2 and 4 are RWRP with each other.

To do this, the starts of each coil 1 and coil 2 would be connected together, and the finish of coil 1 is your hot lead, and the finish of coil 2 is the ground. Coil 1 would have top south polarity, and coil 2 would be top north polarity.

The opposite would be done for the bridge pickup (coils 3 and 4). The starts of each coil 3 and coil 4 would be connected together, and the finish of coil 3 is your hot lead, and the finish of coil 4 is the ground. But coil 3 would have top north polarity, and coil 4 would be top south polarity.

For simple operation (and I may do this yet...) a series wire could be used to join the treble and bass coils all tucked inside the J Bass pickup cover, but I'm looking for some more switching options. So that wire link idea would have to go.

I know many folks seek way too many switching options leaving them without many additional "musical" sounds and also some of the wiring schemes could be called "The Decision Paralysis Circuit" as they're so elaborate!

That said, I think there might be a decent tone using coil 1 and 4 at the same time, not sure.
As for coils 3 and 2 together, I'm not so sure at all, I doubt that one would be useful.
Of course, I'd have to fit these into a J Bass, be it with push/pull pots or whatever, that's not a problem.​

I can't comment on this. My initial thought is that it wouldn't sound very good because those two coils are wound the same. IMHO, I think the sound would be thin. Just like wiring one of your regular single-coil jazz pickups in reverse to the other and having both pickups on full.

Perhaps switching for these could probably be lifted from a Les Paul HH diagram, with coil splits.
I think if I use the slug and screw coils from a HH diagram with coil splits (push/pull pots, 2 Vol), I might be able to apply it to the 4 coils in this Bass.
I'm working it out now as to whether I can offer these options to this Bass player.
I have experience making pickups for Strats and Teles and a few humbucker sets for LP, just haven't done much Bass or extensive humbucking work yet.

Any thoughts appreciated.​

I can't comment on this either. I have no idea

With regard to the different wire gauge, I cut the bridge flatwork in half, wired that with the same turns and AWG as yourself (Thanks so much!). Then I cut the Neck one in half and wound one half... Couldn't get enough turns on one half before the coil became too big and this was CNC, tight wind, no scatter. If I wound the other half in similar fashion, the Neck pickup wasn't going to fit into the cover and the coils would rub together in the middle. This is due to the narrower pole spacing on the neck pickup. I'm sure you know this, just adding it here for the benefit of the thread. So... 43 gauge might be the only way to achieve a basic output from a split neck position J Bass pickup. If the turn count is in the ballpark, they'll be OK. I mix a lot of 43 and 42 gauge on Gilmour strat sets with rwrp middle and they work fine. (Gilmour Bridge 14,000 turns 43AWG C/W, Middle 7750 turns 42 AWG CC/W and they work well together and are silent when run in parallel)​

I don't know why you couldn't fit 9,500 - 10,000 turns onto those coils. Did you cut the flatwork with a saw? I used a chisel to cut the flatwork so there wouldn't be any waste. Although I just wound 9,500 turns, there was room to add more.

Mixing different gauges of wire will produce different results. Again, I can't comment on how it will turn out. But you might stumble onto something sounding really incredible. If you do an internet search, you should be able to find someone who has done this. Another useful resource is the music-electronics-forum.com in the pickup section.

I'll do my best to get back in here with some pictures. Forgive me, a road crew has put an earthmover through the internet cable and connection is sporadic!
Thanks for your time Low Commotion.

If you think the HH diagram can be adapted, by all means chime in with a diagram or whatever you can come up with, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts. ​

I'm not sure what you want to do here?

Good luck and have fun. Let us know how it all turns out.

Marc

 

[Ben Bass1]

Hi Marc,

Just to clarify my wind,

Neck Bass side - Coil 1 South Up c/w wind - Neck Treble side - Coil 2 North up cc/w wind
Bridge Bass side - Coil 3 - South Up c/w wind - Bridge Treble side - Coil 4 North up cc/w wind

Coils 1 and 4 are wound in opposing directions and have opposing magnetic polarity.
If coils 1 and 4 are combined, they will form a humbucking pickup.

Regards fitting the wire onto the Jazz Bass neck pickup. (Not a P Bass pickup) .The magnet spacing is more narrow on the Jazz Bass neck pickup than the bridge pickup. I cut the neck pickup in half with tinsnips and wasted none of the pickup. With reduced distance between the A and D string magnets on the neck pickup, on a split coil pickup there is insufficient space to achieve enough winds of 42 gauge wire (9600+ turns).

Regarding the wire choice. It's not heavy insulation build wire, I can get over 10,000 turns onto a strat bobbin with this particular wire. (vs 8500 onto strat bobbin with heavy build AWG42)
With 42 gauge wire wound (on this J Bass split Neck pickup) to fill the space, low output can be achieved. It'll be there, but so clean as to be sterile and lifeless.
With 43 gauge wire wound to fill the space, enough output can be achieved. It'll be mid-rangey I suspect.

The same number of turns can be used on the 43 gauge neck as the 42 gauge bridge, making for perfect humbucking across coils 1 & 4. I routinely do this with Strat bridge in 43 gauge and Strat middle rwrp in 42 gauge. Turn count for rejection of common mode noise is more important than matching DCR across opposing coils. To achieve balance between bridge and neck, output can be regulated down by attention to magnet gauss levels.

I have used a HH diagram and switches to achieve the required switching for this Bass.
I won't hear how it sounds as the Bass is interstate and I'm sending these pickups out to the guy.
I hope he can fit them...

By adapting a 2 humbucker diagram for Les Paul, I'm able to access Neck north and south coils, Bridge north and south coils, with switching and coil splits, to achieve coils:

1 & 2 (Neck on)
3 & 4 (Bridge on)
1 & 4 (Bass coil neck & Treble coil Bridge)
2 & 3 (Bass coil bridge & Treble coil neck)
1, 2, 3 & 4 (All pickups on)

A HH Les Paul may have coils across all six strings, but on the split J Bass models, those coils are just shifted into a side by side arrangement. Electrically, the Les Paul HH and the split J Bass are very similar.
Thanks again.
If I ever hear the thing, I will post here!

Cheers, Ben.

 

[Low Commotion]

Hi Marc,

Just to clarify my wind,

Neck Bass side - Coil 1 South Up c/w wind - Neck Treble side - Coil 2 North up cc/w wind
Bridge Bass side - Coil 3 - South Up c/w wind - Bridge Treble side - Coil 4 North up cc/w wind

Coils 1 and 4 are wound in opposing directions and have opposing magnetic polarity.
If coils 1 and 4 are combined, they will form a humbucking pickup.

Regards fitting the wire onto the Jazz Bass neck pickup. (Not a P Bass pickup) .The magnet spacing is more narrow on the Jazz Bass neck pickup than the bridge pickup. I cut the neck pickup in half with tinsnips and wasted none of the pickup. With reduced distance between the A and D string magnets on the neck pickup, on a split coil pickup there is insufficient space to achieve enough winds of 42 gauge wire (9600+ turns).

Regarding the wire choice. It's not heavy insulation build wire, I can get over 10,000 turns onto a strat bobbin with this particular wire. (vs 8500 onto strat bobbin with heavy build AWG42)
With 42 gauge wire wound (on this J Bass split Neck pickup) to fill the space, low output can be achieved. It'll be there, but so clean as to be sterile and lifeless.
With 43 gauge wire wound to fill the space, enough output can be achieved. It'll be mid-rangey I suspect.

The same number of turns can be used on the 43 gauge neck as the 42 gauge bridge, making for perfect humbucking across coils 1 & 4. I routinely do this with Strat bridge in 43 gauge and Strat middle rwrp in 42 gauge. Turn count for rejection of common mode noise is more important than matching DCR across opposing coils. To achieve balance between bridge and neck, output can be regulated down by attention to magnet gauss levels.

I have used a HH diagram and switches to achieve the required switching for this Bass.
I won't hear how it sounds as the Bass is interstate and I'm sending these pickups out to the guy.
I hope he can fit them...

By adapting a 2 humbucker diagram for Les Paul, I'm able to access Neck north and south coils, Bridge north and south coils, with switching and coil splits, to achieve coils:

1 & 2 (Neck on)
3 & 4 (Bridge on)
1 & 4 (Bass coil neck & Treble coil Bridge)
2 & 3 (Bass coil bridge & Treble coil neck)
1, 2, 3 & 4 (All pickups on)

A HH Les Paul may have coils across all six strings, but on the split J Bass models, those coils are just shifted into a side by side arrangement. Electrically, the Les Paul HH and the split J Bass are very similar.
Thanks again.
If I ever hear the thing, I will post here!

Cheers, Ben.

I think you'll want to reverse the coils in one of the pickups. For example, you’d leave the neck pickup as is, but swap the coils in the bridge pickup. So the result would be:

Neck Bass side - Coil 1 South Up c/w wind - Neck Treble side - Coil 2 North up cc/w wind
Bridge Bass side - Coil 3 - North Up cc/w wind - Bridge Treble side - Coil 4 South up c/w wind.

That way when both pickups are functioning, they'll work as humbuckers with each other. Even though the two pickups are a few inches apart, they do interact with each other.

If not, each pickup will sound fine on its own, but sound thin when they are both operational. I originally had it configured how you want to do it, and it didn’t work properly. At least, that was my experience.

So this will affect what you want to do with your different configurations (coil 1 with coil 4 and coil 2 with coil 3).

What you want to do sounds interesting. IMHO, I can’t see how this will work. I’m not knocking what you’re doing, but because of my limited knowledge on pickup design, I don’t understand how it’ll work properly. But don’t let me discourage you.

The way I see it, a Les Paul pickup is two pickups side by side. They aren’t split coils. Each coil in the pickup is RWRP with the other coil and each coil covers all strings. A split coil only covers two (or three) strings. But both designs work as a humbucker.

Regarding the number of windings, I just did the bridge pickup and that pickup is the bigger of the two. I didn’t think of the neck pickup which is smaller. That makes sense to me now.

Like I said, give it a try. I don’t have all the answers and I have limited experience with this. But I’m willing to tell you what I know.

Please keep us updated.
Marc

 

[bassystem]

Hi

Well I understand what you write, both pickups reverse order (wind and polarity), but from your picture I would say that all those pickups have same winding direction (ccw)!!! And, if you turn both pickups in split coil picture 180 degree you will get same picture as p pickup? If you can explain

And, much important to me, do you think can I make pickups for 6 string bass with this configuratin? Many thanks

 

[Low Commotion]

Hi

Well I understand what you write, both pickups reverse order (wind and polarity), but from your picture I would say that all those pickups have same winding direction (ccw)!!! And, if you turn both pickups in split coil picture 180 degree you will get same picture as p pickup? If you can explain

And, much important to me, do you think can I make pickups for 6 string bass with this configuratin? Many thanks

Hi bassystem,

Yes, the diagram for each pickup shows two coils wound counterclockwise, but they are connected in a way that the path to ground in one coil is clockwise, and the coil in the other is counterclockwise.

If you look at the P pickup, the signal starts at the left coil, travels against the winding, and is the connected to the right coil and travels with the winding to ground. The split coil jazz pickup is the opposite to the P pickup.

I hope I explain myself so you understand.

Yes, you can use this configuration for a six string bass. The OP used this configuration for a five string bass.

 

[bassystem]

Aha, thanks, now I understand, all are rwrp...but what is the difference in this two designes? Signal path confuses me, because in all two cases, it goes: signal start at left coil, goes against winding, to the right coil, goes with the winding to the ground? right? I can't see how j split is opposite to p? As I said, if you just turn arround j coils 180 degree, it becomes exactly like p config...and I can't imagine if turning coils 180 can do any difference?

 

[dwizum]

Ignore the arrows in the diagrams. Put your finger on the word "ground" and trace the line until you get to the word "signal."

In the J pickup, you start by going clockwise around magnets that are south-to-strings (north down), then you go counterclockwise around magnets that are north-to-strings (south down).

In the P pickup, you start by going clockwise around magnets that are north-to-strings, then you go counterclockwise around magnets that are south-to-strings.

So - you are correct, the winding directions are essentially "the same" and rotating a coil 180 degrees (such that the eyelets are towards the middle versus towards the outside, or vice-versa) doesn't make a functional difference. But the J and the P are "opposite" to each other in terms of the magnet orientations.

 

[bassystem]

Perfectly understand that...so, we have two identically pickups, one is left top north, right top s, second is left top s right top n, in order to together work all in rwrp config...my question is, why different diagram, except just to follow vintage style of j and p design? In other words, can I make two identical pickups, with more windings on bridge pickups? They are independent, works as two noisecancelling singles...

but as I can tell, when they work together, their signal is in oposite phase? hum is of course cancelled in each pickup independently...as I can see, they could sound better with two pickups made with either diagram (j split, or p)...but like this, signal is in oposite phase when together? sorry, I'm new with this, try to understand thanks again

 

[bassystem]

so, in my opinion, right config would be:
1. n, ccw
2. s cw
3. s cw
4. n, ccw

1 neck bass, 2 neck treble, 3 bridge bass, 4 bridge treble...diagonal the same, and of course, if you want to play 1 and 4, sound ok, but no hum cancelling...just like 2 and 3 only...

I can see now that Mark wrote same thing above, but from diagram I can't see that
learning, thanks