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Dual vol/tone stacked jazz wiring

Discussion in 'Pickups & Electronics [BG]' started by BrantG, Jun 13, 2020.

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  1. Jun 13, 2020 #1
    BrantG

    BrantG

    Jun 13, 2020
    Hello everyone. I recently ordered a custom Warmoth jazz-style bass with two pot holes. I want to put two stacked pots, each one controlling volume and tone for each pickup. I'll be putting in a set of the jazz pickups from Tom Brantley that he winds for Geddy Lee to use on his basses.

    Pickups: Tom Brantley Geddy Lee Vintage Single Coil J Pickup Set | Solo Guitars

    In the early 60s Fender used the dual stacked vol/tone pots on their j-basses, and I found this wiring diagram from Fender's wiring from that era:
    https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/im...8cc75bf150cb584c/version/1567435635/image.jpg

    In that picture, it looks like the resistors are 22k, and the capacitor is one of these: Reproduction ZSW1S5 .05 uF Capacitor for Broadcaster or Tele.

    While this is how Fender did it back in the 60s, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to do this today? Is there a modern equivalent capacitor that would work?

    Thank you very much,
    Brant
     
  2. Jun 13, 2020 #2
    ctmullins

    ctmullins Dominated Gold Supporting Member

    Apr 18, 2008
    MS Gulf Coast
    I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
    Hi Brant, welcome to the forum!

    Any 0.047 capacitor will work. Don’t waste money on boutique or reproduction caps.
     
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  3. Jun 13, 2020 #3
    Novarocker

    Novarocker

    Oct 12, 2015
    Detroit
    +1 to not using boutique caps. Not necessarily worth it, kind of a snake oil rabbit hole like NOS tubes can be.

    I've never used one, but I believe they had 2 different ways they did it and the original one loaded the pickups in an odd way that some did not like.

    I take it back I tried the flea jazz and liked it a lot. Not sure whether it's wired up the same as the original though.
     
  4. Jun 14, 2020 #4
    RobbieK

    RobbieK

    Jun 14, 2003
    Smellbourne, Oz...
    Actually those are 220k resistors. (Yellow is 4 or 10000 multiplier.) But I wouldn't recommend the original 60's circuit. Instead, run the hot pickup wires to the centre lugs of the volume pots (as the regular VVT circuit has), and then sum the clockwise lugs to the jack with a couple of small resistors. Try something around 10k to 47k. The higher the resistor, the more independence the tone pots will have, but the more output you sacrifice. If you don't care about independent tone pots and want the brightest tone with both vols dimed, don't use resistors at all, just wire both clockwise vol pot lugs to the jack.
     
    Novarocker likes this.