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First modding. Need help

SuburbiaSucks

SuburbiaSucks

Guest
May 18, 2014
32
9
28
#1
Hey Talkbass. I own a 80's samick short scale P bass (One Pickup) and wanted to do the following
replace the P bass pickup with a fender model one
Add a J Bass pickup at the neck and bridge
Add an 8 Way strat switch that functions.

Is this possible or am i in dreamland over here? i think the sound i would get is amazing!
 
#4
spaz21387 said:
the strat switch wiring will be the hard part. it might not be possible since strats have 3 pickups. honestly Id say you save your money for a bass that's already routed and then get crazy with wiring it. the squier jaguar would be a good p/j option.
Click to expand...

He has a P pickup and wants to add 2 J pups. So it's 3 pups.

BTW Suburbia, make sure you check the pickup positions according to "projected" fret positions. This is a good tool to use: http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator For instance if your bass is a 19-20 fret, and you want a pickup in the Ric position, you should put it into the 24th fret position. Make sure you measure the actual scale of your bass more than once.
 
#5
Thanks for the tips guys. Another option i was thinking is 3 les paul style switches but they function as an on/off and are next to the pickup they activate. Or maybe i could get arcade buttons and have them function the same way. Id prefer the les paul style though
 
#7
I had a similar junker laying around and got mad scientist on it. Here's the mods:

Added a P pickup to the neck, used the original mid and bridge pickups.
I wired the bridge pickups to a 5-way rotary, giving 5 tones to that (bridge, both series, both parallel, mid, both out of phase).
I added a 3 way switch to allow the use of the P pickup alone, with the other pickups, or not at all.

It didn't take much room and it has a ton of tonal options.
 
#10
It's a great first project on a cheap bass. Once you work out the kinks you can upgrade the whole thing.
Instead of a 5 way switch try using toggle switches for each one and have it so each pup can go in series or parallel to it self.
One thing I wanted to try on a pup with multiple p pickups was the in between sounds. Something like the bridge EA bass pup in series with the DG middle treble pup.
 
#11
In the early 90's Fender had a 32 inch scale Stu Hamm bass that had all three pickups, with the P nestled between the two J's. If you can find a wiring diagram of it, then that sounds more like what you're going after. I wouldn't bother with the switch. I'd just go V-V-V-T with 500kohm pots so the load on the wiring doesn't dull out.

Check these threads:
http://www.talkbass.com/threads/bass-setup-like-stu-hamm-urge-ii.709910/
http://www.talkbass.com/threads/a-true-pj-bass-what-do-you-think.721044/
 

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