Has anyone ever tried direct wiring a split coil pickup to the jack?

[Dave McCall]

I'm wanting to try a super-minimalistic mod for my G&L SB-1. I'd like to try directly wiring the pickup to the jack and bypass all electronics in the bass. I'd control tone with pedals and volume with my right hand.

1. Has anyone ever tried this?
   1. Did it work?
   2. Did you like it?
2. How would I go about wiring that? Looking at the SB-1 MFD Pickup and the G&L wiring diagram ( https://www.bassesbyleo.com/paul/g&l_bbe_wiring_diagrams/basses/sb1_wiring_diagram.pdf ), I think I'd wire the black wires together (to the bridge/ground on the jack) and the white and green wires together to the other jack contact, but what about this yellow one?

 

[Crater]

Black wires are ground. Yellow is the pickup "hot" wire - wire it to the tip terminal on the output jack.
The white and green wires are soldered together and insulated - in a P-bass, the two halves of the split pickup are wired in series.

 

[Leo Smith]

I've wired a simple P pickup straight to the jack. There were only the two wires involved, so it was easy to accomplish. Oh, and I also kept the ground wire going to the bridge. The sound was a little more raw and open.

In the case of your pickup, that's a lot more wires to deal with. Yes, keep all the black wires together, including the one to the bridge; that's the ground path. Keep the green and white wires from the pickup together and unconnected to anything else. The yellow from the pickup goes to the jack.

In your diagram, the yellow wire from the pickup is connected to the white from the jack, which can make things confusing if you're just going by color. Go by signal path and function. The yellow wire from the pickup is connected to the volume control, then the signal continues out of the vol control to the jack with a white wire.

Gotta admit that after looking at the diagram some more I'm also a little confused. Five wires coming out of a dual coil pickup?

Good luck with your project. I hope others will chime in with more correct answers than what I've proposed.

 

[Dave McCall]

It's an odd one. Thanks for your help Leo and Crater. I think I know the first thing to try now.

 

[Bassdoggydogg]

I was actually thinking about acquiring these same pickups to do this on a project bass. So please let us know how it goes, and post a clip/video if you can. Thanks.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Would that wiring style just be both volume and tone dimed?

 

[JKos]

Would that wiring style just be both volume and tone dimed?

No, it removes the load of the volume and tone control. Even "dimed" they still load the pickup.

@Dave McCall ,
It looks simply as if the "low side" pickup has a ground wire likely for shielding purposes. Connect both black wires to ground, the white and green together, and the yellow wire to the tip of the output jack.

 

[BlueTalon]

Would that wiring style just be both volume and tone dimed?

Essentially, yes. But it might be a little brighter than a dimed tone, though, because there isn't any pot resistance loading the circuit.

I did that to a bass once. Two Carvin humbuckers mounted in a Rickenbacker, wired straight to the jack. I really liked the sound of that.

 

[JKos]

In your diagram, the yellow wire from the pickup is connected to the white from the jack

No, it's not. The wires cross in the diagram drawing but there would be a dot if they were connected.

 

[Andsvara]

I think Steve Harris from Iron Maiden has been doing just that for decades.

 

[Samatza]

I think Steve Harris from Iron Maiden has been doing just that for decades.

Yes, apparently when he got close to the audience they would turn the knobs on the bass so he had them bypassed.

 

[Dave TB Killer]

I wire direct to output. I do this for several reasons but mainly to stop the urge to fiddle with onboard controls. I am currently swapping out pickups on a couple new builds and direct is simple. When I settle on the pickups i will eventually put in at least a volume.

 

[Dynacord]

Have seen this twice in recording studios. Was very much preferred by one engineer in particular. Same thing articulated by @JKos and @BlueTalon - no load, purest signal possible (and don't get that engineer started on the differences between onboard preamps vs Neve channel strips, etc )

 

[Bodeeni]

I ran my 59 P direct with just a kill switch for years. At least back then I alway had volume and tone full anyway. Sort of still do. I like the simplicity and thought it was a little brighter

 

[andrus108]

I've done it with a Dimarzio Model P, and love it. No pots means no loading that robs of the high end, so in my Ibanez PJ, the P turned into a pickup that was both bassier AND brighter than bridge J (which had the controls connected; used a two way switch between pot-controlled J and direct to jack P). Guitar player always asked if I have some sort of electronic boost installed in my bass :-D

You could always get a push-pull pot, and have the option to run your pick-up with and without the pots.

 

[Dave McCall]

Update 1: Soldered everything, buttoned it back up, and restrung it last night. Everything seems to work. It was late enough I didn't do a normal volume test. I'll do an update 2 once I get a chance to do that today. Initial thoughts running at barely audible levels on a interface and practice amp: the output signal is HOT. Hot as balls hot. May need to figure out a pad for certain things. The interface clipped when playing with any vigor until I engaged a pad (luckily my interface is really nice and has an analog 20dB pad that can be engaged).

 

[funkmaster p]

I tried that move with a Fender P bass, but found the high end to be rather abrasive. It sounded better to my ears when I installed some fixed resistors.

My current bass uses an EMG active P pickup and sounds great wired straight to the jack without added resistors.

BTW, I use a Planet Waves circuit breaker instrument cable which functions as my kill switch. Works perfectly.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

I've seen a few P-basses with the volume & tone controls bypassed. One of them was in a studio and belonged to the studio engineer. The engineer said it helped get a brighter, clean, non-loaded signal to the recording media (magnetic tape at the time). He also said he could EQ out excessive high end, but he couldn't really "create" high end, so he wanted all he could get from the bass. Of those I was able to play, they were a little brighter than those with the volume / tone in the circuit except the one in the studio, which had such dead strings, it really didn't matter whether a tone and volume pot was in or out. The engineer said the strings were "several years" old….

 

[bench]

If you do it, don't let Ernie Ball make you a signature bass from it, because a lot of Talkbass will come for you...

 

[JTE]

I put a DPDT switch in my VS '62 P (stock PUP, 1983 Fullerton) to bypass the controls. DPDT so I was switching both the hot and ground to completely remove the pots and cap from the circuit. It was a change I noticed but didn't make any difference in the mix, neither on stage nor on the board mix recordings we made at each gig. I took it out after a few months because it wasn't a big deal and the push-pull pot was just a little too tall for the bass so it was flexing the pickguard.