Humbucker wiring

I'm thinking of rewiring the pickups in my bass (two Bartolini humbuckers). Currently, the bridge pickup is wired in series, the neck pickup is switchable series/split, and both are blended in parallel with a pot. I don't use single-coil on the neck pickup much, if ever.

So here's what I'm thinking of doing:

Switch up: normal config, both pickups humbucking, blended like usual.

Switch down: "outside" neck coil in series with "outside" bridge coil. "inside" neck coil in series with "inside" bridge coil. These two things blended in parallel with the pot. So, with the pot forward, I'll have the two "outside" halves of the pickups in series. With it rolled back, the two "inside" halves. In the middle, all four coils in series/parallel just like normal.

Has anybody tried this? My basic purpose is to get the two pickups wired in series. Next, just half of each so the total volume is the same as anything else. And it's trivial to wire it so I get that "outside"/"inside" option - I'm not sure how different the sounds will be, but it is just an added bonus.

 

Guess that's a "no".

 

OK, so I did it. Happy with the results, although there were a few snafus.

1. The neck p/u is a quad-coil wired as "P" and "reverse P". So I couldn't get "outside" and "inside" pairs. Settled for "P + outside bridge" and "reverse P + inside bridge"

2. Bart says humbucker wires are black+, white-, red+, green-. So I first tried cross-connecting the whites with the reds via the switch. Noooope. One of the pickups (didn't bother to find out which, didn't matter, my guess is the neck one) had the red and white wires reversed. So, when the switch is on it connects red to red and white to white. I verified by tapping on them that I ended up getting the coils I wanted.

3. I thought the bridge was a quad-coild, but I think it must just be dual coil. So, my new configurations are not humbucking -- the neck pickup split is self-humbucking, but then when I put it in series with a single coil from the bridge I get its hum. Oh well. It's not too bad. In the future I may have to swap it for a quad-coil.

The sounds are good, if a bit hard to describe. Very useable, nothing extreme here. The first one is very PJ-ish, and makes a really good rock sound (fingers). Also a good slap tone, a bit juicier than the old one (both humbuckers) The other is different (fairly noticeably so) ... not quite MM-like as I'd hoped. It'll take some more time to get to know. Both settings have less low-mids but more treble than the humbucking settings (not suprising), but neither sounds thin like a single-coil by itself would.