Yesterday i came across an old Charvel 2B bass from the late 80s and the pickups are fried and i want to basically replace alot of things on it starting with the pickups/electronics. I've got a pair of EMG PJX pickups that i haven't used and a EMG BQC preamp. The issue is that the pickups come with 2 volume pots and 1 tone pot. To avoid drilling more holes in to the bass i want to know if i can wire the bass just using 1 volume pot, a 3-way selector switch and the preamp which is on 2 stacked knobs or do i have to use the tone pot and the other volume pot?
With the BQC, the tone pot becomes essentially redundant. EMG makes a three-way switch with the solderless connectors. Use that or use a normal one with a bit of soldering; either will require using the buss that comes with the pickups. All of the wiring diagrams you need are at EMG’s website.
Was thinking of doing that at first, but the bass has been modded in the past and it has a 3 way selector switch so i don't necessarily need 2 volume controls.
The easiest thing, though it involves buying some stuff, is to look through the EMG website or just reach out to them and get the proper solder-less stuff to build what you want. I think you'd want a blend knob with a PJ setup so you can use mostly P but dial in the J a little.
I'm pretty much using an all-solderless system with this bass since it's easier. I would like to put a blend in it but again i don't want to drill more holes into it and as dumb ass it will sound i will probably be using the P pickup only and not the J since i wanted to put EMG 35DC and 35CS soapbar pickups, but that would again require drilling into the bass so i settled for the PJ pickups since i just don't like the way J pickups sound.
With the BQC, you shouldn’t need to use the pots that come with the pickups. The BQC should have a stacked bass & treble, stacked mid sweep, master volume, and a balance control. It seems that you want to replace the balance with a 3-way switch? IIRC, the Charvel 2B has 3 controls (volume, volume, tone). To take full advantage of the BQC preamp, whether you use the balance or 3-way switch, you should have locations in the bass for 4 controls.