Jazz bass wired in series

[MobileHolmes]

First off, have you ever heard a Jazz Bass wired in series? If not, I'd listen to some youtube first or something.

You should be able to series wire up your J with a blend pot so that you can blend and have the bridge pickup dominant.

As we start mixing off one pickup or the other, we loose the hum cancelling on the J Bass.

Didn't Fender make a J Bass (and P bass too) about 10 or 15 yeas ago with some kind of parallel/series pot and/or switch. Called an S-1 switch or something?

Genuine Fender 250k Split Shaft S-1 Guitar/Bass Switching Pot, 006-1256-049 885978546749 | eBay

That was exactly it. Mid 2000s. It was a push push switch on one of the pots. I liked the idea, but the pickups in those basses sounded pretty meh, so neither setting was especially good. But you could easily do the same thing on an existing bass with a push push, push pull, or just a toggle

 

[MobileHolmes]

I don't understand why more manufacture don't do this. Just make the pan pot push/pull series/parallel. How much could this add to the cost of production? And, this would add a whole nother tone to the bass.

About 5 bucks and you could probably upcharge 100 for it

 

[Jazz Ad]

Fender did it for free and customers asked them to stop. Many replaced the S1 by a standard pot.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

make the pan pot push/pull series/parallel

That's not impossible, but it would be very complicated to have a blend AND series/parallel.
It would even be very difficult to find a pot that has a push/pull & dual-gang for a blend. Then you'd be up against having a controls cavity deep enough to fit it.

 

[sotua]

I'm looking to wire my jazz bass in series to get a little more thickness and oomph out of my pickups. I'm guessing by wiring in series, the two pickups essentially become one, defeating on of the volume knobs (both knobs on full). Only problem is, i'm not a fan of the jazz tone with both pickups full open, i usually keep the bridge pickup about 50-75%. Is there anything that can be done to remedy this?

Putting them in series will provide a different sound. AFAIK you won't be dealing with the same issues you do on parallel everything wide open.

My main bass is wired with a rotary switch as I usually didn't like to play with the volumes, so it's 4-position neck/ neck+bridge series/ neck+bridge parallel/bridge. It lives 90% of the time on the series setting (perhaps I should move to a single pickup bass and be done with it :-D )

Here's a sound sample, it's dry bass directly to the PC through an interface:

 

[Jazz Ad]

It's easy in an active circuit. Quite difficult inpassive, it would take I think a 6pdt switch. Not even sure it exists.

 

[fig]

I'm looking to wire my jazz bass in series

And have a volume for each pickup to change individual levels?

So far, Killed_by_Death (KBD) and Jazz Ad have given two different solutions.

I re-drew KDB's diagram into a representative schematic. Note that the potentiometer isn't wired as a 3 wire standard volume pot, but as a two wire variable resistor (one end of each pot is disconnected):

I think others in this forum have wired theirs like KBD's and works as advertised. You can add pickup selector switches (not shown). Overall easier wiring.

Jazz Ad referred to the Danelectro circuit for series pickups, individual volume controls. The big plus is if you want individual tone controls that don't interfere with each other, you might consider this one. Here's the full version with tone controls:

Pickup selector can be added (not shown). Overall a little more complex wiring.

If you don't want two tone controls, just put one at the end:


BTW, Jazz Ad did modify a Jazz bass for another bassist with the Danelectro circuit. Here's what he said:

I once rewired a 62 style Jazz Bass series the same way as a Dano with great success. The owner could use separate tone knobs without tone sucking induced by resistors as used in the original 62 wiring. Much thicker and crisper tone than a jazz bass though. Not recommended if you like a warm, gentle wobbly J bass tone.
I think it is a clever wiring that doesn't try to sound like others. It shines with pickups that have a bright tone and not too much bass.

Like others have mentioned, try yours in series first to determine if you even want to put the time in. Just thought I'd highlight KDB's and Danelectro's solutions as maybe what you want.

HOMEWORK FOR ANYONE: I wonder if KBD's circuit could accommodate individual tone controls for each pickup. Haven't looked into it as I just thought of it. Be cool if it did.

 

[HolmeBass]

Whatever floats your boat.

You yourself said better clarity, less mud. That seems synonymous with “destroys twangy sharp character of single coil pickups”.

Or are you saying you get twangy, sharp single coil sounds with a loss of clarity and more mud? Because that sounds to me like a self-contradictory statement.

My experience with series was exactly that: less clarity and more mud. I lost the twangy character of the single coils. (Those two statements seem to dovetail in meaning to me; you will have to explain how they don’t.) So I went back to parallel.

 

[Aladinsane1969]

Fender Jaguars have a series/parallel switch, and I quickly discovered that I much preferred the sound of the Jazz pickups in series, so much so that when I bought my Adam Clayton Signature Jazz Bass a few years after selling my Jag the first thing I did was have it wired in series with a push/pull tone pot to switch back and forth between series and parallel (though I never do, because it sounds PHENOMENAL in series!)

 

[spaz21387]

I did the series/paralell mod i preferred it in parallel. It just sounded too thin and super tinny.

 

[mcnach]

Humbuckers have 2 coils. The resistance is higher because two coils are wired in series. But each one of that coils is less winded than a J pickup. A J pickup is not a humbucker coil, its a single coil that is winded to run solo or in parallel

You sound convincing, except that in reality it works just fine. More than fine.
And if you look at the wide range of resistance values within any type of pickup you'll realise that it's far from being the final deciding factor.

Two Jazz coils in series sound just fine.

 

[mcnach]

it doesnt have the audio quality required to analyze the difference between two jazz pickups running in parallel vs wired in series...

I get it, you're the kind who likes to sound knowledgeable and won't admit it when they realise that they gave incorrect information.

I'll move along then.

 

[Jazz Ad]

Yeah we're not talking about a hifi micro phenomenon. The difference in tone and volume between series and parallel is very noticeable.

 

[sotua]

I did the series/paralell mod i preferred it in parallel. It just sounded too thin and super tinny.

Series sound thin and tinny? Sounds like phase issues - the result of putting it in series properly is a noticeable increase in output and mids, and loss of a bit of treble and bass. It doesn't sound as clear, but thin and tinny are the opposite of the effect I got on mine (see my previous post for sound clips)

 

[Gothic]

I loved mine in series. Had it hardwired, one 500k volume pot and no tone. Gives quite a nice boost, cancels out (most of) that dreadful (to me) mid scoop, for mine it was completely hum cancelling and it was just around 14.something k. Still, when I added a (guitar) humbucker in the far neck position, things got a little... well, weird. Don't know how exactly to describe it but, despite the fact that both were at similar "output levels", things didn't exactly match right, so I ended up wiring all three in parallel and use mostly the guitar humbucker full on with quite a bit of bridge dialed in for some high mid growl. I still feel there's something missing but the control cavity's too small to add extra bells and whistles.

 

[wmhill]

When you talk about Jazz wiring, I really like ditching the second volume and replacing it with a pan/balance pot. 500K pots also open up the tone a bit. Just food for thought while you are at tweaking the bass.

 

[NKBassman]

You yourself said better clarity, less mud. That seems synonymous with “destroys twangy sharp character of single coil pickups”.

Or are you saying you get twangy, sharp single coil sounds with a loss of clarity and more mud? Because that sounds to me like a self-contradictory statement.

My experience with series was exactly that: less clarity and more mud. I lost the twangy character of the single coils. (Those two statements seem to dovetail in meaning to me; you will have to explain how they don’t.) So I went back to parallel.

Ah I think I misunderstood your “destroys single coil twang” comment to be pro-series, but now I think you meant that in a pro-parallel sense.

My comment was supposed to mean:
Series and Parallel are both good, usable sounds. They each have their place. One is not inherently better than the other, they’re just different. Liking one more than the other comes down to the individual user and the musical context you’re using it in.

 

[Ric5]

a long time ago I had a jazz bass wired with 500k ohm pots … I thought they were 250k ohm and I was wondering why it was too bright … so I wired it in series with 1 volume and 1 tone and that fattened it up a lot … it sounded more like a p-bass … but brighter because of the pots

 

[MoeTown1986]

I don't understand why more manufacture don't do this. Just make the pan pot push/pull series/parallel. How much could this add to the cost of production? And, this would add a whole nother tone to the bass.

I agree! It adds another dimension to the bass and would only cost the company maybe a couple bucks.

 

[MattZilla]

You can take where the - of one pickup is joined to the + of the other and tie that to the in of the second volume knob. It lets you bleed one coil to ground.