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MM Pickup Wiring help

TravTrav

TravTrav

Jun 6, 2010
362
9
WA
#1
I just want to gut out my bass, and put in an ON/OFF switch. All I need to know which is the signal and ground. Ground seems pretty easy, it's that single wire that goes to the bridge. But the hot....I dunno. My bass has a a vol/tone setup, and a single MM-style pup. The wire coming from the pup (all these wires are insulated in a single black wrap) has a red and white wire taped together, a green wire, a black wire, and an uninsulated wire. ***? Why so many wires? What's what?

Thanks for any help!
 
#2
Going off of this:
FmTftfTl.jpg


If I were to wire straight to the output jack, I would just wire red/black to the tip, and green/white/bare to ground. And sleeve would also go to ground. Sound right?
 
#3
TravTrav said:
Why so many wires?
Click to expand...
Your pickup has two coils, and thus, four conductors. There is also the shield ground on the bare wire, so that makes five.

Traditional wiring for MM pickups puts the coils in parallel, as your diagram shows. That means two hots and two grounds, plus the shield to ground. You did not specify the brand of the pickup, however, so it is unclear whether or not the color code in the diagram is correct.
 
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#4
It's a Fernandes bass that they do not make anymore. In my bass the white and red are taped together.

If I were to wire straight to the output, I'm thinking I should ground the black/bare wires, and then take the green wire to the tip.
 
#7
TravTrav said:
You mean with vol and tone? I just want to turn my bass on and off. I have no use for volume or tone.
Click to expand...

The pickup is already wired the way it should be. You just need to remove the controls.

And btw, you might want to add a fixed resistor to decrease the input impedance on the pickup, if your only reason for removing the controls is that you don't use them. Without a load from the volume pot, the bass will get brighter and hotter. Some people like it, and some don't.
 
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#8
That's the thing, though, I opened it up and the red and white wire were taped together.

Didn't know about the impedance, thanks for the tip. I'll give it a shot without a resistor just to see what it's like.
 
#12
Hmm, I tried wiring it in parallel just for kicks and I can't get any sound.

Here's a picture of what I did.
OX5z4nsl.jpg

The pink wire is ground from the bridge, the dark gray one is the bare wire.

Then the orange wires go to the gray box. The gray box is a SPDT switch. And the lil orange nub on that box is just a pole connected to nothing.

Any ideas as to why I might be getting no sound?
 
#14
TravTrav said:
Hmm, I tried wiring it in parallel just for kicks and I can't get any sound.

Here's a picture of what I did.
OX5z4nsl.jpg

The pink wire is ground from the bridge, the dark gray one is the bare wire.

Then the orange wires go to the gray box. The gray box is a SPDT switch. And the lil orange nub on that box is just a pole connected to nothing.

Any ideas as to why I might be getting no sound?
Click to expand...

You're grounding the output.

The north coil's positive-phase lead and the normally open terminal of the switch go to the tip terminal of the jack. Then, the south coil's negative-phase lead, the shield ground, the bridge ground, and the switch's common terminal go to the sleeve terminal of the jack. For parallel wiring, the positive-phase lead of the south coil goes to the tip terminal of the jack, and the negative-phase lead of the north coil goes to the sleeve terminal of the jack. For series wiring, the positive-phase lead of the south coil goes to the negative-phase lead of the north coil.
 
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#15
I'd personally recommend series for this application. It will be hotter and bassier which might sound better if there's no onboard preamp to fatten the MM

Green is hot(+)
Tie red&white together
Black and Bare is ground(-)

Use the switch to break the hot(+)

Black and Green are interchangeable. It just reverses the phase. They will sound a little different. It just runs it all the other direction.
 
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#17
James Simonson said:
I'd personally recommend series for this application. It will be hotter and bassier which might sound better if there's no onboard preamp to fatten the MM

Green is hot(+)
Tie red&white together
Black and Bare is ground(-)

Use the switch to break the hot(+)

Black and Green are interchangeable. It just reverses the phase. They will sound a little different. It just runs it all the other direction.
Click to expand...


....And we're in business.:hyper:

Thanks everybody!
 
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