NBD: The Thin White Duke...

[mikewalker]

Well, I found this 1984 Kramer "The Duke" and have just restrung it with light gauge strings. The old strings it came with were rather 'old'...

I have to say it's a remarkably well-preserved instrument Frets are perfect, and no rattle even with very low action. I got lucky AGAIN.

I'm not sure what's up with the wiring, though. The three position switch sounds like it works like this:

• coils in series (fat and LOUD, humbucking)
• mystery single coil with lots of hum?
• coils in parallel (Brighter, not as loud, humbucking)

I am planning on completely shielding the cavity (like I do with every new bass) but was a little boggled when I saw all the wires crammed into that tiny control cavity. Did they have a group of ELVES wiring these things?

I'm leaning towards replacing the tone control with a ToneStyler (and changing out the volume to a concentric pot - with the 'ring" as tonestyler depth control).

And replacing the coil switching with something different... maybe a 4P3T if I can find one small enough? Or some tiny multi-pole rotary? Since this is a quad-coil pup, it would be cool if I could find three different (and useful!) fully-humbucking variations. And I haven't ruled out replacing the existing pup with something built out of spare humbucking-J pups (which I have a huge stock of at the moment...)

If anyone has any tips about quad-coil wiring, I am all ears!

 

[sailri]

Looks like a nice score. I wasn’t sure where the Bowie reference would lead and I’m glad I saw this.

By the way a silver metal flake would make this very “Starman”.

 

[JRA]

interesting ax --- and it looks pretty sweet as presented! good luck with your re-wiring/pickup plans. congratulations on your new instrument!

 

[kesslari]

I had one back in the 80's. It was a cool little bass. Enjoy!

 

[spiritbass]

That is the smallest, most cramped control cavity I've ever seen. Cool bass!

 

[topper]

MikeWalker, any chance you recorded the three pickup settings prior to modding the bass? Did the additional shielding make any difference?

I've got two of those Kramer/Schaller quad coil pickups. I want to put them both in a project bass and am dying to know how the stock wiring setup sounded.

You said:

• coils in series (fat and LOUD, humbucking)
• mystery single coil with lots of hum?
• coils in parallel (Brighter, not as loud, humbucking)

That would match with the wiring diagrams on VintageKramer.com

I wasn't sure about that middle setting. I couldn't tell if it was meant to work like a humbucking split P or like a single coil. As a single coil, it would have a lot of hum and I wouldn't think it would be super usable. That's what you're hearing?

Since I've got two, I'm hoping to set them up so when both pups are in the middle setting, they're humbucking together (like a jazz bass).

I'd love to hear how the three stock Duke settings sound.

 

[mikewalker]

I made some noodling clips when I first got the Duke, but I avoided the middle position due to the annoying hum. So only in series/parallel. The shielding did help a fair bit. I don't know if mine had a wiring error or if that middle position was just the 'single-coil' option it came with stock. Series/parallel is definitely a winner with that pup, it was like having two basses in one

I ended up pulling the original pup out and making a quad-coil "double-J" out of a couple of bartolini humbucking Js. Mostly for cosmetic reasons, to be honest I just have a slight fetish for Bartolini covers
The end result is hi-fi and very likeable but not quite as loud and raucous as the stock pickup. Those are some hot pickups!! (Sold the stock pickup here in the classifieds a while back...)

 

[mikewalker]

PS: dug up the old test clips for you (original pickup)... It's random fingerstyle noodling, straight into Line6 Pod X3 Pro recording interface set to clean tube preamp emulation. (EQ flat)

parallel mode: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

series mode: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[topper]

Awesome, thank you!