Need Help wiring Peavey Cirrus Active Pickups

[Kinetic Bass]

I have a set of Peavey Cirrus BXP active pick ups and stock pre-amp, the stock pickups came with Vol and Blend, and 3-band pre-amp for which I don’t care for it. Just want to wire the pick up only with 9V. Could not find any wiring diagrams on line

How do I wire the pick-ups as Vol, Vol, and Tone with stock J bass wiring harness, but with 9V battery clip wire.

One pick has black and red wire, black has a white wire inside it and shielding so I’m assuming it’s actually hot not ground.

Second pick up has red and white, red appears to be ground and white has a red wire inside it with shielding.

So first question is which one is bridge and which one is the neck pick up,

Then I have no idea, which one goes where and to the battery clip.

Lastly do I need a ¼” jack with 3 or 2 terminals for this set up, I have both types.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Could you post a picture of the pickups and especially the wires? It’s fairly simple but I’d like to make sure I’m understanding what you wrote.

 

[Kinetic Bass]

 

[Kinetic Bass]

Stupid me, I just relaized there is a letter N and B, so at least that problem is solved on which is which.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

On both pickups the red will go to the battery +. Whichever color is the center on the other wire is the hot. The braided shield is ground. Wire it just like a jazz bass for the volumes and tone however you probably want 25 or 50K ohm pots instead of the more common for passive pickups 250 or 500K ohms. Connect both red wires to the battery + or red battery wire. The “hot” for the signal after the volume and tone controls connects to the tip terminal of a TRS or stereo jack. The battery negative goes to the ring terminal and the ground goes to sleeve. I can’t see the rest of the battery connector wiring but it looks like they might be connected in series which means the red from one battery clip is connected to the black on the other clip and the remaining red and black get connected as I outlined above.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Hopefully this helps. You want the image on the right.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

You should end up with something like this except the 2 battery connectors being soldered together as I mentioned above. Once they’re soldered together just treat them as one connector in the diagram.

 

[Kinetic Bass]

I will try tomorrow, but why do you say I need 25k pots, it came stock with a blend and volume pot, the volume pot is 500K, the blend is 250k.

One thing I want to know, what if i did not have volume pots, but instead I had on/off switch per pickup, so I don't worry about color of 250k or 500k, can I find an on/off switch per pick up with least amount or resistance on it, or is 25k already very minimal, I don't really care about blending, it's a simple setup, both on or just one pick up on full volume.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I will try tomorrow, but why do you say I need 25k pots, it came stock with a blend and volume pot, the volume pot is 500K, the blend is 250k.

One thing I want to know, what if i did not have volume pots, but instead I had on/off switch per pickup, so I don't worry about color of 250k or 500k, can I find an on/off switch per pick up with least amount or resistance on it, or is 25k already very minimal, I don't really care about blending, it's a simple setup, both on or just one pick up on full volume.

Ok. I was going by EMG active pickups which typically use lower value potentiometers. If that’s what it came with stock and it looks like the pickups went into volume controls before the preamp then go with 500Kohm. Yes you can use switches if you prefer. There’s a number of diagrams for different options out there. You can use whichever you like just add in the battery wiring.

 

[Kinetic Bass]

Ok, wired it, got rid of tone pot altogether so it's wired as just Vol (250k), Vol (250k), Jack...

These are very hot, at least twice if not three times louder then single coil JJ or P single coils, they distort too when I don't play very lgiht. I mean very sentive have to play very light and still easy to overdrive. Is this because I'm not using the pre-amp + 3-band that came with it that takes some of distortion or not using 500k pot? How do I measure these with mutimeter on how hot are?

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Ok, wired it, got rid of tone pot altogether so it's wired as just Vol (250k), Vol (250k), Jack...

These are very hot, at least twice if not three times louder then single coil JJ or P single coils, they distort too when I don't play very lgiht. I mean very sentive have to play very light and still easy to overdrive. Is this because I'm not using the pre-amp + 3-band that came with it that takes some of distortion or not using 500k pot? How do I measure these with mutimeter on how hot are?

You could try disconnecting a wire and measuring resistance across hot and ground but with a built in preamp that probably won’t give you any meaningful numbers. I don’t know the topography of the original Peavey eq and preamp, it may have had a padded input or some other electronic trickery to drop the level a little. The easiest thing to try would be to lower the pickups. Maybe start about as far down into the body as they will go and raise them until you start getting too much distortion then lower them again a little. Try the padded or active input on the amp or just turn the amp gain down.

 

[PeaveyPlayer]

Ok, wired it, got rid of tone pot altogether so it's wired as just Vol (250k), Vol (250k), Jack...

These are very hot, at least twice if not three times louder then single coil JJ or P single coils, they distort too when I don't play very lgiht. I mean very sentive have to play very light and still easy to overdrive. Is this because I'm not using the pre-amp + 3-band that came with it that takes some of distortion or not using 500k pot? How do I measure these with mutimeter on how hot are?

You don’t use 250K on actives…
The peaveys need 25 or 50K

Used them on my cirrus when I used an Aguilar preamp
And on my old GV with bartolini
And b quad with Aguilar

 

[PeaveyPlayer]

As definitely wire them at 18V

 

[Kinetic Bass]

You don’t use 250K on actives…
The peaveys need 25 or 50K

Used them on my cirrus when I used an Aguilar preamp
And on my old GV with bartolini
And b quad with Aguilar

The stock wiring came off from stock BXP with 500k on Volume and 250k on Blend, how is that it needs 25k/50k, unless it needs the stock pre-amp and the second 9V or it won't work with 500k on volume

 

[PeaveyPlayer]

The stock wiring came off from stock BXP with 500k on Volume and 250k on Blend, how is that it needs 25k/50k, unless it needs the stock pre-amp and the second 9V or it won't work with 500k on volume

That’s odd it can from a BXP cause the BXP millenium AC and BXP cirrus specifically have active Vfls

If not the volume control works like an on and off switch
blend not sure

But if your wiring it like a passive tone circuit
Like EMGS which ARE active or VFls

Than you use 25K because it’s low imepdance
Not high impedance like a passive pickup because the pickup inside has a buffer/ preamp you are powering with a battery

This is what you wan

Peavey RSB 94' wiring diagram

Hi there I've got an used RSB bass and I love it, serial 06513923, 2 active pickups, 1 vol, 1 bal, 1 tone, but the tone pot doesn't work. I supose the previous owner modified the factory wiring, and I can't find an appropiate diagram in order to restore the original wiring. So, what can I do to f...

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[Kinetic Bass]

I don't want any of that with complex switches, I have no room in my cavity for extra battery or the pre-amp. I could try to wire both into the jack without any pots at all, just to see what it does. EMG has nothing to do with VFL, since we don't know how much winding is on EMG vs VFL and what type of chip both companies use inside the pickup. That's why i asked how can i measure them, do they need to be connected to the battery to measure how how hot they are or not. In genral is 25k/50k the gold standard on a any active pick up or it's all differnt based on winding and the chip they use inside it.

If anyone has stock BXP then it would be easy to get a picture of wiring and the pot values

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I don’t usually like tagging someone unbidden but @kodiakblair seems to know a thing or two about Peaveys and might have some insight.

 

[kodiakblair]

I don’t usually like tagging someone unbidden

Not a problem this end Matt.

Pickup battery feeds are the red wires marked with the arrows. Would check the VFLs in the workshop to see if those also have the battery feed separate from the coil/ground wires, unfortunately I'm away from home so can't check. Yellow circle is the battery box wires.

Vol pot is a B500k, Blend is 250k. All three Tone pots are B50k, as expected with an active EQ.

Some place I have a note of the RSB wiring, will have a hunt for that.

 

[PeaveyPlayer]

I don't want any of that with complex switches, I have no room in my cavity for extra battery or the pre-amp. I could try to wire both into the jack without any pots at all, just to see what it does. EMG has nothing to do with VFL, since we don't know how much winding is on EMG vs VFL and what type of chip both companies use inside the pickup. That's why i asked how can i measure them, do they need to be connected to the battery to measure how how hot they are or not. In genral is 25k/50k the gold standard on a any active pick up or it's all differnt based on winding and the chip they use inside it.

If anyone has stock BXP then it would be easy to get a picture of wiring and the pot values

I don't want any of that with complex switches, I have no room in my cavity for extra battery or the pre-amp. I could try to wire both into the jack without any pots at all, just to see what it does. EMG has nothing to do with VFL, since we don't know how much winding is on EMG vs VFL and what type of chip both companies use inside the pickup. That's why i asked how can i measure them, do they need to be connected to the battery to measure how how hot they are or not. In genral is 25k/50k the gold standard on a any active pick up or it's all differnt based on winding and the chip they use inside it.

If anyone has stock BXP then it would be easy to get a picture of wiring and the pot values

Emg is an analogy because they are active and Seymour which also want to use 25K or 50K pots
Yes 25K and50& is pretty common that’s why I showed you that RSB bass wiring

It uses two active pickups with a passive tone circuit

Which is what happens when you buy emgs they give you a 25k vol and tone

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Not a problem this end Matt.

Pickup battery feeds are the red wires marked with the arrows. Would check the VFLs in the workshop to see if those also have the battery feed separate from the coil/ground wires, unfortunately I'm away from home so can't check. Yellow circle is the battery box wires.

Vol pot is a B500k, Blend is 250k. All three Tone pots are B50k, as expected with an active EQ.

Some place I have a note of the RSB wiring, will have a hunt for that.

View attachment 7475561

Any thoughts on the volume? It sounds like this is a lot louder and is distorting quite a bit. Are those pickups that much hotter? And thanks!