p bass basic repair info

[wideyes]

I'm trying to revamp the electronics in an old squier p bass, but have never done a project like this before. I was wondering if there are any good guides online that you could point me to. I want to replace the pickups, the pots and the input stage, pretty much everything electronic in the bass. This is as much for my own education as to restore the functionality of the bass. Can I buy, for example, a set of volume and tone pots that will come with all necessary wires and the capacitor? Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Rugaar]

Yes, there are wiring 'kits' available, for example, here's a variety from Link Removed Personally, I've just figured out what I need and order the parts individually. It's usually a bit cheaper and I can pick the specific parts I want.

The Seymour Duncan website has great wiring diagrams. They're very easy to follow and there are lots of wiring options available.

Assuming you can handle a soldering iron. You don't have to be an expert but you should have basic skills.

 

[wideyes]

Thank you! That's exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to put a bartolini 8s in there, and it sounds like 500k pots are the right choice too. If I do piece it together myself, how about the capacitor? What should I be looking for there? After all that, a badass II bridge and some flatwounds, it should come to life nicely, I believe

 

[Earwigger]

I recently did this same thing with my Fernendes P-bass.

Try www.has-sound.com for some great components. I put a Semour Duncan SPB-3 Quarter Pounder (65$ shipped from Ebay) in, and replaced the pots with 500k ones I got at Guitar Center for 3$ a piece, and the sound was DRAMATICALLY improved.

 

[J-wall]

I have no experience with Barts in a P so I am not sure what would work best with them electronically, but most passive P set-ups use 250K pots and a .047 cap. I got the kit from Bass Parts resource mentioned above for my Nordstrand NP4's and it worked great.

 

[wideyes]

Hmm, good to know. I was strongly considering the NP4 (nothing but rave reviews), but for some reason I'm more drawn to the bartolini. I have a bit of an aversion to the vintage craze at the moment, and am hoping the bartolini will have a bit more modern feel to it. I'm sure that I'll love whichever pickup I end up getting, but I'd hate to miss a perfectly good opportunity to obsess over these decisions when GAS strikes!

 

[TomChumpell]

To wideyes : Last week, I have put a new Bartolini 8S with new 500k cts pots and new .022mfd mallory cap on a Fender mim squier series p-bass. I have used the Bartolini wiring schematics provided with the pup. New jack input socket and wire too.

Previously, I have used the Fender standard p-bass schematics with new standard pots and new cap (250k cts pots and .047 sprague orange drop). Using the Fender standard p-bass wiring and the standard pots and cap, the sound was dead, I mean it sounded like a huge amount of bass and few low-mids frequencies, but nearly no high-mids or high frequencies. Very dark sound, not very musical.

So I swapped the 250k pots for 500k pots, wired everything following the Bartolini wiring that was in the pup box, with the .022 mallory cap. And it all worked perfectly well ! So, this is probably the best combination for the 8S when put on a p-bass.

Maybe a combination of 250k/500k pots would be a good idea too, but I lack the elementary ary skills and little time to experiment by now.

Hope my message is clear and will help, I'm not an english speaking person.

ps : at last, I found the best for this bass and the bartolini 8S is vol250k/tone500k with .022 cap.