Peavey T-40 pickups and wiring - cut red wire?

[filler83]

Hi,

Have A Peavey T-40. I have lots of sentimentality playing it as I’ve had it for many years. I like the warm vintage sound but I find I have trying to coax more treble and highs out of it.

On a peavey forums site, Chip Todd said that “I am also a proponent of clipping the red center-tap wire at the tone pot, to allow higher overtones to flavor the sound. The tone system we used is embarrassing to me, now.”

Does this mean if the red wire is clipped that it will sound brighter?

thanks

 

[wild4oldcars]

Hi,

Have A Peavey T-40. I have lots of sentimentality playing it as I’ve had it for many years. I like the warm vintage sound but I find I have trying to coax more treble and highs out of it.

On a peavey forums site, Chip Todd said that “I am also a proponent of clipping the red center-tap wire at the tone pot, to allow higher overtones to flavor the sound. The tone system we used is embarrassing to me, now.”

Does this mean if the red wire is clipped that it will sound brighter?

thanks

The red wire was used to short one of the pickup coils to go to single mode, and even when you're in full humbucker mode, that red wire being connected to the circuit is adding load to the signal. Clipping it would put you in humbucker mode indefinitely, but you would have less load on the signal, so your highs will be a little more present.

 

[filler83]

Thank you!!!

 

[wild4oldcars]

If you really wanted to be insane, i guess you could run the red wire to a switch to have it function normally, or in the "clipped" fashion... maybe individual push pulls-on the volumes?

 

[filler83]

Haha not that insane. I was thinking of just de-soldering the red wire and taping end - in case I want to put it back later

 

[bigtone23]

I have repurposed the phase switch as a master coil split. This way you still get single and humbucker tones, but with the benefit of full use of the tone control. This opens up the humbucker tonality, and gives way more control to the single tone.
However, I have found that the Toaster style pickup is darker than the blade style... But I have brightened them up with 500K pots.

 

[walterw]

I have repurposed the phase switch as a master coil split. This way you still get single and humbucker tones, but with the benefit of full use of the tone control. This opens up the humbucker tonality, and gives way more control to the single tone.

yep, me too!

the spin-a-split is annoying because you can't have the full humbucker at full brightness or the single coils sound with the tone rolled back. on top of that, the mini-toggle with the "out of phase" sound is mostly useless for bass.

removing the coil-split wires from the tone pots and putting them on what used to be the phase switch instead makes things much more logical and useful.

the real trick is to set up the split switch to send one pickup's splitting wire to ground and the other pickup's splitting wire to hot, that way the two coils left on will hum-cancel with each other like on a jazz bass

 

[bigtone23]

yep, me too!

the spin-a-split is annoying because you can't have the full humbucker at full brightness or the single coils sound with the tone rolled back. on top of that, the mini-toggle with the "out of phase" sound is mostly useless for bass.

removing the coil-split wires from the tone pots and putting them on what used to be the phase switch instead makes things much more logical and useful.

the real trick is to set up the split switch to send one pickup's splitting wire to ground and the other pickup's splitting wire to hot, that way the two coils left on will hum-cancel with each other like on a jazz bass

Fully agree. Out of phase on bass never made sense to me.

I have rotated Toasters/Blades 180 degrees to put the split-active coil in a different location with great results.

Being able to split to certain coils for hum cancelling would be a cool trick on those Toaster & Blade pickups. They all seem to split to the bridge side coil. That is the only cool thing about the phase switch on the bridge pickup-it allows you to choose which coil is active in split mode, but then the phasing thing kicks in when combining the pickups.

How would you go about splitting to hot? Got me thinking... Initial thought is using a DPDT switch acting like a mini ABY to select what outputs downstream--the usual hot wire (white) or the series wire (red). This only uses half the switch, then the other half can do the other pickup's split wire to ground. This makes sense on paper, gonna have to try this out when I get a minute to open the bass back up.
Hmm...
I have a Foundation routed for Toasters, VVT with DPDT split switch. Rotated the bridge pickup 180 so the inside coils are active in split mode (which gives a quasi passive Stingray tonality being that those pickups are in parallel and right in the Stingray sweet spot). Figuring out how to split to hot would be ideal on this bass. I could then rotate the bridge pickup back and get hum cancelling. If the aforementioned ABY idea works, this bass just got cooler and more quiet.

 

[walterw]

How would you go about splitting to hot? Got me thinking... Initial thought is using a DPDT switch acting like a mini ABY to select what outputs downstream--the usual hot wire (white) or the series wire (red). This only uses half the switch, then the other half can do the other pickup's split wire to ground. This makes sense on paper, gonna have to try this out when I get a minute to open the bass back up.
Hmm...

hmm indeed, i think that would work! i've done just that on like teles with the three way blade switch, choose between a pickup's hot and its splitting wire to go downstream, for automatic coil splitting in the middle with no ground connections on the switch.

what i've done here is leave the pickup hot on the volume pot, wire the splitting wire to the mini-toggle and instead of sending it to ground i send it to that pickup's hot where it connects to the pot .

your way might involve less extra wire runs, always a good thing

 

[bigtone23]

hmm indeed, i think that would work! i've done just that on like teles with the three way blade switch, choose between a pickup's hot and its splitting wire to go downstream, for automatic coil splitting in the middle with no ground connections on the switch.

what i've done here is leave the pickup hot on the volume pot, wire the splitting wire to the mini-toggle and instead of sending it to ground i send it to that pickup's hot where it connects to the pot .

your way might involve less extra wire runs, always a good thing

Hey!
I opened up the bass and tried the ABY wiring for that pickup and it worked perfectly! Rotated the pickup back 180 degrees and now I get inside coils, hum cancelling in split mode!
Thank you for the inspiring wiring nudge, you rock!

 

[bigtone23]

Here's the wiring I did on the switch to get hum cancelling inside coils.
To adapt for outside coils, just flip the wiring for the bridge and neck pickups.

 

[Evanforbass]

Here's the wiring I did on the switch to get hum cancelling inside coils.
To adapt for outside coils, just flip the wiring for the bridge and neck pickups.
View attachment 4249360

I just picked up some T40 toasters to put in a custom 34” 4 string Bass VI! thinking of placing them in more of a Rick location. I have the 4 bass vi switches that I can utilize. I was thinking about having each pickup have its own coil split. I was thinking with humbuckers it could be interesting to wire each pickup to a switch for series/parallel, but I don’t know if that’s possible with these. A stacked vol/tone for each pickup. Any thoughts or suggestions??

 

[bigtone23]

I just picked up some T40 toasters to put in a custom 34” 4 string Bass VI! thinking of placing them in more of a Rick location. I have the 4 bass vi switches that I can utilize. I was thinking about having each pickup have its own coil split. I was thinking with humbuckers it could be interesting to wire each pickup to a switch for series/parallel, but I don’t know if that’s possible with these. A stacked vol/tone for each pickup. Any thoughts or suggestions??

The way to get series/parallel with Toasters is to take the pickup apart and add the extra wire. Too risky for me!
I would certainly put the neck pickup with the neck side coil centered right at the '24th fret' and the bridge pickup with the bridge side coil centered at the '36th fret' and do the opposite wiring of my above diagram. This way the pickups split to the outside coils-in the Ric spots-and hum cancel.

 

[Evanforbass]

The way to get series/parallel with Toasters is to take the pickup apart and add the extra wire. Too risky for me!
I would certainly put the neck pickup with the neck side coil centered right at the '24th fret' and the bridge pickup with the bridge side coil centered at the '36th fret' and do the opposite wiring of my above diagram. This way the pickups split to the outside coils-in the Ric spots-and hum cancel.

thanks! Sounds like a good plan. from my research it looked like the Ric bridge is centerline 30" from the nut (to 34" scale).. that sound about right?

 

[Evanforbass]

I found this diagram of pickup locations on another thread

 

[bigtone23]

thanks! Sounds like a good plan. from my research it looked like the Ric bridge is centerline 30" from the nut (to 34" scale).. that sound about right?

Ric 4001/4003 are a 33.25" scale. Without going into scale conversions, the easy way to find pickup locations to emulate them is easy--they put their pickups at the 24th and 36th 'fret' harmonics.

 

[Evanforbass]

Ric 4001/4003 are a 33.25" scale. Without going into scale conversions, the easy way to find pickup locations to emulate them is easy--they put their pickups at the 24th and 36th 'fret' harmonics.

Thanks!
I do want to make sure I have some top end bite. What do you think, 500k pots, 1meg?

 

[bigtone23]

Thanks!
I do want to make sure I have some top end bite. What do you think, 500k pots, 1meg?

Do you have Toasters, not the Blade version of the pickups? The Blades are brighter and hotter than the Toasters. Just removing the spin-a-split from T40 wiring schemes will make the humbucking mode a touch brighter. I would try 500K pots for volume and tone to keep the bite. Better yet, get a no load tone control to really let the pickups breathe.

My bass in post #8 above has Toasters and 250K pots all around. It's not a bright bass, but not dull either-it blends nicely with my other basses when switching on the fly. Single coil mode definitely has more bite. That was my goal with this bass-the rounder tonality. I have other basses with Super Ferrites and they have a touch more clarity.

Those Toasters are not quite as bright as my Ibanez bass with a Blade in the P sweet spot--also with a 250K volume and 250K Q Filter pot, but 500K tone. Both basses have treble bleed circuits: just a .002uF cap.

I also have this Patriot I modded with the addition of a neck Super Ferrite and 3 way pickup switch. The neck pickup is exactly centered on the '24th fret' and the bridge pickup (stock location) is just 1/4" towards the neck from the '36th fret.' It was that discovery of the pickup location that inspired me to make a Ric sounding bass. The Super Ferrites nail it, and I'm sure the split coil mode of Toasters or Blades will also sound great in the Ric spots. Having lower output single coils in those Ric spots is key to the tonality.

 

[Evanforbass]

Do you have Toasters, not the Blade version of the pickups? The Blades are brighter and hotter than the Toasters. Just removing the spin-a-split from T40 wiring schemes will make the humbucking mode a touch brighter. I would try 500K pots for volume and tone to keep the bite. Better yet, get a no load tone control to really let the pickups breathe.

My bass in post #8 above has Toasters and 250K pots all around. It's not a bright bass, but not dull either-it blends nicely with my other basses when switching on the fly. Single coil mode definitely has more bite. That was my goal with this bass-the rounder tonality. I have other basses with Super Ferrites and they have a touch more clarity.

Those Toasters are not quite as bright as my Ibanez bass with a Blade in the P sweet spot--also with a 250K volume and 250K Q Filter pot, but 500K tone. Both basses have treble bleed circuits: just a .002uF cap.
View attachment 4275972
I also have this Patriot I modded with the addition of a neck Super Ferrite and 3 way pickup switch. The neck pickup is exactly centered on the '24th fret' and the bridge pickup (stock location) is just 1/4" towards the neck from the '36th fret.' It was that discovery of the pickup location that inspired me to make a Ric sounding bass. The Super Ferrites nail it, and I'm sure the split coil mode of Toasters or Blades will also sound great in the Ric spots. Having lower output single coils in those Ric spots is key to the tonality.
View attachment 4275973

Cool basses man! Thanks for the info. Ya I got the toasters. I’ll look for some 500k stacked pots. What’s a no-load tone control?

 

[bigtone23]

Cool basses man! Thanks for the info. Ya I got the toasters. I’ll look for some 500k stacked pots. What’s a no-load tone control?

No load pots are removed from the circuit when on '10.' No resistance=extra highs not bled to ground. Even on 10, a standard tone control still loads the circuit a little.