Permanent series jazz wiring

[sunbeast]

ah yes, that one goofy MS Paint drawing of mine seems to have gotten some miles zooming around the internet

more recently, i've been thinking that the drawback to the idea is that turning one pickup down creates a big volume and low end loss due to losing the series "boost".

i haven't worked it out yet, but i think a better idea for series J wiring is one volume and two tones!

unlike with parallel, in series you can turn down a tone pot on one pickup and have it not affect the other pickup; this creates a neat effect where dumping the tone on one pickup means you hear the highs from the other pickup, while the lows from both of them are still there, in series, creating that fat boost. single coil highs and humbucker lows, it sounds like one pickup but with a big low end boost.

turning down both tones would actually work like an overall tone rolloff.

i think this wiring would be more useful to get various tones without losing the series bass boost.

This works if you only turn down the tone pot for the grounded coil, as the other tone control would always work as a Master Tone (since you are essentially wiring both pickups into one big humbucker, a tone control at the end will affect the whole signal). This is the same concept used in the wiring of the older versions of G&L L1000s and L2000s in the so-called "single coil with bass boost" mode, though on those basses it was a fixed .1uf capacitor to ground in between two series wired coils. The downside of this is that if you use single coil pickups (vs split-coil), you will lose some of the hum-cancelling effect when you unbalance the coils in this manner.
I have wired a couple Telecaster guitars and a Jazz bass this way (though with fixed capacitors on switches), and it makes a very useful aggressive hot humbucker-ish tone. I recommend wiring the neck pickup through the bridge pickup, so the first tone control rolls the highs out from the neck pickup and retains the clarity of the bridge pickup (though I never tried the other way around).

 

[walterw]

This works if you only turn down the tone pot for the grounded coil, as the other tone control would always work as a Master Tone (since you are essentially wiring both pickups into one big humbucker, a tone control at the end will affect the whole signal).

hmm, there's gotta be a different way; danelectro did it 40 years ago!

their basses were wired series, with individual volume and tone for each pickup; turning down one tone left you the other pickup full-on but with the series boost in the low end, and it worked for either pickup.

 

[sunbeast]

hmm, there's gotta be a different way; danelectro did it 40 years ago!

their basses were wired series, with individual volume and tone for each pickup; turning down one tone left you the other pickup full-on but with the series boost in the low end, and it worked for either pickup.

The way Danelectros are wired, when the pickup-selector is in the middle position (both pickups selected in series) the capacitor from the neck pickup tone control becomes an adjustable shunt across the neck pickup coil, so the highs from the bridge pickup are shunted across it as you turn down the Neck tone. I remember having to stare at the pickup cavity of my old Danelectro U2 for awhile to make heads or tails of it. This would be a cool way to wire up a Jazz bass, but you'd definitely need to modify it from the standard 2 Volume, 2 Tone wiring scheme.

 

[honeyiscool]

You can also wire a simple passive bass cut instead of a passive treble cut. But it doesn't have to be an "instead of," you can have both treble cut and bass cut on the same control plate. If you're going to have a Master Volume, I think that's the best use of the third knob.

Described here: Invalid Link Removed

I usually wire this anticlockwise with a 500k pot and a .0033 uF cap. It's actually quite useful for reducing mud. To wire this along with a standard tone knob, you would attach the tone pot to the pickup output like normal, and then hook up the output from the volume knob to the "tight control" then out to the jack.

 

[walterw]

You can also wire a simple passive bass cut instead of a passive treble cut.

yeah, there's that too, a passive bass roll-off. i see this as more useful on guitars than on basses, but with an overly hot series-wired bass it might be good for a "rumble tamer".

not sure why you'd need to jump across the third lug like that though, usually it's just two lugs, one in and one out, with the little cap across them.

i'd go with 1M audio for that pot; i just put one of these in a les paul not two days ago, and i found that using the stock 500k audio tone pot worked, but at "0" there was still a good amount of unfiltered signal getting through (remove the cap and that pot would turn the signal down, but not off). not having a 1M long shaft handy, i cut the trace in the pot to make it a no-load, which worked fine except i could hear the abrupt transition between "499k" and "open" right when it hit "0" on the knob. i think the 1M audio would have the right sweep and sufficiently block the unfiltered signal.

i know! master volume, two tones, and bass cut Invalid Link Removed the tones could be stacked, making it easier to grab them both at the same time to serve as an actual tone knob instead of a faux pickup selector.

 

[GregT]

This is what I have so far:

And:

I am assuming this is for series when the knob is up and I want to do it where it is in series when the knob is pushed in. Tons of info available; none of it is the same. I will break out the soldering iron after I am sure.

 

[GregT]

And this:

 

[JustForSport]

Those 2 diagrams look the same for the switch wiring. Just swap the connections on the switch end-for-end.

 

[walterw]

this setup disables one volume in series mode.

 

[Frenchy-Lefty]

I did it on my Jazz Bass 25yrs ago, as many have tried this mod before the Fender "S1" switch but found the sound to be too muddy. Even Fender gave up on the S1 switch. FYI.

 

[walterw]

I did it on my Jazz Bass 25yrs ago...but found the sound to be too muddy.

yeah, i would want to use super-underwound J pickups for this, like 4k-5k each, so the series result wouldn't be so boomy.

(of course those pickups would be disappointing in normal parallel.)

 

[GregT]

I guess I really should wire a hot and ground together from each pickup first and make sure I like it. I am pretty sure I am going to.

 

[line6man]

not sure why you'd need to jump across the third lug like that though, usually it's just two lugs, one in and one out, with the little cap across them.

That is done to make the pots quieter. It's a nice touch, but it isn't strictly necessary, and hence, you don't see it too often.

 

[walterw]

That is done to make the pots quieter. It's a nice touch, but it isn't strictly necessary, and hence, you don't see it too often.

hmm; why would it make the pots quieter?

 

[GregT]

I just thought of something. I am going to go with one tone and one volume and series wiring. Since (I think) a potentiometer is just a variable resistor, couldn't I put a push pull pot and just put a resistor on the parallel side for the bridge pickup only? My reasoning is this: When a Jazz Bass is in parallel, I like the bridge pickup backed off a little. Wouldn't a resistor do the same thing as the second volume pot in the parallel wiring. That would be assuming I measured the resistance of the pot at a certain point and matched the resistor to that value. Now I'd have one volume and one tone, with parallel and series wiring with just the pull of the knob. I know this is a different idea, but I don't mess with the second volume once I get it where I like it when it is wired in the standard way.

If this won't work, I am simply wiring my Jazz in series with one volume and one tone. I like series that much.

 

[walterw]

Wouldn't a resistor do the same thing as the second volume pot in the parallel wiring. That would be assuming I measured the resistance of the pot at a certain point and matched the resistor to that value.

the problem with that is the magic setting that gives you "one pickup just nudged by the other one" tends to change depending on what rig you use, i guess because of differing impedance loads of what you plug into first. with a set resistor you might get the perfect blend in one setting and a plain "two pickups" sound in another.

 

[walterw]

anyway, here it is, gang!

series, master volume and individual tones, with each tone only affecting its own pickup.

(@sunbeast, @honeyiscool, @line6man please check my work )

for old time's sake i even used the same colors and the same stupid microsoft paint program from my first series diagram to do it (wow, what a steaming turd of an art app that is!)

i tested this on a goofy cort steinberger copy with a PJ setup and terrible pickups, so i haven't really heard it at its best with a proper jazz bass but i know the principle works.

i could tell that using .05μF caps definitely changed the sound when i turned one down but it still had kind of a "two pickups" tone; going to .1μF made dumping a tone sound much more like the other pickup by itself, but it still kept the series boost on the very low end.

the trade off of the .1 caps is that if you want to actually roll the tone down on the entire signal by dropping both tone knobs, it gets really dark.

(edit: wait, maybe not! i wasn't looking at it right, but when both tones are turned down, that puts the two caps in series too! that means the capacitance halves, so the two .1 caps become an .05, which is not so bad.)

 

[line6man]

hmm; why would it make the pots quieter?

If I recall, the decreased resistance on the other end of the resistive track comes into play in some applications, for preventing noise when the wiper sweeps along. That kind of wiring typically comes up when people follow convention, however, because when you are dealing with circuits that should not be subjected to infinite resistances, it provides a failsafe if the wiper intermittently breaks continuity with the resistive track.

 

[line6man]

anyway, here it is, gang!

series, master volume and individual tones, with each tone only affecting its own pickup.

(@sunbeast, @honeyiscool, @line6man please check my work )

for old time's sake i even used the same colors and the same stupid microsoft paint program from my first series diagram to do it (wow, what a steaming turd of an art app that is!)

i tested this on a goofy cort steinberger copy with a PJ setup and terrible pickups, so i haven't really heard it at its best with a proper jazz bass but i know the principle works.

i could tell that using .05μF caps definitely changed the sound when i turned one down but it still had kind of a "two pickups" tone; going to .1μF made dumping a tone sound much more like the other pickup by itself, but it still kept the series boost on the very low end.

the trade off of the .1 caps is that if you want to actually roll the tone down on the entire signal by dropping both tone knobs, it gets really dark.

Looks good. I still do all of my diagrams in MS Paint. It sucks, but I'm no artist, and I don't have any more sophisticated software to do what I want, so I work with it. Lol.

 

[walterw]

I still do all of my diagrams in MS Paint.

wait, your diagrams are things of beauty! how do you do it in paint? how do you get straight, regular lines and boxes, all consistent, regular sizes and spacings?