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Pickup mounting rant

JimmyM

JimmyM

Apr 11, 2005
127,255
125,172
Plymouth NC
Disclosures
Endorsing: Yamaha, Ampeg, Line 6, EMG
#1
Twice now I've wanted to swap pickups in my P Lyte, and twice now I've all but talked myself out of it because it's a PITA to install pickups. Why can't it be easy? Why does soldering have to be a part of the process? And why do the pickups need to be screwed in? They're doing wonderful things with velcro these days. Velcro can hold a 20 lb pedal to a piece of wood but it can't hold in a pickup mounting bracket that is all ready to pop in your bass? I see no reason to not modernize it with connectors and velcro. Am I nuts here?
 
#3
It's really not that hard to swap pickups. Soldering isn't rocket science. It just takes a little patients and practice. If you are using the existing pots you could cheat a bit by leaving a bit of the old pickup wires attached to the pots. Then just twist the new wires to the old ones and hit that with a small amount of solder. Cover them with electrical tape or small twist connectors.
 
#8
You really need to spend some time discovering the tone and sound char tweaks adjusting pups can give. If your also lucky enough to have pups with individually adjustable pole peices you got even more tone tweaking available. Fixed pups with no way to do easy adjusting (screw turning is easy) is bad design imo. Shouldnt take more then 5-6 minutes to do soldering on most bass electronics once you have the pots out of the body. Little bit of hassle but worth the time etc for better sound the player wants pups will give.
 
#13
JimmyM said:
Ya, EMG makes some stuff like that. I just wish everyone did. I guess I could deal with screwing in pickups, but soldering blows if you can't do it well.
Click to expand...

Actually, Boomie, screwing them in isn't so hot either! Usually people use long wood screws that strip out and make the whole operation a pain. This is why I'm slowly changing my basses over to threaded inserts to mount pickups. I really don't get why bass makers don't use threaded inserts for screws that get a lot of use (pickups, cavity covers etc.).

You need to check out the Chunger SX threads as there was a big discussion there about dealing with pickup quick changes. The bottom line (as someone mentioned here) are quick-connect wire pins. The cheap ones (like in your computer) are called "Molex pins" I have a kit Les Paul that came with those and they've been working just fine. And there are various brands in different sizes including ones that just crimp on. Best are the small diameter ones so they can be poked through the wire holes etc. If the connectors are too large you can't stuff them down the drill holes so what's the point?

You should note, however that connectors are NOT as reliable long-term as (properly) soldered joints! Of course if your solder joints blow then crimped-on connectors actually may be MORE reliable!
 
#15
bassbenj said:
Actually, Boomie, screwing them in isn't so hot either! Usually people use long wood screws that strip out and make the whole operation a pain. This is why I'm slowly changing my basses over to threaded inserts to mount pickups. I really don't get why bass makers don't use threaded inserts for screws that get a lot of use (pickups, cavity covers etc.).

You need to check out the Chunger SX threads as there was a big discussion there about dealing with pickup quick changes. The bottom line (as someone mentioned here) are quick-connect wire pins. The cheap ones (like in your computer) are called "Molex pins" I have a kit Les Paul that came with those and they've been working just fine. And there are various brands in different sizes including ones that just crimp on. Best are the small diameter ones so they can be poked through the wire holes etc. If the connectors are too large you can't stuff them down the drill holes so what's the point?

You should note, however that connectors are NOT as reliable long-term as (properly) soldered joints! Of course if your solder joints blow then crimped-on connectors actually may be MORE reliable!
Click to expand...
Why you, I oughta...

:hiding:

Ya, that's a concern about the wire holes. They're not real wide and I'd hate to mod them.
 
#16
*queue foggy memory machine*

I remember Gibson had a Les Paul guitar a decade or so ago that had the pickup sections routed completely through the body for the purpose of test driving all of their pickups. They loaded all of their various pickups on wood blocks that fit snug in the routes, and attached via 9V connector. I thought that would have been the smartest damn innovation ever. I even wrote Gibson a letter asking them if I could purchase one.

Denied. :(

Jimmy, you could always leave a few inches of lead coming off your pots, then crimp on your own male/female connectors. I've done it when I needed to swap something and didn't have access to a soldering iron.

BTW, Warwick uses machined inserts for attaching their pickups. I thought that was pretty neat.
 
#17
You have to consider that pickups are not intended to be swapped out. If you are going to do a bit of testing, do what I do and wire up a 1/4" jack with some short leads attached to alligator clips. If you want to test the pickup with the controls, install the clips to the pots (or use leads with clips on each end). Twist the leads to gather to help with hum.

They you can install the pickup and clip it to the leads and have a listen.

alligator_clips_test_bass1.jpg


I would not use that for a permeant install, but it's good for testing.

You can also go to RadioShack and get some of these:

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pRS1C-2265182w345.jpg


You can solder them right to your pots and stick the pickups in and tighten the screws.

Stew-Mac does the same thing for the output wires on their prewired pickguards:

Invalid Link Removed
 
#19
Seriously, after some practice it takes me about 20 minutes to swap pickups (soldered and screwed) and that includes taking off the strings and putting them back on. But then again, I build pedals and amps for fun, so soldering is really easy at this point. I don't like the connectors out there. Over time they can corrode, get dirty come loose. Screw on connectors (or crimps for that matter) will never stay completed solid, they will loosen. Soldering will not loosen. I have fixed a number of instruments that had crimp connectors or screw connectors that had come loose or gotten dirty and were causing intermittent problems. A few minutes of soldering and the problems were fixed.
-P
 

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