I picked up a bass that came with Duncan quarter pounders. I pulled em and put em in something else. Here's the problem. The bass was fine with the pickups before I put the Duncan's in so I know there is no issues with the electronics. Ok, so, with just the J on, it's fine. With just the P on it's fine. If I have both on full, there is something strange with the J. The E and A strings sound fine BUT the D and G, and only those, sound super thin, as though I turned all the bass off. Again, ONLY with both pickups on. I wired white to the center lug and black to the pot case, like all of my basses. I did try flipping these 2 wires .the problem is gone but it now has this wierd sound, much thinner, ALMOST like there is a hint of...wah! ***???? I've changed pups, rewired basses many, many times, never came across this issue. My thought was maybe the pick-up is bad, but then it should always be bad right? Totally stumped on this .
I don't have a meter. I was thinking about wiring both to the jack. I'm now thinking it's something else as i reinstalled the pickup that was in it, same issue. Overheated pot? Sooo strange.
Well, thing is, you are saying the pickup when used by itself doesn't have this issue, just combined with the P? White is hot and black is ground, so you are correct there. Is there a diagram you are working off of? What are the controls on the bass? I would still be interested (if you can borrow a meter, or ask a tech at a music store to test it) and see what the DCR is. The J should be around 13.7.
These are the classic symptoms of two pickup that are out-of-phase. When both pickups are on, the bass frequencies are cancelling each other out. The solution is to reverse the leads on the P pickup. You should have a meter anyway if you're going to work on your basses' wiring, but it's obvious from your post both pickups are working.
The easiest way to describe it is in a video. Here are several. This was a thought, too. I suppose it is possible. One way to test, is to reverse the hot & ground of the P pickup. If the E & A strings are now the weak ones, we found the problem. And if this is the case, it would require reversing the hot & ground of the wire connecting the 2 coils. Delicate work.