Reverse twin Pickups wiring needed!

[merseymale]

Hello everyone!

I’m starting a new request here, on this one, Because I feel I’ll be cluttering up existing posts elsewhere otherwise

I’ve put together a 50s style PBase with a single coil pick up in the middle and decided to make the tone control more useful by trying out a second pick up in the neck as I had one lying about and I had already removed some of the wood below the pickguard to minimise weight so, “why not?!“

I’ve never been able to feel comfortable with blend controls because it seems that when you pan to the bridge pick up it goes the opposite direction to what would be a darkest tone on a regular tone control and vice versa IMO

I tried this wiring, here:

Rotary switch for you series/parallel guys!!

...& felt real happy with the tones provided HOWEVER -on stage especially- It just feels so counterintuitive to me to twist the tone ‘up’ towards the floor and get a darker sound and then turning the tone knob ‘down’, as it were and getting a brighter sound

it’s just plain weird to me!

I’ve tried various ways of wiring this but I don’t seem to ever get it right…

I associate series wiring with a darker sound and I associate neck pickups with a darker sound so I’d like those tones to be found when the “tone knob“ is turned towards the ceiling

I think of parallel wiring and bridge pickups with a brighter or thinner sound and I’d like to turn the “tone knob“ towards the floor to get those

Does anyone out there have any ideas, please, as solo bridge and solo neck pickup sounds are important to me as is parallel sounds and the series (at least when it comes to single coil only on a bass) is really useful too but I’d just like a way of getting those 4 sounds in a more intuitive location on a four position rotary switch

Thanks in Advance!

 

[RobbieK]

The hot wires from the pickups are connected to the blend pot at the two middle lugs. To reverse the direction simply swap these two wires.

It's uncommon but not unheard of for blend pots to be wired in this way. Sadowsky basses often seem to be like this.

 

[merseymale]

Hello everyone!

I’m starting a new request here, on this one, Because I feel I’ll be cluttering up existing posts

Rotary switch for you series/parallel guys!!

The hot wires from the pickups are connected to the blend pot at the two middle lugs. To reverse the direction simply swap these two wires.

It's uncommon but not unheard of for blend pots to be wired in this way. Sadowsky basses often seem to be like this.

Thanks for your reply but, as I say, I am forgoing the blend pot idea for the four position rotary selector and the wiring diagram on the link, above, does not seem to allow the two centre lugs to be switched around to have the desired effect…

Someone (Jokingly?) Re-posted a mirror image of that rotary switch on that link I’ve mentioned here and another TB forum member recommends this for real (?! )
So I’ll try it when I can this week and Report back on this thread too

I suppose, essentially, what I’m wanting is the fairly common telecaster four-way mod to give series at the end of its travel but in a rotary form for bass

 

[RobbieK]

Oh I see. Sorry about that.

Well if your current diagram works, but the selections are in the wrong position/order, then reorder the numbers. IOW, the wires that went to the two "4" lugs should be shifted to the two "1" lugs etc.

TBH, I'd think the series setting would be darker sounding than the solo neck pickup, so if you want the switch to go from darkest to brightest, I'd think you'd have series fully anti-clockwise. Whether the solo bridge is actually brighter than the parallel setting is possibly also debatable. But that's for you to decide.

But let me know if you can't get your existing diagram re-ordered, and I'll look through my old diagrams. I've wired lots of these sort of things in the past...

 

[merseymale]

Oh I see. Sorry about that.

Well if your current diagram works, but the selections are in the wrong position/order, then reorder the numbers. IOW, the wires that went to the two "4" lugs should be shifted to the two "1" lugs etc.

TBH, I'd think the series setting would be darker sounding than the solo neck pickup, so if you want the switch to go from darkest to brightest, I'd think you'd have series fully anti-clockwise. Whether the solo bridge is actually brighter than the parallel setting is possibly also debatable. But that's for you to decide.

But let me know if you can't get your existing diagram re-ordered, and I'll look through my old diagrams. I've wired lots of these sort of things in the past...

Thanks for the reply!

I’ve been a bit busy of late but when I’m not I’m definitely going to do the smart before our next rehearsal

What would be great is if you could think of a way to do a wiring as you describe, i.e.:

One) both pickups parallel
Two) bridge pick up on its own
Three) make pick up on its own
Four) both pick up series