Sire M2 pickups

[Massan]

Hey huys
I really like how those M2s sound and I'm about to order one
I was wondering if you could rewire those pickups M7 style - with single-coil split and series/parallel switches
M7 costs 2 times more so I just thought maybe I could do a similar wiring with M2?
If anyone took them apart, I'd like to know how many leads to those pickups have.

Alternatively I can always order an M7 set and put it in, I believe

any suggestions?

 

[rojo412]

Hey @Massan
I actually have a set of these and they be going into a winter build off bass.

These are a 4 lead pickup, basically 2 pickups under the 1 shell.

They come wired stock as parallel, as shown on the right.

I will be figuring out how to wire them to switches shortly, and will gladly post the progress of that.

One thing I would like to know though, to the owners of these basses: What is the string spacing at the bridge saddles on the 5 string version?
I have to get something that matches these. The poles are spaced 17mm apart, but since string spacing tapers, I know the bridge is likely wider than that. And of course, it's nowhere to be found on their site.

 

[Massan]

Huge thanks for this post!
Really helped me tremendously
I'm definitely ordering it as its possible to do splitcoils for sure with 4 leads
Thanks!

 

[rojo412]

No problem!

If it helps, the fact that they wire up Green and White when in parallel, that means those are likely the positive leads of the coils.

North (towards neck) coil is Black(-)/White(+)
South (towards bridge) is Red(-)/Green(+)

I was having trouble seeing through the glue and didn't want to rip anything apart, so finding which was north and which was south can still be done with alligator clips and an amp, but if you or anyone else can see the wire map as a diagram from these pics, that would be awesome.

EDIT: Doing a quick test with a cable, I found that if you wire the Red and White together, then use green at + and black/bare as negative, it's series... but there's a lot of noise. It's got more output, but is noisier. Being out of a bass, that obviously doesn't help.
Same result if you wire Blk/Grn together, then White hot and Red cold.

The other pickup, with the leads untouched, sound quieter and smoother in parallel.

 

[Massan]

Would be great if m2/m7 owners could post the photos of their cavities
Although splitcoils should be pretty easy to do
Not that interested in series wiring but would be cool too

I'll try and harass the m7 owners in the sire thread. Just copying the m7 wiring should do the trick

 

[Massan]

The thing is, the outer coils should be wired out of phase for the jazz bass sound. I know for a fact that's how m7 works

Here's the only bit of info I was able to find yet

Good read:
Sire M7 Pickup wiring...

Not sure what kind of dpdt switches are those - probably just simple dpdt on-on-on ones?
I have a couple of those here at hand

 

[Massan]

@rojo412
Here's what I got by now.
The bottom wiring scheme is the original one from Sire - proven to be wrong in the other thread
The upper one is what I was able to understand from the photos

So the DPDT switches positions are

1.Switch up - Humbucker Parallel
2.Switch mid - Single Coil (outer coils of each pickup), wired out of phase with each other
3.Switch down - Humbucker Series

I think the white/black and green/red wires are swapped since we're reversing the phase for single coils and making sure that we have the right coil splits: bridge coil on the bridge pickup, and neck coil on the neck pickup
EDIT: The humbuckers are completely out of phase with each other aswell by the looks of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong

Ps Not 100% sure on the neck pickup link (marked with "?"), but looks like its correct. the wire was red/black on the photos and I'm a complete noob in wiring, so it confused me

 

[rojo412]

It looks like you drew out what the picture shows correctly, although the black and white look like they are grounding, I see that's the bare, it's just black in the pic. And if that's a working bass from Sire, I think you should be good. The switches are DPDT on-on-on 3 way switches, so that would do what you're after.

The Red AND Black wire looks like what they use as a general connection wire, like grounds and jumpers and whatnot. So don't worry about the color on those, it's just connecting stuff elsewhere.

If you haven't checked out THIS PLACE for wiring resources, they are very helpful. You can find your way around all kinds of switching stuff.
For example, this may help:

The colors may be wrong, but it's the proper signal path and makes the switch easier to see.
If you're going to the PAN, you just send the hot out of the switch to the separate lugs for the pan, not a vol control.

 

[Massan]

@rojo412
Here's my plan - I'm ordering Sire M2, electronically it's the same thing as M7 but with different pups and the lack of 2 dpdt switches for pickup operation options.
Do you think the M2 pickups could be color coded differently to the M7 ones as shown in the pics?

 

[rojo412]

@Massan, It's distinctly possible. I'm not sure who they farm the work to when it comes to making the pickups, but it wouldn't surprise me if something changed when they went from the M2 large pole to the double coil M7 style. As the one guy said in the other thread, there was a yellow wire eventually mentioned. That's a thing that Fender had done for years, so you knew what was bridge/neck pickups.

The end result is what matters and if you can divine which coils are north and south and which wires are start and finish, you can pretty much wire any humbucker the way you want it.

Since I'm using these in a build, I should probably rig up a pickup mule and make sure I'm getting this right before committing to it. So when I do, I'll certainly share my results. Though I'm not a single coil fan (hum), I can always test to see what I'm doing is correct for that as well. Doing a series/parallel switch isn't any easier or harder than S/SP/P, so I can post both.

 

[Massan]

@rojo412 sounds great.
I watched the demos on youtube and really liked how open the singles sound on the M7
They still cancel hum when combined out of phase, just like a traditional jazz bass
Anyway I still have the dpdt switches, so It makes sense to just completely copy the m7 wiring

What's interesting is that there was no volume drop on M7 when switching to singlecoil mode. I wonder if that would be the case with M2 pickups or not

 

[Slaphand1]

This is the right M2 wiring

 

[Rib 13]

EDIT: Doing a quick test with a cable, I found that if you wire the Red and White together, then use green at + and black/bare as negative, it's series... but there's a lot of noise. .

Interesting.......Were you around flourescent lights or an older computer monitor or some other interference source, and is the house grounding of your workshop area ever an issue?

 

[illstreetblues]

Hey guys, any news about this topic? Have you already tried to wire the M2 pickups M7-style? Is it worth the effort? Are there any flaws of such modification?

 

[rojo412]

Hey guys, any news about this topic? Have you already tried to wire the M2 pickups M7-style? Is it worth the effort? Are there any flaws of such modification?

Totally forgot about this thread. I did end up wiring the M2 pickups with series/parallel (no single) and it did work to a degree. But there's definitely a noticeable drop in volume between series and parallel. It's about the same as any other dual coil pickup, frankly, so that is only something to mention if you're sensitive to it.

The series mode has more oomph, for sure, but it loses the clarity you get with parallel. That said, BOTH modes lack a pretty decent amount of high end and output. These pickups - from the perspective of a pickup snob, such as myself - are not great. They have that overly compressed, muffled, dull output that you find in cheap pickups. I definitely feel that adding the switch to them only serves to give you more tonal options, but I wouldn't call it a great mod to do, even if your only cost was the time and few dollars in parts.
Brief sound clip here

If you want better sound from these pickups - your best bet is to spend the money to replace them. I think the preamp is very capable and different pickups would do more to change things than the preamp would. And I think the preamp would benefit from a more versatile, high-output pickup to begin with - perhaps the reason Sire did the change in the first place?

 

[Juanma_G]

Hi, I followed this thread and others to have my M2 wired almost like the M7. The final result is humbucker series - single but like rojo412 says, there is not much output.

The difference between single and HB parallel was not very noticeable, and HB series lacks clarity in the high end. I managed to get good sound though, through a Darkglass AO.

Anyways I'm thinking about changing the pickups (my M2 is 1st Gen, the difference with my P7 2nd gen is huge), not the preamp (I really like the mid parametric switch). I am looking for a passive pickup, high output, and keeping the hb-single modification.

Anybody has replaced the stock pickups? Any recommendations?

Thanks!