Strange pickup behavior... looking for advice

[vancityjoe]

Hey guys.

I have a P/J bass with a dogs breakfast of pickups wired in jazz formation, two volumes one tone. I have read some threads but nothing has exactly described my situation, so i am posting this thread looking for some sage advice from the TB community.

The exact symptoms are as follows:

P pickup full volume, J off: works great.

P pickup off, j full volume: works great.

Both full: E and A strings sound great, D and G strings sound almost no volume at all.

I am guessing that the P is causing the problem, possibly that the treble side is phase cancelling with the j. Has anyone else heard or seen this type of problem?

The P is a handwound pickup, the J is of unknown origin, but has pushback cloth wires, decent bobbin material and appears to be handwound.

Anyways in advance for any helpful suggestions that dont involve spending hundreds of dollars on fralins or the like.

 

[ctmullins]

possibly that the treble side is phase cancelling with the j

That would be my first guess as well. Easy to swap the leads on that half of the P pickup and see if that improves things.

 

[vancityjoe]

I tried that and it ruined the humbucking effect of the P. I switched it back and figure its going to be moved to a P only bass.

Interesting, i have now identified the J pickup as a SD vintage jazz.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Swap leads on the bridge pickup.

 

[vancityjoe]

thanks for the advice. i pulled both the pickups out and put different ones in . the p went into a different instrument and the j sits on my desk, either to go on ebay or into a box for some future project.