Triple Pickup Custom Wiring Questions!

[Mr123Clark]

Hey all,

I'm building my first custom bass and trying my best to have it be the "ultimate" gigger for my specific needs and sort of a "one ring" of basses. It'll have 3 pickups and I just have some questions on how I should be doing that. The bass will be built in a Warmoth Jazzmaster Bass IV body and will be fully passive with 3 humbuckers.

Neck Pickup: Seymour Duncan Rickenbacker Neck Replacement
Middle Pickup: Lindy Fralin Precision
Bridge Pickup: Lindy Fralin Jazz Hum cancelling

My current plan is having each pickup wired with it's own volume and Treble so it's an overall VTVTVT and single output. I know the P and J will work together fine, but definitely have some concerns about the Rick neck pickup

What would be a good wiring schematic to have all three running with switches for series/parallel for each humbucking pickup as well as switches for series/parallel with each other, as well as dedicated mute switches for the J and Rick Pickups?

Current plan:

The Rick would have dedicated Volume and tone switches in the top horn like a Jaguar/Jazzmaster guitar, along with a series/parallel switch

The Lower horn would have switches to run each pickup in series/parallel with eachother

The normal routing holes would have stacked VT pots (500k or 250k) for both the P and J pickup, and then to the output.

Anyone want to help with a wiring schematic? Would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ctmullins]

Wow.

I appreciate the appeal of having so many options, but having been there myself, I predict it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth.

First, a VTVTVT circuit will have a lot of pots, each of which will load the circuit down and dull the tone.

Second, having series/parallel switches for both intra-pickup and inter-pickup modes will give you lots of options, some of which will wind up being very similar, and therefore redundant.

I recommend you choose a few usable tones and simplify. Perhaps:

• Neck solo, series
• Neck solo, parallel
• Neck (series) and middle (series), parallel
• Middle solo, series
• Middle (series) and bridge (series), parallel

I would do this with switches, and route that through a master volume and a master tone control. Done.

 

[sikamikanico]

Yup, what Todd said. Well, I suggest you experiment (alligator leads are great for that), then hardwire what you like.

 

[Nate D14]

Hello! I am currently working on a simular tri-pickup bass project, I have a Seymour Duncan ricky pickup sandwiched by two guild bi-sonics (guild - neck, SD ricky - middle, guild - bridge). I plan on wiring it with a volume & tone for each pickup, 3 individual on/off switches for each pickup and a master volume (500k pots all around). I figured i could wire each pickup like a p-bass then send it through the switches and have everything meet at the master volume, would it work like that?

 

[Mr123Clark]

Short answer: not with individual tone pots for each - i’m currently working on my wiring today of all days - you could wire them with the on/off switches and then to a master volume or tone or add active buffers into your circuit before the output. I’m taking the second route with a Bartolini dual buffer and having two separate tone circuits for the neck and then a PJ