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Wiring help

No Compute

No Compute

Apr 24, 2022
183
378
#1
I was hoping someone who knows more than I do could take a look at this and let me know if it looks OK. I'm planning on rewiring a 2 pickup bass with a blend knob instead of two volumes.

I know it is needed, but the ground wiring is not included on the image because the 'hot' is what I need help with.

Thank you
wirez.png
 
#5
That will work too, except the blend pot tends to load the pickup that is being lowered in level.

Somewhere I saw someone had posted a diagram of a no-load blend pot. It essentially added series resistance to attenuate the pickup, until finally at the end of it's sweep, the attenuated pickup would be disconnected by having the resistive track inside the pot cut to provide an open connection from the pickup.
 
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#6
Hey thanks for that diagram BAG. Seems similar to my drawing except for the tone knob. But mine did come wired like that originally (cap to wiper). I wonder why they did that?

So I will swap the in/out lugs on the volume pot when I assemble it all. Thanks Bill. I was only mimicking how it came wired, so I wasn't sure if things would work the same or differently without one volume pot feeding into another.

And yes- I should have mentioned: While I won't be cutting traces to make the blend a no-load, I will not be grounding any of the lugs (just the casing itself). Sort of a compromise between the two. And I don't need a truly solo'd pickup scenario anyway. Just a change of 'flavor' by turning the blend knob is good enough
 
#8
No but thanks. I was looking at a diagram like the one above (Seymour Duncan). The one I saw was using the bottom left lug as the output - but since the top right and bottom left are jumpered it would be the same thing anyhow
 
#9
byacey said:
That will work too, except the blend pot tends to load the pickup that is being lowered in level.

Somewhere I saw someone had posted a diagram of a no-load blend pot. It essentially added series resistance to attenuate the pickup, until finally at the end of it's sweep, the attenuated pickup would be disconnected by having the resistive track inside the pot cut to provide an open connection from the pickup.
Click to expand...

No Compute said:
And yes- I should have mentioned: While I won't be cutting traces to make the blend a no-load, I will not be grounding any of the lugs (just the casing itself).
Click to expand...

Yep. I wasn't confident on cutting the traces. Having been reminded of the no-load blend pot I think that I actually used the following diagram for my wiring.

jazz-bass-ungrounded-blend-jpg.2779754


And this was the result.

20191102_103719.jpg
 
Last edited:
#14
No Compute said:
Isn't M/N the proper taper for a dual gang blend pot?

Interesting- one diagram shows the tone cap on the wiper, the other on a lug. What is the difference? Is there any?
Click to expand...
No Difference. The tone circuit is just a series capacitor and resistor, not a voltage divider, so it makes no difference on the wiper or end connection.
I'm not sure what taper would work better; perhaps a linear. A log would tend to concentrate the most tonal range at the extremities of rotation.
 
#16
Ok, cool. Thanks to both of you for your help.

So: reverse the V pot wiring of my diagram, and who cares about the T pot cap/lug situation because it is electrically the same.

I think I've got it now. Thank you both again for your help
 
#18
So I see a number of people on other threads (like here: Wiring a MN Blend Pot) advocating wiring the volume pot as I drew it above - hot from blend to center V lug, out to tone/jack from left V lug.

This makes more sense to me. With two volume knobs, this is how they are wired. Why would the substitution of the second V knob for a blend knob change the need for this? Isn't it still just two pickups wired in parallel?
 

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