Hello. I'm fairly inexperienced with wiring -- I've done some repairs and I've done a passive P bass on my own, but I wanted to get some more experience and maybe set up a bass to something I like more than a stock sound. To that end, I picked up a neck-through body, with pickup and control cavities pre-drilled. So there's 5 holes already there. I guess I could wire it like a Rickenbacker, 2 vol/2 tone/selector. Or JB style -- vol/vol/tone -- and use the other two holes for something else but what (killswitch maybe?) is useful? It's got a cavity for a battery so I assume the body was originally meant to be active, but I'm open to either passive or active. My other basses are all passive. Any suggestions ? Any good suggestions for a wiring diagram would be appreciated as well.
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Wiring ideas? Neck JB, Bridge HB
- Thread starter yukbon
- Start date
Your pickup choice will make a big difference in what people will suggest.
Dont need active pups to utilize that batt box, if you install a pre amp.
You could go for one of the many pre amp kits out there
I just stumbled across KellingSound stuff on eBay, looks promising and affordable.
There's EMG and Artec, both on the affordable and quality side.
Then there's the expensive stuff like Dark Glass and such.
I'd probably stay away from the cheap "black box" Chinese knockoffs, but ya never know.
Post a pic of the project, and decide on your pickups
Dont need active pups to utilize that batt box, if you install a pre amp.
You could go for one of the many pre amp kits out there
I just stumbled across KellingSound stuff on eBay, looks promising and affordable.
There's EMG and Artec, both on the affordable and quality side.
Then there's the expensive stuff like Dark Glass and such.
I'd probably stay away from the cheap "black box" Chinese knockoffs, but ya never know.
Post a pic of the project, and decide on your pickups
As was said, what kind of pickups is important to decide first.
If you really want to sound different than stock, and gain wiring experience, go with an active bass. The good preamp brands have options to match the number of holes. In the case of EMG, pickups and preamp can be bought as a set.
If you really want to sound different than stock, and gain wiring experience, go with an active bass. The good preamp brands have options to match the number of holes. In the case of EMG, pickups and preamp can be bought as a set.
I personally like the 2 volume/2 tone/3 way set up, I usually blend in the other pup instead of the tone controls fighting each other. There is no perfect wiring when it comes to taste
To answer your questions, I have to ask one myself; when you say there are five holes, is that five in total or five plus one for the output jack? Pictures would be a big help, here.
As for a basic suggestion, Guitar Fuel makes a variety preamps that are relatively inexpensive. Some have modules while others have circuitry affixed to the pots. Different models have a varying number of control pots.
For passive options, I'd do:
Then there's this compilation of wiring diagrams (in German, but decipherable): https://www.bassic.de/misc/E-Bass-Schaltungen.pdf
- Master volume
- Master tone
- Pickup selector switch (can consider a 4-way rotary knob for neck-series-parallel-bridge)
- Series/parallel/single coil switch for the humbucker (could also be a 4-way rotary switch to get both single coil options)
- Decade switch (rotary capacitor selector switch; something like a Tonestyler; can also be a simpler 2/3-way switch, and/or wired to tone control)
- G&L OMG switch
- G&L style passive bass-cut control
- Ric-style bass-cut for the bridge pickup
- Wilde Q-filter
- Varitone (could simply add an inductor to the Decade switch; Tonestyler makes/used to make it too)
- Kill switch
- Producer switch
- Blower switch
- Phase switch(es) (not really popular on bass)
Then there's this compilation of wiring diagrams (in German, but decipherable): https://www.bassic.de/misc/E-Bass-Schaltungen.pdf
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Well, it’s been a minute since I worked on this project — I got caught up in as bunch of other stuff and sorta wandered away from it. But I was recently cleaning up some stuff and came across the body and some old hardware and I thought I’d come back back and post what I’ve got and see if you folks had any wiring guidance for this stuff.
The neck pickup is a Seymour Duncan jazz pickup SJB-1N and the humbucker is some music man replacement (I think MM4.2 but I’m not 100% on that).
The body has five holes for controls and a separate hole on the side for a jack, like so:
That neck pickup route is slightly smaller by one or two mm than the Seymour Duncan pickup I’ve got, so I’m debating whether I should find another pickup or expand the routed hole a bit.
Of all the passive circuits @sikamikanico mentioned, the one I’m most familiar with (and leaning toward) is a blower switch, making the other openings vol/tone/vol/tone, but I’m also thinking about the q filter cube.
The neck pickup is a Seymour Duncan jazz pickup SJB-1N and the humbucker is some music man replacement (I think MM4.2 but I’m not 100% on that).
The body has five holes for controls and a separate hole on the side for a jack, like so:
That neck pickup route is slightly smaller by one or two mm than the Seymour Duncan pickup I’ve got, so I’m debating whether I should find another pickup or expand the routed hole a bit.
Of all the passive circuits @sikamikanico mentioned, the one I’m most familiar with (and leaning toward) is a blower switch, making the other openings vol/tone/vol/tone, but I’m also thinking about the q filter cube.
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SD should be the standard neck (small) size pickup, so I’m not sure how many smaller pickups you’d find. Measure the pickup and the hole, compare some specs online, see what you can find. But at the end of the day, I’d probably just enlarge the cavity…
I don't have the measurements at hand, but last time I measured the route was like 91mm and the pickup was like 92 or 93mm; the screw tabs are also off by a teensy tiny bit too. Might just use a chisel instead of dremeling it out
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Unless you're a real artist with a chisel and hammer, I would strongly recommend using a Dremel. Wood can be very finicky and you never know what will actually break loose until you strike…and whatever breaks loose cannot easily be put back.
I forget what tool he used (probably a routing bit), but when I needed my local guitar tech to open up a Jazz's bridge slot, he most certainly did not use a chisel. Whatever it was, all it needed was a teensy haircut to allow almost any bridge pickup to drop right in.
Unless you're a real artist with a chisel and hammer, I would strongly recommend using a Dremel. Wood can be very finicky and you never know what will actually break loose until you strike…and whatever breaks loose cannot easily be put back.
I forget what tool he used (probably a routing bit), but when I needed my local guitar tech to open up a Jazz's bridge slot, he most certainly did not use a chisel. Whatever it was, all it needed was a teensy haircut to allow almost any bridge pickup to drop right in.
for what it's worth, I think the route is for the EMG "short J" housing (91.18mm) and not the "long J" (93.98mm) so it's not a huge chop, but you may be right that doing it by hand is too much of a risk for messing it up
