Wiring Straight to The Jack... What Should I Expect?

[::::BASSIST::::]

I am strongly thinking of wiring my NP4s straight to my output jack. I rarely, if ever, use my tone knob..... the vol. knob once in awhile, but I can always just turn down or up at the amp.

What should I expect?

 

[bigbass94]

Just a couple weeks ago I wired my P pup straight to the jack. This was an ibanez soungear gio. Before it sounded dull and stringy, now it sounds full. It hums though so make sure it is grounded, I dont know much about wiring so if you know more than I do, it will be easy a pie.

 

[Tapper]

I've wired a couple acoustic/electric guitars that way, both with Transducer bridge pickup, and magnetic soundhole (my favorites). They sound great, and you can always use volume pedal if you are getting into gigs where amp access is clumsy.

 

[crucial_changes]

i did that one one of my les pauls. The pots were shot, so i just ripped everything out and wired straight to the jack. i LOVE IT. i know, guitar and bass are two different monsters.

the bass player of that band good riddance had custom made ESP basses that were PUP->jack wired, and he loved them.

I wouldn't mind trying that out on a beater bass. i know you can get bodies from warmouth that are routed however you like....so you could have no pot holes (sorry, lack of a better word) at all.

 

[seanm]

I only have experience with P basses, but running straight to the jack unloads the pickups a bit. You get a bit more of a mid hump.

But really, the difference is pretty subtle.

One idea I had, but never got around to, was to use a pot with a push/pull switch so I could disconnect the bass. I like to turn down between sets. I wouldn't connect the pot, just use it to keep the bass looking stock.

 

[projectMalamute]

I've been doing this for years, works fine and gets rid of some potential things to break or introduce noise. Probably a minus if you ever want to sell the thing.

 

[seanm]

I've been doing this for years, works fine and gets rid of some potential things to break or introduce noise. Probably a minus if you ever want to sell the thing.

As long as you leave the pot holes, pretty easy to put back before you sell.

I always leave the pots in just to make it look finished.

 

[GlennW]

I'd suggest also running two extra wires (one hot and one ground) from the jack and bring them out of one of the holes where a pot used to be. You can wire nut different caps across them from outside the control cavity and there's a good chance you'll find something you like. It sounds a lot different (better IME) than using a tone pot...more open sounding.

 

[Johnny Crab]

My first experience with a straight-to-the-jack bass ended up being my main bass. The volume controls of the pickups end up being a "sort-of" tone control and the setup is very useful for making aging strings sound new longer. It's a Les Paul clone with three pickups but only the one against the neck(BASS almost like a Gibson EB) and the one near the bridge(TREBLE nearly like a Ric) are used.

Here's the translated-from-Japanese ad copy. I like the tone control and master control ABOLISHED:

 

[::::BASSIST::::]

and it sounded very alive and vibrant in a good way. Just like putting new strings on. I play Labella Flats so that says something.

Problem: Wiring my NP4s directly to the jack caused a huge amount of hum. 60 cycle hum I guess they call it. Its so loud I cant keep my bass like this. If I were at a gig and this kind of hum was going thru the PA b/n songs etc it would not be good.

Is this what other people who have wired directly to the jack have experienced?

I soldered the ground wire from under the bridge to the jack, but that didnt help.

Besides doing a full shield job (I honestly still think it would be too loud even shielded), is there anything else that might cure this hum?

 

[luknfur]

I've been wiring straight to the jack for years. With few exceptions the pups in The Dimento experiments in FAQ were all ran that way cause I wanted to know what the pups themselves sounded like as best I could. I also ran a comparison experiment in Dimento's "onboard preamp" experiment comparing a passive harness, preamp, and straight to the jack under conditions identical otherwise less those variations.

I'm aware of no reason a pup would put out significantly more noise of whatever kind ran to the jack if properly wired. Having wired identical pups numerous ways, it's not something I've experienced in recall and not reflected in other posts in this thread.

 

[seanm]

and it sounded very alive and vibrant in a good way. Just like putting new strings on. I play Labella Flats so that says something.

Problem: Wiring my NP4s directly to the jack caused a huge amount of hum. 60 cycle hum I guess they call it. Its so loud I cant keep my bass like this. If I were at a gig and this kind of hum was going thru the PA b/n songs etc it would not be good.

Is this what other people who have wired directly to the jack have experienced?

I soldered the ground wire from under the bridge to the jack, but that didnt help.

Besides doing a full shield job (I honestly still think it would be too loud even shielded), is there anything else that might cure this hum?

Could you have soldered the ground and live wires backwards on the jack?

I can't think of any reason to pick up 60Hz hum that wasn't there before. I could see more high frequency hum since it is no longer being filtered by the pots/cap.

Cheers,
Sean

 

[::::BASSIST::::]

I took it apart and the ground to the bridge wire had come off. I re-soldered it back to the ground of the jack. I also put some tape on sandwiched between the jack and pickguard to try to isolate it a bit. I also completely removed all the pots and wiring.

Before when the wire wasnt connected the hum was intolerable. the only way to stop it was to put my fingers on the tone/vol knobs. now the hum is still noticeable (about the same before I began this whole little experiment) if i take my fingers off the strings, but its not nearly as noisy.

i guess a full shielding may reduce the noise now, but there really isnt much in there to shield.

at any rate, its tolerable now.

 

[Kenny Allyn]

Another way to go ...




http://www.audereaudio.com/


... Know it works on a Jazz

 

[jim primate]

expect more treble without pots therell be no attenuation and without a cap no frequencies will be weeded out before the jack so you might find more bass and mid's too.

the humming is probably a ground issue. you might have a ground loop or something, make sure all grounds terminate in the same place.

 

[Rumblin' Man]

I've been bypassing the controls on some of my basses since the '70s. I think it sounds more full and alive. I currently have several wired straight to the jack and I recently built this:

Link Removed

 

[GlennW]

That's a pretty bass. I'd like to see a single cutaway hollow body with no knobs.

 

[GlennW]

A less subtle approach, '62-'63 Bartolini.

 

[lemur821]

On the hum issue: perhaps the control cavity relied on the bodies of the pots for grounding. Disconnect your pots' grounding, and you lose your shield grounding too. That's how it would work out on my bass, anyway, had I not redone the grounding previously.

 

[da_s_man]

So to wire it straight to the jack you do exactly that....solder all wires to the jack? Does the ground also go onto the jack aswell?