Waz's MMB-4

[wazkelly]

Birthday present for myself arrived a few days early at work today........


Planning on doing a natural finish and have ordered a PBG DB Bone Nut, Belcat pre amp, Battery box, strap locks, 4 x chrome domed knobs. Shall also order Real Parts USA made Tuners and recessed jack socket once the pre amp arrives and have checked jack socket for metric or imperial thread.

Looking at Wokka's JB-A build convinced me to go with the pre amp but when doing the mock build today it dawned on me that this is only one PUP not two and got me wondering about the blend pot and whether that could be used to do a bit of split coil mixing as the stock PUP comes with 4 wire, same as on the EX-5 and all the other stock PBG soap bar types? Or would I be better off ignoring that like Pabs did on his gorgeous yellow MMB-4 build? Happy for either of you guys to drop in and offer some feedback or ideas please.

Still have a couple of Tele's almost done with just a few more final TO coats to go before the final polishing begins and then I can make a start on this newbie. Never had an active before and really looking forward to how it sounds. Always loved how Stingray's sound but never had enough spare coin to buy one and hope this one works out just as good.

EDIT: A big thank you to Adam for sending me pics of a couple of bodies to chose from. This one is perfect for what I have planned. Also grateful for how smooth it is straight out of the box with just the usual machine marks on the vertical edges that need the most sanding. Neck is awesome too.

[Kick]

Very cool! And indeed awesome to have some pictures of a couple of bodies to choose from. This will be a fine axe

[stan]

these are great looking basses, cant wait to see the result

[Andy40]

Good job Waz on getting a new kit, its the birthday gift that keeps on giving.

[wazkelly]

Thanks guys.

Current weather warnings with the remnants of cyclone Debbie passing through these parts today means I will have to park my car in the garage which doubles up as the guitar building workshop so not much will get done for a couple of days. Also way too much humidity to continue with last couple of coats on the Tele's. Thankfully I have some beers in the fridge and the Broncos are on Foxtel tonight so that should keep me entertained. Still at work waiting to see if we get sent home as most other places have done with their employees.

[WeirdBits]

MM pups are traditionally wired with their coils linked in parallel, which is also how the preamp will connect them via the blend, so there's no reason not to connect them that way. It will give you the standard MM sound and complete mix out to each individual coil. Best of both worlds.

The only option missing would be having the coils linked in series, which is a mod some ppl add, but you could still do that even with the preamp by adding a mini-toggle (complexity depending on how you want it to work).

[Nekogen]

Beautiful MMB-4 and exciting plan. looking forward to seeing update!

[wokkaboy]

great looking kit Waz, this is the next bass kit I want to build. Sounds like a cool option use the blend pot to split the coils of the humbucker. Then drill a jack hole. Special note Waz, on my JB build I should have drilled my jack hole further away from the control cavity to allow more distance between end of the jack tip and the last pot on the control plate. Sometimes my jazz bass short out because of this. I have ideas how to fix the problem.
Before you drill the jack hole, get a guitar lead and place the tip to find a place that won't make contact anywhere near the 4th hole on the control plate so it doesn't short out

[Simon Barden]

The standard kit wiring has a volume for each half of the pickup, so you can go from single coil thinness to twin coil thickness. Only humbucking if the two volumes are in the same position (so make sure you shield the cavities). It's a thick enough sound in full-on parallel mode, so I don't think you'll benefit from a series switch, especially with an active tone circuit.

The drawback of a blend pot is that in a passive circuit, the mid (both coils on position) point means that both pickup's outputs are being reduced in volume (with a bit of treble loss as well), so the output will be down compared to a twin volume pot situation where both pots are fully up. But hopefully in an active circuit, the pre-amp compensates for that loss (though on the Belcat, the blend and master volume pots appear to be before any pre-amp circuitry).

[Simon Barden]

You could probably do a slightly stunted MM headstock (without any hole filling) if you wanted a 3+1 tuner configuration.