Split Coil Wiring for PBG Stock Chinese Soapbar Humbucker Bass Pickups

Hi Folks,

After swapping these out of my EX-5 for some John Benson Customs I thought it may be useful to post how to coil split the stock Bass PUP's for anyone contemplating doing such. These are commonly found on EX-4, EX-5, FVB-4, IB-5, IB-6S, possibly MMB-4, and TB-4.

Coil splitting on guitar PUP's is quite common and provides typical single coil sounds in some of the combinations however most of the manufacturers recommend splitting to the SLUG Coil on Bridge PUP and to the SCREW Coil on Neck PUP. On the Benson's I found the opposite coil method mentioned above was very time consuming in trying to figure what was paired to what and the sounds were not pleasant.

Below is how both were wired up using Bourns 500k Audio Taper Push Pull Pots.
Attachment 14698Attachment 14699Attachment 14700Attachment 14701

The above Tonerider wiring diagram uses their colours and each manufacturer also have their own specific wire colours with not much in common between one another. Thankfully the stock units have Red & White paired and they would substitute the Red & Green paired in above diagram. Stock units also have Bare Earth Wire wrapped around Green which substitutes Black in above diagram. That just leaves Black to substitute White in diagram as the 'Hot' wire connection.

The advantage of coil splitting on these Basses is that it also provides single coil Fender type sounds that you would not otherwise have thus giving you more flexibility in available sounds without needing to buy another guitar.