Help with wiring concentric pots!

[WeirdBits]

As you have individual switches for the three pups you have two initial options for wiring: LP guitar style linked volumes or Jazz bass style independent volumes.

Linked volumes means that if you turn the volume to zero on any active (on) pickup then all active (on) pups will be muted. It allows you to quickly mute the guitar/bass just turning one volume. With lugs facing down, pickup to left lug, output on middle lug.

Independent volumes means that you can turn down any volume to zero without affecting the sound from any other pickup. Good for blending in/out different pups without needing to use the switch. With lugs facing down, pickup on middle lug, output on left lug.

Either way, you'll want to the output to the jack connected across the outs of your switches, with the pups wired as:

Pickup->concentric pot->individual switch->(output to jack)

That way any pot that's not tied to an active (on) pickup isn't in the circuit.

The volume ground lug and capacitor ground should link to the back of the pot, then have the pot casings linked via shielding or a ground wire to your main ground point or output jack. ie. Jack ground to back of first pot then wire/shielding links to the backs/casings of the other pots.

Guitars often use a treble bleed cap (~0.001uF) to allow high frequencies to pass directly to output rather than lose some of them to ground through the resistance of the volume pot. Intentionally bleeding them off to get rid of high-end noise on a bass is the opposite, the cap links to ground and everything above a certain frequency goes straight to ground through the cap. If you wire and shield the guitar/bass well then noise really shouldn't be an issue, so you can just use your tone pot with cap of choice to control how much of what freqs go to ground. Tone switches are a thing, a switch with a specific cap either off or full on, but are more to shape particular sounds than to filter noise.

[Chuck]

As you have individual switches for the three pups you have two initial options for wiring: LP guitar style linked volumes or Jazz bass style independent volumes.

Linked volumes means that if you turn the volume to zero on any active (on) pickup then all active (on) pups will be muted. It allows you to quickly mute the guitar/bass just turning one volume. With lugs facing down, pickup to left lug, output on middle lug.

Independent volumes means that you can turn down any volume to zero without affecting the sound from any other pickup. Good for blending in/out different pups without needing to use the switch. With lugs facing down, pickup on middle lug, output on left lug.

Either way, you'll want to the output to the jack connected across the outs of your switches, with the pups wired as:

Pickup->concentric pot->individual switch->(output to jack)

That way any pot that's not tied to an active (on) pickup isn't in the circuit.

The volume ground lug and capacitor ground should link to the back of the pot, then have the pot casings linked via shielding or a ground wire to your main ground point or output jack. ie. Jack ground to back of first pot then wire/shielding links to the backs/casings of the other pots.

Guitars often use a treble bleed cap (~0.001uF) to allow high frequencies to pass directly to output rather than lose some of them to ground through the resistance of the volume pot. Intentionally bleeding them off to get rid of high-end noise on a bass is the opposite, the cap links to ground and everything above a certain frequency goes straight to ground through the cap. If you wire and shield the guitar/bass well then noise really shouldn't be an issue, so you can just use your tone pot with cap of choice to control how much of what freqs go to ground. Tone switches are a thing, a switch with a specific cap either off or full on, but are more to shape particular sounds than to filter noise.

Thanks Weirdy, that's starting to make it a little bit more clear!

I'm looking at the jazz bass style independent volumes - so that would be the first diagram I posted I'm guessing?

I'd also (now incorrectly) thought I should go pickup->switch->pot->jack so that's for clearing that one up for me too!

Re the capacitors (as per the first diagram) do you think .047 is a good option as a starting point? I know I could swap them out later although I'm not sure I fully understand the implications of the different values.

Once again, thanks heaps!