Cliffenbacker wiring question

[Rabbit]

Hi All

I'm in the process of doing a replica Cliff Burton Ric. I have two wiring diagrams, but not sure which would be the most likely candidate.

Any suggestions?

[Simon Barden]

Ignoring the extra pickup, neither of them conform to the normal 4001 wiring diagram. That's more a Gibson way of wiring the pickups. I'd need to look further, but from the description here https://mixdownmag.com.au/features/g...-cliff-burton/ the switch seemed to just bring in the extra pickup on its own, so its more likely to me that the normal output was fed through the switch so that either the normal or extra pickup output was selected. The extra pickup would have then had no volume or tone control (making it even brighter). But I'm only guessing.

[Simon Barden]

As Cliff mentions wanting the humbucking pickup to reduce noise when using gain pedals, it makes sense that it's just the one pickup connected as mixing a humbucker with a single coil negates the humbucking qualities as you end up with an odd number of coils.

[Rabbit]

Thanx Simon, but I'm still no closer to an answer. I came across those two wiring diagrams while I was looking, but I don't know which of those two will do what you suggested .

[Simon Barden]

Neither. I'm not much good at drawing wiring diagrams though. I'd first take a Ric wiring diagram:



And then modify it so the normal output passes through the push/pull switch, like so:



The pot switch should be like this:



In the 'down' position, B links to C and E links to F. In the 'up' position, B links to A and E links to D.

So you'd connect the normal output to C, the 3rd pickup output to A and the jack tip to B. But for greater reliability, you'd link the two sets of contacts so that you'd connect the normal output to C and F, the 3rd pickup output to A and D and the jack tip to B and E.

One other point to note is that the way Ric wire their guitars, the two volume pots are always in parallel (with the common output signal at one end and ground at the other end of the track) so the value of the pot is effectively halved. So with 250k pots the pickups sound like they've got 125k pots (jn a 'Gibson' scheme), with a fair bit or treble being knocked off. I've just modified someone's Ric 460D guitar which has humbuckers and sounded really dark and dull and not like a Ric at all. So I fitted 1Meg pots (to give a more standard 500k value for humbuckers) and it turned it into a far more Ric-like jangle machine. So you may want to think about using 500k pots (to get a normal single coil 250k value) rather than the indicated 250k ones if you aren't using Ric pickups.

If you want it to behave like a Ric then you really should wire it in a Ric fashion, though both Ric and 'Gibson' schemes will otherwise sound the same with all the controls up fully.

[Rabbit]

If you want it to behave like a Ric then you really should wire it in a Ric fashion, though both Ric and 'Gibson' schemes will otherwise sound the same with all the controls up fully.

Again thanx Simon . I think I whole idea of replacing the neck pickup with a gibson mudbucker and the bridge pickup (not to be confused with the strat pickup under the damper) a DS hot stacked jazz bass pickup is to make it *not* sound like a ric .

Shame I can't get maroon pups. I managed to get some white pup covers which I should be able to dye maroon.

[Simon Barden]

It all depends on the material. Some plastics wont take a dye at all, except maybe a something that sits on the surface and easily wipes off. You may have to spray paint them. And it will be a burgundy rather than a maroon. So use the same colour finish as the body. Cliff will have painted his Jazz bass and Strat pickup covers, I'm sure he won't have bought them in that colour.

[Simon Barden]

I've just read that the volume pots in Cliff's bass are 330k ones not 250k, which seems reasonable as they have used those value pots.