Wiring issues

[Borgs]

Hi recently bought a DIY TB4 Bass. I've downloaded the wiring diagram and having a bit of trouble. For the neck pickup they mention blue wire,mine has green and it is soldered to the shield. Do I leave them soldered together? And where do I solder them to? Then there is a black wire, and a red and white wire soldered together. Where do they go? Sorry for the dumb questions.

[Simon Barden]

With 4 wire pickups, the wire soldered to the shield is the ground wire, so those should be soldered to the back of a pot.

The two other wires soldered together (red and white) join the two pickup coils (that make up the humbucker) together and can be used to split the coil for single-coil operation (with a suitable extra switch) or are left unused for standard humbucker operation. They should be insulated with some tape to prevent then shorting out to ground on something.

The black wire will be the signal wire which goes to the volume pot.

The factories change pickup supplier from time to time, and the wire colours change (there is no universal standard). The pickups used can also change from single wire (plus shield) to 4-wire (plus shield) connections and back. So it's hard to produce a single diagram that always matches the pickups supplied.

[WeirdBits]

This should help.


(Edit: Ninja'd by Simon)

[Borgs]

With 4 wire pickups, the wire soldered to the shield is the ground wire, so those should be soldered to the back of a pot.

The two other wires soldered together (red and white) join the two pickup coils (that make up the humbucker) together and can be used to split the coil for single-coil operation (with a suitable extra switch) or are left unused for standard humbucker operation. They should be insulated with some tape to prevent then shorting out to ground on something.

The black wire will be the signal wire which goes to the volume pot.

The factories change pickup supplier from time to time, and the wire colours change (there is no universal standard). The pickups used can also change from single wire (plus shield) to 4-wire (plus shield) connections and back. So it's hard to produce a single diagram that always matches the pickups supplied.

Thanks for the info Simon. I also noticed that I have received one A500 pot and two B500 pots. According to instructions the A 500 is the volume and the B500 tone. Does it matter if you use either? Thanks.

[jugglindan]

Thanks for the info Simon. I also noticed that I have received one A500 pot and two B500 pots. According to instructions the A 500 is the volume and the B500 tone. Does it matter if you use either? Thanks.

Definitely use the A500k pot for volume. That's a logarithmic pot which helps the volume adjustment sound smoother due to the way we perceive volume changes. The B500k linear pot will work, but you will hear most of the useful volume adjustments in the first quarter turn of the knob (more or less). Tone is less critical, so you will see people using either A or B pots for tone.

Edit:
More info here.