Wiring bass humbuckers...

[fender3x]

I have a question about wiring bass humbuckers... I have a set of Bill Lawrence EB50 pickups and am wondering about the best way to wire them up. My current thinking is to wire them like a Jazz bass with VVT controls and no selector switch. I *think* that's also the way T-birds are wired, although I think some have a selector switch and others don't. No big deal to roll off the volume on the pup you don't want rather than use a switch, I figure. Most mfgs where I have been able to find a wiring diagram seem to wire 2-pickup, 2-volume control basses so that the volumes are independent. that's true with Rics, and with my G&L...

So two questions...

If I wire it like a Jazz is there any reason I would need a selector switch for the pups? Some basses seem to have them and some don't. Wondering if there is any sonic advantage to one or the other.

I am also curious whether anyone uses "Les Paul" wiring in a bass? Is there any reason to either do, or not do, this with a bass? Even the Rics with 2V2T controls seem *not* to do this, and am I wondering why?

[wazkelly]

Personally i would go master vol, master tone, traditional 3 way pup selector switch.
This allows for easier coil splitting if you choose to go down that path with 2 push/pull pots.
Traditional LP wiring would also work.
Traditional J Bass with 2 x vol & 1 x tone is ok and really only beneficial for cosmetic purposes IMO as once you back one off slightly it drops out of the mix.
Cheers, Waz

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[fender3x]

I like the simplicity of that, but the pups I will be using are identical, so I'd like to have two volumes to be able to balance them.

[wazkelly]

Raising and lowering pup height helps to achieve the right volume difference ehen used with a switch and master volume.
Suppose it all comes down to what holes are already pre drilled and how much room there is for more controls?

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[fender3x]

It has holes for pup selector, 2V 2T and jack...but I will be doing a solid color on the front, so plugging a couple of holes is not a big deal... or I might use them for switches to do series/single-coil/parallel switch... Although, lately I have been thinking that I never use the parallel setting on a bass that has Series/Single/Parallel...so a simple push-pull switch might be more elegant....

[wazkelly]

Parallel does not usually sound any good on Bass.

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[fender3x]

That's been my experience with my G&L and my DiMarzio J's. I suppose I should learn from that ;-)

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[Simon Barden]

But my old OLP Musicman style bass had one pickup with two coils wired in parallel with individual volume controls (like the PBG MM kit is designed for) and that sounded fantastic. As long as you get the polarity right so they aren't anti-phase, then they should sound fine. Don't forget that on a Jazz bass, the two coils are wired in parallel and people seem to quite like the sound with both volumes up. Parallel is the normal way of wiring two (or more) pickups. It's always going to sound a bit thinner than series because of the phase cancelling, but with some twin coil pickups, series can just be too fat sounding, so parallel is a better option.

[fender3x]

That's interesting. My Dimarzios sounded thin in parallel, as well as less hot. With the G&L parallel is not bad. It's just not quite as crisp as single coil and doesn't have the volume or booty of series.

I am thinking I may need to wire up an external control circuit to try out variations before I commit.

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[wazkelly]

I was referring to mainly out of phase parallel which seems to be most common suggested wiring on a push/pull switch for humbucker. Sounds horrid on a Bass and not much better on a guitar other than Fender Strat or Tele.
Parallel in phase such as J Bass is ok but when paired seems lower output than just one pup on its own.
On my recently finished MMB4 the coil split to isolate front coil and rear coil provides nicer sounds even if there is a significant drop in volume compared to normal series humbucker setup. Maybe a couple of mini dpdt on-off-on switches might be the answer as that provides a lot more useable combinations.

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