MY PICKUP WIRING IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!

[shababy32]

Good evening yall. Before i am committed to a mental institution or if I don't commit myself, could anyone help me with this situation I'm in.

I recently bought a jazz bass wiring harness. It has a master volume, blend, and tone. I have a set of Ulyate P/J pickups. It says that the bridge pickup hot wire goes into the blend knob hole that is furthest away from the plate. The neck p/u hot wire goes into the blend control hole closest to the plate. I took the ground wire and put them together and soldered it on the top of the volume pot.

The first time I wired it bass ackwards and soldered the neck pickup on the bottom. The neck pickup worked fine but the bridge pickup..Nothing. So I wired it correctly the second time. My neck pickup works fine, but no bridge pickup. The volume seems to be working like the blend and the blend seems to be working like the volume.

What is goin on? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[40Hz]

Follow this wiring diagram. This is the most common way to do it. (I personally think you're better off going with a standard VVT arrangement on a JB , but that's me.)

 

[okabass]

(I personally think you're better off going with a standard VVT arrangement on a JB , but that's me.)

Me too. Or I like VTVT, it has something nice.
On my experience passive blend doesn't work well, not even with correct blend pot. But active blend works ok.

 

[shababy32]

I do thank y'all, but why woukd I be getting nothing from the bridge puckup?

 

[JKos]

Pics?

- John

 

[shababy32]

Well I'm not able to get pics but i did notice that i have all my ground wires soldered on the master volume. That's the only difference .

 

[Jazz Ad]

Did you make sure the bridge pickup works fine by itself, wired straight to the jack?
Then that pickups wired parallel together to the jack are fine, not out of phase?

 

[40Hz]

I do thank y'all, but why woukd I be getting nothing from the bridge puckup?

Well I'm not able to get pics but i did notice that i have all my ground wires soldered on the master volume. That's the only difference .

If you're not getting signal from the bridge pickup, the pickups is either defective or has a wire broken (unlikely), it's not grounded to anything (possible if you have a bad solder joint), or the hot lead is connected incorrectly. I'd take a close look at the pan pot and make sure the hot leads attach to the center lugs - the neck pickup on the top center pin and the bridge on the lower center pin. Then double check the two diagonal wires are done correctly. And make sure there's no solder bridges shorting between the two ganged pots.

Having all the ground leads connected to one point shouldn't be an issue. A ground is a ground. as long as it's connected to a grounding point somewhere that ultimately connects to the ring tab on your jack it's fine. With low current signals such as you have in a passive guitar circuit, you don't need to worry about ground loops.

But without a clear picture showing exactly what you've got connected to what we could speculate endlessly.

Sometimes when you have an oddball situation like that it's easiest and quickest to just redo everything rather than try to figure out what's wrong if everything was wired correctly as far as you can tell.

 

[Haroldo]

If you're not getting signal from the bridge pickup, the pickups is either defective or has a wire broken (unlikely), it's not grounded to anything (possible if you have a bad solder joint), or the hot lead is connected incorrectly. I'd take a close look at the pan pot and make sure the hot leads attach to the center lugs - the neck pickup on the top center pin and the bridge on the lower center pin. Then double check the two diagonal wires are done correctly. And make sure there's no solder bridges shorting between the two ganged pots.

Having all the ground leads connected to one point shouldn't be an issue. A ground is a ground. as long as it's connected to a grounding point somewhere that ultimately connects to the ring tab on your jack it's fine. With low current signals such as you have in a passive guitar circuit, you don't need to worry about ground loops.

But without a clear picture showing exactly what you've got connected to what we could speculate endlessly.

Sometimes when you have an oddball situation like that it's easiest and quickest to just redo everything rather than try to figure out what's wrong if everything was wired correctly as far as you can tell.

I was just about to mention starting over is sometimes the best option. It allows you a clean slate and total control.

 

[Giffro]

Follow this wiring diagram. This is the most common way to do it. (I personally think you're better off going with a standard VVT arrangement on a JB , but that's me.)

View attachment 2959506

Great diags 40Hz

 

[40Hz]

Great diags 40Hz

Thank Seymour Duncan. Their website has dozens of high quality wiring diagrams to cover many different pickup configurations.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

S.D. has some of the better diagrams & I actually happen to agree with most of them, except where they use 250K Ohm pots & use the "standard" setup for Lester Polsfuss (LP).

 

[Zoobiedood]

S.D. has some of the better diagrams & I actually happen to agree with most of them, except where they use 250K Ohm pots & use the "standard" setup for Lester Polsfuss (LP).

Ha! You talking about this?

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Yes, some things they get right on there is the value of the pots & the way the caps are grounded (not suspended between pots like on Gibson's own drawing). I just don't like LP wiring, the way that each volume can completely silence the instrument when both pickups are selected, and the treble cut controls are not independent, even when turning down the volume of one or both pickups.

 

[40Hz]

S.D. has some of the better diagrams & I actually happen to agree with most of them, except where they use 250K Ohm pots & use the "standard" setup for Lester Polsfuss (LP).

Your faith in the 500k linear pot is well known Brother KBD. And we praise you for your ministry to the unenlightened.

 

[40Hz]

Great diags 40Hz

If you’re super gung-ho on bass wiring, there’s a free for the download 495-page labor of love called: Cadfael’s “Small” Collection of Wiring Plans for Electric Bass.



It’s in German, but it’s easy to follow despite that because 95% of it is just diagrams and it’s easy to suss out what’s what. Technical German is pretty close to English for a lot of things anyway. If there’s something that still puzzles you there’s always Google Translate you can run a word or phrase through to get a good enough translation that you can work it out.

The host sites tend to move around a bit, but one place you can currently grab a copy from is here.

 

[Giffro]

If you’re super gung-ho on bass wiring, there’s a free for the download 495-page labor of love called: Cadfael’s “Small” Collection of Wiring Plans for Electric Bass.

View attachment 2960664

It’s in German, but it’s easy to follow despite that because 95% of it is just diagrams and it’s easy to suss out what’s what. Technical German is pretty close to English for a lot of things anyway. If there’s something that still puzzles you there’s always Google Translate you can run a word or phrase through to get a good enough translation that you can work it out.

The host sites tend to move around a bit, but one place you can currently grab a copy from is here.

Thanks 40Hz..there is a German-English translation dictionary at the back of the PDF for most of the parts in the diags anyway which would help. Looks great. Thanks again.

 

[40Hz]

Thanks 40Hz..there is a German-English translation dictionary at the back of the PDF for most of the parts in the diags anyway which would help. Looks great. Thanks again.

Yep. That’s a welcome addition to the latest edition. I still remember enough of the German I took in high school to be able to muddle through with a dictionary though. But usually the diagrams are more than enough for me.