Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

[tvrfan2003]

Not sure if posting in right place, but I am building a bass and have a newer style P/U that has white/black wiring per the S/D diagrams, but I also have an NOS DeArmond 60's pickup I want to use as well with blend pot, BUT....., it has brown/black/bare silver wiring? If looking at bottom of pickup there is a white covered wire over silver soldered top left corner to bottom right corner. The brown is then soldered to bottom left, and black to top right....

What equates to the white/black on modern wiring p/u
Sorry for what is likely a silly question, but love this old p/u and dont want to wire it wrong...any help GREATLY appreciated!

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

colour coeds change from company to company...there is no standard wiring colour code.

You'll have to just wire it up and see what happens.

Don't worry, wiring it up wrong won't hurt it

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

What you have is more than likely a positive, negative and a separate wire that grounds the body of the pickup. The ground is there to remove RFI from the circuit. If you have a multimeter test the leads, the ground should not complete a circuit and you can tie the negative and ground together. Depending on the polarity of the pickup you can swap the positive and negative wires to work together with the other pickup on your switch. Just make sure the shield/ground doesn't go to the hot lug because that would feed RFI noise into the circuit rather than to the ground.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

^ +1

At a rough guess, I'd say
black = positive/hot,
brown = negative/ground,
bare = screen/ground.

Expect the following meter readings.
1) 0 Ohms reading between the end of the bare wire and the metal case of the pickup. (Open circuit.)
2) Infinite Ohms between the black wire and the metal casing. (No circuit.)
3) Infinite Ohms between the brown wire and the metal casing. (No circuit.)
4) Some sort of reading between the black and brown wires. (In the kOhms region.)

NOTE: In the event that you do get a resistance reading between the bare wire and either the black or brown wires, the insulated wire with the higher DC resistance reading is the "hot" output and the insulated wire with roughly half that previous resistance is a coil tap.

 

[tvrfan2003]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

Funkfingers! I think your right, but admit while I OWN an ohmmeter, my skill at using it is REALLY limited The Ohm section has settings for 20m,200k,2k, 200, and a "Sound" continuity setting..i get nothing on the numeric settings noted above, but on the tone it displays "1" when static, and I get the same display when doing #1,#2,#3 checks from your post, and when touching brown and black get "1458"....Am I correct that the "1" is signally open circuit as you expected, and that the reading between brown and black confirms what you thought would happen? Was expecting to see "0" but didnt, but assume its same? So that would mean that that sa Ipsnowdog indicated I could tie the bare/brown together and solder to ground, and use the black as power???
Sorry for more silly questions but do appreciate helP

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

The 14.58 figure is a reasonable DC resistance reading for a passive bass guitar pickup.

My approach to wiring this PU into circuit would be to ground the brown and bare wires separately. In the event that the DeArmond PU is electrically out-of-phase with your "newer" style pickup, it will be simple to reverse the black and brown conductor wires to correct the problem.

Re-reading your OP, I am intrigued by the short run of wire between two tab connections on the underside of the DeArmond PU. If the PU is a dual-coil, hum-cancelling design, it would be logical to assume that this short, corner-to-corner link connects the two coils. Converting to four conductor plus shield cable would open up numerous wiring and tonal possibilities.

 

[tvrfan2003]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

It looks like a HB ...trying to attach pic of front and back

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

It looks like a HB.

That is because it is a humbucker.

Please ignore my suggestion about rewiring this pickup with modern cable. Leave it exactly as it is. :cool2:

 

[tvrfan2003]

Re: Old DeArmond Bass Pickup Wiring question

Told you they were silly questions ..Ok, so I will treat the black as hot, ground the brown and the bare seperately so I can reverse the black and brown if its out of phase....if I can tell the difference
Tks again for your help, appreciate it, putting bass together this week and now can move forward with wiring on weekend...Tks again.