Scott Miller
New member
Re: SMB 4a 3-coil alnico for music man - help please!
Okay---here is the deal. Our 3-coil pickup is designed specifically to be used with a stock '3-coil' Musicman preamp. The hookup is directly to the circuit board, which does all of the switching. That preamp also uses gain compensation to adjust for the different levels of output between series/parallel/split(hum-canceling). NONE of the wiring associated with our standard 4-conductor humbucking pickups will apply to the 3-coil MM pickup. The 3-coil pickup WILL NOT work with our MM preamps. Wiring one of the 3-coils with passive controls will be difficult in the sense that I don't have any diagrams showing how to do it. It certainly can be be done---I just never have.
Okay---here is the deal. Our 3-coil pickup is designed specifically to be used with a stock '3-coil' Musicman preamp. The hookup is directly to the circuit board, which does all of the switching. That preamp also uses gain compensation to adjust for the different levels of output between series/parallel/split(hum-canceling). NONE of the wiring associated with our standard 4-conductor humbucking pickups will apply to the 3-coil MM pickup. The 3-coil pickup WILL NOT work with our MM preamps. Wiring one of the 3-coils with passive controls will be difficult in the sense that I don't have any diagrams showing how to do it. It certainly can be be done---I just never have.
