Wiring Help

[micah.whitsel]

So in my free time, I restore and upgrade instruments for a small turnaround profit. Anyways, I recently purchased a somewhat custom PJ bass that I want to not just upgrade the pots and pickups on, but change the configuration completely. The thing is I can't find a wiring diagram for what I'm trying to do.

I want to make separate volume and tone controls for each pickup. It has a split coil P-style pickup and a single coil J-style pickup and is a completely passive instrument. Would it be as simple as wiring them both as if they were lone pickups and then going to the output together? Sorry but I am not fluent enough in tech speech yet to articulate that better, or even to know if that is a rediculous idea or a completely obvious one.

Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!!

For what it's worth I've attached some pictures of the bass and yes, the switch is not attached to anything...

 

[PipeRain]

Re: Wiring Help

I used to have a P-J bass with a similar control layout that was wired with a volume for each pickup, a master tone and a three-way switch.

Essentially you could use this wiring diagram and simply ignore the red and white wires.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Wiring Help

Individual controls go between the pickups and the pickup selector switch. Master controls go between the pickup selector switch and the jack. Individual controls may/will interact with each other when both pickups are on.

 

[PipeRain]

Re: Wiring Help

Individual controls go between the pickups and the pickup selector switch. Master controls go between the pickup selector switch and the jack. Individual controls may/will interact with each other when both pickups are on.

True dat. If I am following the wires right in the photos OP provided that bass will act similar to a Jazz in that if you run both pups wide open there will be a slight output loss that can be easily remedied by rolling either of the volumes back by as little as 3-5%, depending on the pickups. If you use the wiring diagram I linked I believe you will see some of that behavior, but it will be less noticeable than on a standard Jazz or P-Bass Special due to the switch. How you would wire a V-V-T setup with a selector to avoid that issue is beyond my knowledge however.

 

[micah.whitsel]

Re: Wiring Help

Sorry, perhaps I did not explain myself correctly. I wish to eliminate the switch entirely, and instead of having a master tone have 2 individual tone pots for each pickup. I have yet to see this done elsewhere so I'm not sure how feasable it is