PJ bass Simplification Consternation?!

[merseymale]

Hope someone can help me!

I’ve never had a bass with 2pickups before but now I find I have 2 good pickups to replace the disappointing 1 on my precision copy.
So I thought what I would do is use a blend but I found them kinda counter intuitive when I have encountered them in the past and in stores, etc plus I’m now hearing from various forums that there’s problems with graduations/variations and suchlike and two volumes are the only way to go? But more than one volume are just too messy forbme to handle “in the heat of battle“, as it were.

I had originally thought of making a true blend control out of variable resistors on 2 wafers of a 11way rotary switch but trying to find one that’s the right size to fit into a PBass cavity is a bit of a nightmare!

So I thought if selector switches are good enough for teles then they’ll be good enough for me and those subtle variations inbetween, Say, 80% bridge pick up/20% neck pick up will, alas, have to be sacrificed for the sake of simplicity...

So, While looking for just a three way selector diagram, I started hearing about a possible 4 or more positions -much like the 4way telecaster mod where one has both pickups in series that I’ve liked on telecasters I’ve modded- so Maybe my multiple rotary idea isn’t a dead end?


Basically, my main criteria is to have a “tone control” that gives a brighter, lighter or softer signal the more it’s turned clockwise and the tone gets darker/stronger when turned anticlockwise for intuitiveness’ sake. My ideal would be would have to have the jazz Single coil on its own in one setting; the precision humbucker, In series with itself & on its own in another setting & both of these together in parallel
(100%/100%) as a bare minimum


It would be very nice to have a fourth position where the precision humbucker is alone & in parallel with itself but certainly a major secondary consideration would be to have both of them in series with each other(Like that four-way tele mod) and IF the Humbucker could be reduced in volume so as not to overpower the single jazz during this then that would be great or IF there is the possibility of a fifth or even sixth option where the humbucker is in parallel with itself BUT also in series with the Jazz single coil that would be even better -especially if this is in keeping with that convention of the so-called “tone” control going to the right being brighter and going counterclockwise to the left being darker!!


Maybe I’m asking too much?
I want the moon on a stick!!!


If there was just the telecaster four-way wiring available I suppose I could also put a series/parallel push/pull on the volume pot for the precision but would that be a bit finicky on stage..? I’m also assuming that putting the precision ‘bucker out of phase with itself or just putting the both pickups out of phase (half or otherwise) with each other -whether or not that midd humbucker is in series or parallel with itself or in phase with itself, or whatever- is likely a bad idea…?


Any thoughts or especially diagrams you have for anything I’ve mentioned above will be greatly appreciated BTW those “subtle variations” available when two-volume pots are used that I mentioned at the beginning could, perhaps, be possible as presets within the rotary switch?

Thanks in advance and also for reading this far!

[thetragichero]

mark I of my bass had an lp-style toggle switch for pickup selection - completely useless for bass, in my opinion. the pickup sounds are SO different that there was no way I'd flick the switch mid song and get a sound that would make my bass sound cohesive

mark ii replaced that with a 500k MN taper blend pot (I like bourns and that's what it happened to be!) I purchased off Amazon for like ten bucks. I LOVE THE sound of a P pickup, but dialing in just a bit of the attack from the bridge pickup is dreamy!

you *could* add in a bright switch (the original music man sabre basses had one), but what about just throwing a big horkin 1M tone pot in there and just not normally playing with the tone maxed, so you can just dial in more?

[thetragichero]

this is mark iii or iv, with an active two band preamp and active/passive 3pdt toggle. I have s push/pull series/parallel for the bridge humbucker that can allow me to dial in that scooped mid slap tone (used the first version using 2sk117Y jfets here: www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29425 and i'm able to dial in more bass and treble than I needh

series/parallel on a P pickup will certainly give you lower output and a different sound, but remember that it is a split coil instead of a normal humbucker, so both coils are not sensing the same strings. so you can do it, but I'm not sure it'll tickle your fancy

most J type pickups I've encountered are quite lower in output than P types (while not the end all measure of output, my P pickup is about 16k dcr while the dual J humbucker is around 8k), so pickup height will have a large effect on . my P is almost flush with the pickguard while the humbucker is jacked up about as high as it'll go without being hit by vibrating strings

[newey]

Basically, my main criteria is to have a “tone control” that gives a brighter, lighter or softer signal the more it’s turned clockwise and the tone gets darker/stronger when turned anticlockwise for intuitiveness’ sake. My ideal would be would have to have the jazz Single coil on its own in one setting; the precision humbucker, In series with itself & on its own in another setting & both of these together in parallel
(100%/100%) as a bare minimum


It would be very nice to have a fourth position where the precision humbucker is alone & in parallel with itself but certainly a major secondary consideration would be to have both of them in series with each other(Like that four-way tele mod) and IF the Humbucker could be reduced in volume so as not to overpower the single jazz during this then that would be great or IF there is the possibility of a fifth or even sixth option where the humbucker is in parallel with itself BUT also in series with the Jazz single coil that would be even better -especially if this is in keeping with that convention of the so-called “tone” control going to the right being brighter and going counterclockwise to the left being darker!!

It isn't clear to me exactly what you're asking for here. Are you envisioning a 4-way Tele-style switch to control the pickups, coupled with a "brighter/darker" tone pot? When you say the pot should turn one way for brighter, the other way for darker, are you meaning a center-detented pot, with a bass cut in one direction and a treble cut in the other direction?

[merseymale]

Mar 29, 2019 8:39:20 GMT -5 thetragichero said:

mark I of my bass had an lp-style toggle switch for pickup selection - completely useless for bass, in my opinion. the pickup sounds are SO different that there was no way I'd flick the switch mid song and get a sound that would make my bass sound cohesive

mark ii replaced that with a 500k MN taper blend pot (I like bourns and that's what it happened to be!) I purchased off Amazon for like ten bucks. I LOVE THE sound of a P pickup, but dialing in just a bit of the attack from the bridge pickup is dreamy!

you *could* add in a bright switch (the original music man sabre basses had one), but what about just throwing a big horkin 1M tone pot in there and just not normally playing with the tone maxed, so you can just dial in more?

Yup y’prob right, I guess

[merseymale]

Mar 29, 2019 12:36:36 GMT -5 newey said:

Basically, my main criteria is to have a “tone control” that gives a brighter, lighter or softer signal the more it’s turned clockwise and the tone gets darker/stronger when turned anticlockwise for intuitiveness’ sake. My ideal would be would have to have the jazz Single coil on its own in one setting; the precision humbucker, In series with itself & on its own in another setting & both of these together in parallel
(100%/100%) as a bare minimum


It would be very nice to have a fourth position where the precision humbucker is alone & in parallel with itself but certainly a major secondary consideration would be to have both of them in series with each other(Like that four-way tele mod) and IF the Humbucker could be reduced in volume so as not to overpower the single jazz during this then that would be great or IF there is the possibility of a fifth or even sixth option where the humbucker is in parallel with itself BUT also in series with the Jazz single coil that would be even better -especially if this is in keeping with that convention of the so-called “tone” control going to the right being brighter and going counterclockwise to the left being darker!!

It isn't clear to me exactly what you're asking for here. Are you envisioning a 4-way Tele-style switch to control the pickups, coupled with a "brighter/darker" tone pot? When you say the pot should turn one way for brighter, the other way for darker, are you meaning a center-detented pot, with a bass cut in one direction and a treble cut in the other direction?

I suppose I am asking is there any wiring that can be done with rotary switch beyond what a three-way toggle could achieve?

I should’ve said Rotary Switch instead of Pot! (in my original post) so when I say darker sounding selection, for instance the series precision humbucker, I’d prefer that towards the counterclockwise position of the rotary switch and the brighter kind of tones to be towards the clockwise positions of that rotary switch that replaces a regular tone control

[newey]

OK, so we're talking a rotary switch to control tone? What is controlling the pickup switching? Are you just going to use two volume pots?

As for using a rotary switch to switch between caps for a "fixed values" tone control, you might want to search for ashcatlt's posts about his Rickenbacker, in whihc he replaced alll the pots with fixed-value rotaries, switching resistors to control volume and switching caps for the tone controls. To do this sort of switching, you don't need a rotary with multiple "decks", and a single-deck rotary won't be any deeper or take up any more space than a regular pot.

Obviously, ash's Ric isn't a bass, and presumably the values of caps used would need to be different, but the wiring would be the same.

As for pickup switching, again, I'm unclear on what you want to do there, and there are multiple options. I built a P-bass a while back (I think there's some pix in the gallery and some sound clips as well) that has a Strat SC in the neck position, hidden under the pickguard, with a regular P-Bass Pup in its usual location. Pickup switching is via two P/P pots on the regular V and T controls, wired in a "binary tree" arrangement. We're discussed "binary tree" before, this is the same- it gives either pup alone, both in parallel and both in series. So you might want to look at that type of scheme for the pickup controls.

I'm with Tragic Hero on the issue of the utility of switching the bass "on the fly" during a song, but then again, I'm no bass player. In just playing around with mine, I have thought that the series setting with both pickups might be used for the odd bass solo mid-song, like maybe if your band was covering "My Generation" or something. . .

[Yogi B]

Mar 30, 2019 7:51:14 GMT -5 newey said:

OK, so we're talking a rotary switch to control tone? What is controlling the pickup switching?

Control tone via switching pickups, i.e. any additional sounds being inserted where they tonally make sense, say something like:

Tonality	Selection
brighter darker	P + -J
J
J + P
P
J × P

---

Also while we're throwing ideas around:

• For my J-bass one thing I considered was having the pickups wired in series with a master volume and tone, then having a third push-pull pot blending out one of the pickups, which one chosen by whether it were pushed or pulled.

• Mar 29, 2019 7:23:19 GMT -5 merseymale said:

  I had originally thought of making a true blend control out of variable resistors on 2 wafers of a 11way rotary switch but trying to find one that’s the right size to fit into a PBass cavity is a bit of a nightmare!

  If you didn't mind doing this albeit with series blending instead, you could possibly get away with only a single wafer/pole rotary switch.

[Deleted]

hmm , there are 4P5T switches that are a NICE size, there is a cheap one that has nasty metal fine tabs. or if you can find them a nice small one no bigger than a pots bottom.

That would mean could get  you easy could do this with a 3P5T switch (Dont care if it has more T, or more P, this is the min spec) 

1	2	3	4	5	Common
OUT	GND	OUT	OUT	OUT	P+
GND	GND	GND	GND	J+	P-
GND	OUT	OUT	GND	P-	J+
OUT	GND	GND	GND	GND	J-

In this case would have P+ on the OUTPUT perm, and in stage 2) where P- is on GND i would have it on OUT
>Just a NOTE, for knowing which way is Clock wise and Anti-Clock wise, up to you to find it out before soildering<\\\\\\\\
>Working off Yogi list 1) being bright till 5) being Dark!<


Some thing might want to look in to

onlybass.com/topic/63507-megatone-circuit-tonalit%C3%A9midboost-passif-diy/

[merseymale]

Mar 30, 2019 7:51:14 GMT -5 newey said:

OK, so we're talking a rotary switch to control tone? What is controlling the pickup switching? Are you just going to use two volume pots?

As for using a rotary switch to switch between caps for a "fixed values" tone control, you might want to search for ashcatlt's posts about his Rickenbacker, in whihc he replaced alll the pots with fixed-value rotaries, switching resistors to control volume and switching caps for the tone controls. To do this sort of switching, you don't need a rotary with multiple "decks", and a single-deck rotary won't be any deeper or take up any more space than a regular pot.

Obviously, ash's Ric isn't a bass, and presumably the values of caps used would need to be different, but the wiring would be the same.

As for pickup switching, again, I'm unclear on what you want to do there, and there are multiple options. I built a P-bass a while back (I think there's some pix in the gallery and some sound clips as well) that has a Strat SC in the neck position, hidden under the pickguard, with a regular P-Bass Pup in its usual location. Pickup switching is via two P/P pots on the regular V and T controls, wired in a "binary tree" arrangement. We're discussed "binary tree" before, this is the same- it gives either pup alone, both in parallel and both in series. So you might want to look at that type of scheme for the pickup controls.

I'm with Tragic Hero on the issue of the utility of switching the bass "on the fly" during a song, but then again, I'm no bass player. In just playing around with mine, I have thought that the series setting with both pickups might be used for the odd bass solo mid-song, like maybe if your band was covering "My Generation" or something. . .

I wouldn’t really be wanting to switch in the middle of a song it’s more a case of in between songs!

But everything else you say It’s really food for thought I’m going to implement it this weekend

Thanks

[merseymale]

Mar 30, 2019 17:13:21 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

Mar 30, 2019 7:51:14 GMT -5 newey said:

OK, so we're talking a rotary switch to control tone? What is controlling the pickup switching?

Control tone via switching pickups, i.e. any additional sounds being inserted where they tonally make sense, say something like:

Tonality	Selection
brighter darker	P + -J
J
J + P
P
J × P

---

Also while we're throwing ideas around:

• For my J-bass one thing I considered was having the pickups wired in series with a master volume and tone, then having a third push-pull pot blending out one of the pickups, which one chosen by whether it were pushed or pulled.

• Mar 29, 2019 7:23:19 GMT -5 merseymale said:

  I had originally thought of making a true blend control out of variable resistors on 2 wafers of a 11way rotary switch but trying to find one that’s the right size to fit into a PBass cavity is a bit of a nightmare!

  If you didn't mind doing this albeit with series blending instead, you could possibly get away with only a single wafer/pole rotary switch.

The lighter/darker diagram is perfect, yep

[merseymale]

May 12, 2019 5:53:04 GMT -5 @angelsbunny said:

hmm , there are 4P5T switches that are a NICE size, there is a cheap one that has nasty metal fine tabs. or if you can find them a nice small one no bigger than a pots bottom.

That would mean could get  you easy could do this with a 3P5T switch (Dont care if it has more T, or more P, this is the min spec) 

1	2	3	4	5	Common
OUT	GND	OUT	OUT	OUT	P+
GND	GND	GND	GND	J+	P-
GND	OUT	OUT	GND	P-	J+
OUT	GND	GND	GND	GND	J-

In this case would have P+ on the OUTPUT perm, and in stage 2) where P- is on GND i would have it on OUT
>Just a NOTE, for knowing which way is Clock wise and Anti-Clock wise, up to you to find it out before soildering<\\\\\\\\
>Working off Yogi list 1) being bright till 5) being Dark!<


Some thing might want to look in to

onlybass.com/topic/63507-megatone-circuit-tonalit%C3%A9midboost-passif-diy/

Five different sounds of the term of a rotary switch sounds great but what would be the permutations?

I mean would it be bridge pick up on its own then middle pick up and bridge in parallel & out of phase then bridge pick up in parallel in phase with middle then middle pick up on its own and then finally bridge pick up and middle in series?

[Deleted]

it will be in the Order that Yogi suggested


LEFT SIDE is 4P5T and RIGHT SIDE is 3P6T

[merseymale]

Jul 3, 2019 13:47:32 GMT -5 @angelsbunny said:

it will be in the Order that Yogi suggested


LEFT SIDE is 4P5T and RIGHT SIDE is 3P6T

Is this correct:

“+” = parallel
“x”= series
“-“= out of phase?

[merseymale]

Jul 3, 2019 13:47:32 GMT -5 @angelsbunny said:

it will be in the Order that Yogi suggested


LEFT SIDE is 4P5T and RIGHT SIDE is 3P6T

(BTW Do you have any links or ideas about where to get such rotary switches that are small enough to fit in a control cavity?

I’ve looked on eBay (!) But they’re all really HUGE 🤷‍♂️

[Deleted]

Most are the same size, but that one with the cables off is that bit smaller.
All off Ebay.. the SILVER and the WHITE/Black one are sort of standard at 25mm (1")
the one with Cables is a bit smaller (i did get them from CHINA Ebay but cant find them now)
but if put in the RIGHT spot you can JUST put the 25mm switches in a P-Bass cut out.

And I corrected the COLOURs, one on the right should look sort of same as the one on the left!!


Example of 4P6T at 20mm


Right im off, Best of LUCK and worse Case MAPLINS do the 25mm size switches

[merseymale]

Cheers!