push-pull tone?

[baggman]

I have separated the coils on an old Gibson style bass humbucking pickup. In other words, I've got 4 wires running from the pickup instead of the original 2 wire shielded cable. I've been very carful not to cause any open oils and shorts, etc. I have the 4 wires shielded and running to the control cavity. I'd like to use a 500k push-pull pot to switch the coils from series to parallel in the tone position as opposed to the volume. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments on my idea? Are there any wiring diagrams for this kind of setup on the web? I'd like to see what can be done. I think that since this will effect the tone of the bass, it seems logical to have it in the tone control rather than the volume.

[UnklMickey]

well, if it's the sidewinder (looks like a HB with pole-piece screws across the middle) it's mucho bassy. a good friend of mine had an eb0 copy. he misses that thing. i don't know of any pup with a deeper sound.

no doubt your pup was originally wired in series. being able to switch to parallel will make it much lighter and thinner. nice contrast to the sound you already had.

look on Wolf's site:

www.1728.com/guitar.htm


scroll most of the way down the first page. there's a section that describes how to do a series / parallel with a dpdt switch.

i personally would put it on whatever pot i would adjust least often, to have less chance of accidentally pushing it down. but for me that would be the tone anyway.

'Does anyone have any suggestions or comments on my idea?"

sounds like a good plan to me.

[baggman]

Yes, actually it's an Epiphone sidewinder originally wired in series, so having the option of switching the coils to a parallel configuration seems like the natural. I had an EB-1 with a DiMarzio Model One about 20 years ago and had a push-pull in the the volume control position that simply split the pickup. I think I'll like this better.

[UnklMickey]

well the most complete would be to have series, Acoil, Bcoil, and parallel. but if you had to chose only 2, i agree that series and parallel would probably be the best choice. especially since they would both be hum cancelling.

is this going to be a single pickup bass?