Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 15, 2018 at 4:27pm

The GuitarElectronics.com one is a bit off. It's wrong. Not sure why you would want to wire ground to the output lug of a pot. 

Now a 1950's wiring would have you solder the cap between your center lug of the volume pot to the ground lug of the tone. Then solder the output (center) lug of the tone to it's body. This would give you a punchier sound. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on July 15, 2018 at 5:02pm

Hmm thanks I appreciate the reply. I noticed there’s no wire on the backs of the potentiometers between vol and tone . Such as in the hand drawing . I followed the hand drawing and got sound but not the ability to turn down volume. I then saw a diagram( pbass )wiring doesn’t include the wire that joins the pots....could be the problem?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 15, 2018 at 4:52pm

I've seen them both ways. Not sure what the difference is. I've wired them up in my Pbass like the two. Do know that single coil guitars are wired like the GuitarElectronics.com diagram. If your good at soldering try it one way for a wile. The rewire and try it the other. Be a real bummer if they both sounded the same though. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on July 15, 2018 at 8:33pm

Not sure why I have two replies. Thought I deleted that first one. no idea why my second one is after yours Jon. Technology is a strange place.....

Anyway the hand drawn diagram is right. There is a grounding wire between pots. However the Buzzard's doesn't have it. Didn't see that when looking. Perhaps the buzzard's is meant to be installed on a shielded pick guard. The shielding itself would complete the ground. But it doesn't say. 

So if you have your pickup going into lug one and out lug two with lug three grounded then the volume should work. Then there should be a grounding wire from pot to pot. And from the volume pot to both your bridge and the output jack. The tone pot should have a connection from the volume pot's lug one to it's lug three. With the cap on lug two going to ground on the tone pot. And a wire going from pot to pot to carry the ground to the tone pot.

I have a PBass. So I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled it apart. Yes I have a ground going between the pots. 

Have you tried reversing your hot and ground from the one Pbass pickup? You may be trying to go in through the out door.  Or are you using both of them? 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on July 16, 2018 at 1:08am

Cause the blue rat, thank you again

yeah should be functioning ...these are new pots and wired up like the drawing. I even did the wiring a second time to be sure.  All I could think was that the pbass pups black wire doesn’t belong as the pickups are joined together by a black wire to begin with....? I should have volume ...it’s weird ...I’d hate to reverse the pickup wires to no avail. The brand is an older Wilkerson pbass pups

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by JL on July 16, 2018 at 2:40am

get a toy compass from the dollar store and check the orientation of the magnets in the 2 pups.  often pbass split pickups are humbucking so that one is N up and the other is S up.

also use a multimeter and check continuity through each pickup, make sure you are getting a similar reading for each (1K-15K possible).

try connecting the pup directly to the jack, skip the vol/tone and make sure that bit works.

All 3 diagrams are correct (in their own way)

the first two (guitar electronics and hand drawn) have the pot+cap shorting across the hot->ground to filter out high frequencies as you turn the knob.  the 3rd one (buzzard's) goes the other way, with the pot+cap in series in one leg to the jack will filter low frequencies out as you turn the tone knob.

• ▶ Reply