Wiring Help PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[David Grier]

Hello MIMF Family Members……I need HELP!

I ventured out to make my own Bass Guitar and I am happy with it….pictures to come soon, but my issue now is the wiring of these pickups and I am having a HARD TIME….I got them because I thought that they seller was going to send me what he advertised, but he has not gotten back with me in 2 weeks and counting, SO, with that being said, I am reaching out to my MIMF FAMILY to help me if the can. I wanted active, but they sent me what is listed in the photos and I have no clue as to where to solder the wires at all….I ordered a 3 pre-wired sets so all I had to do was connect pickups, but as you can see they are not pre-wired…….can someone please HEKP me?

It has 2 capacitors in which I have no idea where they go
2 of the pots have B500K listed on them……which I am thinking is for Volume and Blend
3 of the pots have A500K listed on them……which I am thinking that these are for Bass, Mids, Highs
The input Jack has 2 ports on it………..I really appreciate any HELP in this matter………….GOD BLESS!

[David King]

Nothing active about them as far as I can tell. Where did you get them?
The linear B500K pots are more likely to be for bass and treble control. The other three are volume, volume and passive treble rolloff.
In any event you are missing a preamp circuit board at the very least.

Just download a Jazz bass wiring diagram from somewhere and use that to make a 3 knob passive bass.

[David Grier]

I know….they are not Active, they are passive and I specifically asked for Active. I got them off of eBay which was my 1st mistake. Now I am stuck trying to find a diagram to try and put it together just to see what the Bass sounds like. Can you direct me in which way I can go until I can get in touch with Aguilar to purchase their Pickups and Preamp?

[Peter Wilcox]

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/

Go to the bottom to look at bass diagrams. You can substitute the 500k pots for the 250's.

[David King]

David,

Just curious why you might choose Aguilar over some of the other options? Is it price?

As far as what you have, they could be fine sounding or terrible depending on what they were trying to copy and how well they succeeded. I'd hook them up in series if you have any say in the matter (most dual coil bass pickups come that way).

Looking at the backs of your two volume pots with the lugs down at the bottom. You'll connect the pickup "hot" leads to the center lug. Grounds go to the right hand lugs which get daisy chained together and eventually to the sleeve connection on the jack. Meanwhile the left hand lugs connect together and then to the tip lug of the jack.
Your treble bleed pot is wired with ground on the left and the cap (green chicklet) on the center lug and going to the left lug of the closest volume pot.

[George Semenov]

The B500k pots are linear taper and the A500k are audio taper. Audio taper pots are normally used for volume controls and the linear taper are for the tone controls. Audio taper compensates to the logarithmic way the ear/brain hears.

[David Collins]

The linear pots (B-marked) are actually used for volume rather than tone. Tone controls will act more like an on/off switch at the bottom end with linear, while volume controls can work fine either with linear or audio depending on the use. For a bass circuit with independent volumes and no switch, I would use linear for the volume pots.

Here's a video with audio vs linear tone controls -

http://youtu.be/RjDwjXN9auY

And here's one for volumes -

http://youtu.be/g8SHJvmpNZE

I should have another one up later this week showing effects on blending pickups with independent controls, which may be relevant here. What is the wiring arrangement you are looking for? Traditional Jazz Bass style, independent volume and tone for each pickup, or something different?

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

David (Grier),

It seems to me that you don't have what you asked for so you might not want to do any wiring that would keep you from returning (assuming you can return it) the lot. If you want to get an idea of what the pick-ups sound like, why not install them in your bass and alligator clip them to the output (no controls). Kind of primitive but functional. If you wanted to get inventive you could put a on/on/on switch in the circuit, to choose either or both pick-ups..

The shield (the braided outer wire) are grounded and the inner wire will go to the switch or the jack. The pick ups look potted and only have single concuctor leads so that simplifies matters.