Re: Followup - bypassing and removing volume/tone pots

Andy <nospam@> wrote:
RichL wrote:

Firstly, thankyou all for the replies.

No prob, glad to help.


OK, here's what I see with that diagram.

First make sure you realize which way the switch will give you
series and which will give you parallel. Also make sure that
there's a jumper wire between the top left terminal and the middle
right terminal.

Yep. Pickup lead went through both terminals and is soldered at both.

When the switch (as oriented in the diagram) is in the UP position,
the BOTTOM two sets of terminals are connected together. This is
"PARALLEL". Signal from the hot side of pup#1 gets routed to the
middle-right terminal, and the switch directs that to the
right-arrow "to selector switch". The ground side of pup#2 gets
routed to ground, and the hot side goes to (another terminal on) the
selector switch.

When the switch, as oriented in the diagram, is in the DOWN
position, the TOP two sets of terminals are connected together.
This is "SERIES". Signal from the hot side of pup # 1 is now routed
to connect with the ground from pup # 2 and the hot from the latter
goes to your selector switch.

One way to check this out is that when you're in the SERIES
position, you should hear precisely the same sound when your
selector switch is EITHER in the middle OR at one of the end
positions. At the other end position, you should hear nothing.
When you're in the PARALLEL position, the selector switch should
function as it normally does.

Yep, this is exactly what happens.

With respect to pickup polarity, if the set of pups worked correctly
in its usual circuit with polarities as shown, it should work the
same way with this. Also, if the pickups are oriented correctly for
parallel, they should be for series also. No way you'll get "in
phase" with parallel and then "out of phase" with series. If one
pickup is in there backwards, you'd get out of phase for both.

It all looks good to me.

Ditto.

And, colour me stupid...it's all working as it should. Turns out I
just don't find series wiring, with these particular pickups, in this
particular guitar especially useful.

That may not be all that surprising. You'll find a bigger perceptible
difference with narrower-width pickups like Strat pickups. The Jazzmaster
pickups are more like P90s. I've got one guitar with P90-style pickups with
series/parallel, like you said, series has more lower mids, parallel a
little more "sparkly", but the difference only comes alive when things are
cranked up to the point where the amp's distorting.

I ran a multimeter across sleeve
and tip as Tony suggested, and observed a doubling of resistance in
series compared to parallel.

See separate post. Series should be 4 x parallel but it's conceivable
there's an explanation (or more than one!).

I didn't get a chance yesterday to play at any great volume (it was
too late) so I didn't pick up on the difference. Had rehearsal
tonight. Their seems to be a big 'push' towards the lower-mids in
series, whereas parallel has the typical warm but still chimey (far
less mids) sound I'm used to.

Yup. If you don't like buckers, generally you won't like the series
arrangement.

If I was using heavier distortion a lot I could see it coming in
handy. If I need 'heavy' distortion I use a different guitar however
:-)

I expect my desire for a 'bigger' sound from the bridge pickup may be
solved by one of these :-)

http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/jm-wr.shtml


Hmmm, those look like the Fralin P-92s I put on my custom-made guitar. But
the difference is, on the P-92s, the coils only extend over three strings
each (i.e., where the pole pieces are visible). Take the cover off and it
looks sorta like a P-bass pickup.


Thanks again...(slaps forehead)

Glad I could help! (if I did...) It's nice to be useful in my advancing
dotage.


.

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