Post by bigoldnoob on Apr 20, 2016 11:26:58 GMT
Ok, so yesterday I gave the control cavity another careful inspection. I found this thread where somebody states the colour codes for Wilkinson 5 wire pickups is:
white=coil 1+
black=coil 1-
green=coil 2+
red=coil 2-
silver=sheild
Coil 2+ (green) is always grounded for both PUs all the time. Anyway, following that color code I still could not figure out how the hell it is wired stock (in a way that it makes sense with reality). The switch is a standard 8 pin 5-way Strat switch, which means this thing DEFINITELY CAN BE WIRED IN A USABLE WAY. So I'm first taking out the pickup wires to do a check and find out which cable out of them is what thing, then I'll check the switch positions to confirm they really work like the Strat type, and finally I'm simply wiring it like a 5-way strat, treating the neck pickup like ONE indivisible thing (either wired parallel, or series or even leaving one coil unused, the one I like the most and mismatches EQ/gain the least).
So I'll have 3 "virtual" pickups to play with...
neck = neck PU
middle = bridgeside coil of bridge PU
bridge = neckside coil of bridge PU
Now, as you can see I'm wiring coils swapped for the bridge pickup. The thing is my priority is usable tones. So, when combining things out of both pickups I want to use the more J-ish aproach possible. So, for position 2 (neck&middle) I want to have the most bridgeside coil in the bridge PU (which is not "middle" but "bridge"). This way I'm having...
POS1: neck soloed (P tone)
POS2: neck + bridge (J tone)
POS3: bridge soloed (Musicman's single coil tone)
POS4: bridge + middle (Musicman's parallel tone)
POS5: middle (not possible in a Musicman, similar to POS3, probably just a little fuller sounding due to coil being some 1/2" further away from the bridge)
I'm trying series and parallel on the neck PU but the most likely outcome is I leave the neck-most coil out of the equation.
My Stingrays are the classic single humbucker configuration with 3 position switch (parallel, single, series). Now I've had the chance to try both HH and HS newer Musicmans and I must say I MUCH PREFER the HS version for the possible combinations. The HH has:
P1:full bridge pickup (parallel)
P2:outer coils (parallel)
P3:both pickups in series paralleled between them
P4:inner coils (parallel)
P5:full neck pickup (parallel)
This, while nice and probably not too mismatched in gain, LACKS 2 OF THE 3 CLASSICAL 1 HUMBUCKER MM SOUNDS, which IMHO is a HUGE CON. The HS OTOH offers better alternatives:
P1:full bridge pickup (parallel)
P2:bridgeside coil of bridge pickup + phantom coil (parallel)
P3:both pickups + phantom coil (all coils in parallel)
P4:neck pickup and neckside coil of bridge pickup (parallel)
P5:full neck pickup + phantom coil (parallel)
IMHO much more usable as you at least have 2 of the 3 classic single H MM tones (single coil -lacking in the HH- and parallel). Still, what you can do with a standart Strat 5-way switch is limited. With "MY" wiring it'd be even better than on a HS Musicman as the sound involving both pickups (Jazzy) is WAY better if you use the treble coil in the bridge pickup as I'm trying to do (besides being the simplest wiring there is, I mean, 3 inputs and the output, not the messy carnage I have in that selector switch right now -BTW, looks like soldered by kids, without having done any mods yet I still had to resolder a couple cables that came out easily with just minor movement-).
Sorry for the wall of text. I'm updating as I go on with the mod (probably this afternoon). Took me a couple hours to figure this out yesterday (and got really ****ed off in the process). I'm wondering why thomann didn't take those two hours themselves before sending the electronic plans to the corresponsing chinese manufacturer of these instead of releasing basses with a switching that simply can't be used in the middle of a song, C'MON!, they should have more control over such stuff in their "in house" brand. Another thing I could not see is any wires connecting the battery and the output female jack. Is the onboard EQ on this bass always on no matter if the bass output is plugged or not? I'm really suspicious as this bass already came with a dead battery and I'm definitely not changing batteries every week. In that case I'm definitely doing a mod there too.
white=coil 1+
black=coil 1-
green=coil 2+
red=coil 2-
silver=sheild
Coil 2+ (green) is always grounded for both PUs all the time. Anyway, following that color code I still could not figure out how the hell it is wired stock (in a way that it makes sense with reality). The switch is a standard 8 pin 5-way Strat switch, which means this thing DEFINITELY CAN BE WIRED IN A USABLE WAY. So I'm first taking out the pickup wires to do a check and find out which cable out of them is what thing, then I'll check the switch positions to confirm they really work like the Strat type, and finally I'm simply wiring it like a 5-way strat, treating the neck pickup like ONE indivisible thing (either wired parallel, or series or even leaving one coil unused, the one I like the most and mismatches EQ/gain the least).
So I'll have 3 "virtual" pickups to play with...
neck = neck PU
middle = bridgeside coil of bridge PU
bridge = neckside coil of bridge PU
Now, as you can see I'm wiring coils swapped for the bridge pickup. The thing is my priority is usable tones. So, when combining things out of both pickups I want to use the more J-ish aproach possible. So, for position 2 (neck&middle) I want to have the most bridgeside coil in the bridge PU (which is not "middle" but "bridge"). This way I'm having...
POS1: neck soloed (P tone)
POS2: neck + bridge (J tone)
POS3: bridge soloed (Musicman's single coil tone)
POS4: bridge + middle (Musicman's parallel tone)
POS5: middle (not possible in a Musicman, similar to POS3, probably just a little fuller sounding due to coil being some 1/2" further away from the bridge)
I'm trying series and parallel on the neck PU but the most likely outcome is I leave the neck-most coil out of the equation.
My Stingrays are the classic single humbucker configuration with 3 position switch (parallel, single, series). Now I've had the chance to try both HH and HS newer Musicmans and I must say I MUCH PREFER the HS version for the possible combinations. The HH has:
P1:full bridge pickup (parallel)
P2:outer coils (parallel)
P3:both pickups in series paralleled between them
P4:inner coils (parallel)
P5:full neck pickup (parallel)
This, while nice and probably not too mismatched in gain, LACKS 2 OF THE 3 CLASSICAL 1 HUMBUCKER MM SOUNDS, which IMHO is a HUGE CON. The HS OTOH offers better alternatives:
P1:full bridge pickup (parallel)
P2:bridgeside coil of bridge pickup + phantom coil (parallel)
P3:both pickups + phantom coil (all coils in parallel)
P4:neck pickup and neckside coil of bridge pickup (parallel)
P5:full neck pickup + phantom coil (parallel)
IMHO much more usable as you at least have 2 of the 3 classic single H MM tones (single coil -lacking in the HH- and parallel). Still, what you can do with a standart Strat 5-way switch is limited. With "MY" wiring it'd be even better than on a HS Musicman as the sound involving both pickups (Jazzy) is WAY better if you use the treble coil in the bridge pickup as I'm trying to do (besides being the simplest wiring there is, I mean, 3 inputs and the output, not the messy carnage I have in that selector switch right now -BTW, looks like soldered by kids, without having done any mods yet I still had to resolder a couple cables that came out easily with just minor movement-).
Sorry for the wall of text. I'm updating as I go on with the mod (probably this afternoon). Took me a couple hours to figure this out yesterday (and got really ****ed off in the process). I'm wondering why thomann didn't take those two hours themselves before sending the electronic plans to the corresponsing chinese manufacturer of these instead of releasing basses with a switching that simply can't be used in the middle of a song, C'MON!, they should have more control over such stuff in their "in house" brand. Another thing I could not see is any wires connecting the battery and the output female jack. Is the onboard EQ on this bass always on no matter if the bass output is plugged or not? I'm really suspicious as this bass already came with a dead battery and I'm definitely not changing batteries every week. In that case I'm definitely doing a mod there too.