Jump to content
Why become a member? ×

Wilkinson WJM


SubPlucker
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hello everyone, i’m new here and looking for info about the wilkinson wjm pickup. It appears to be a combined jazz and musicman pickup - i.e. a single coil or humbucker in the same housing. JHS should fire their marketing department as there is scant information available about this pup. I was hoping for a wiring diagram or at least its dimensions so I can tell if it’s gonna fit in my bass. The best i found is a review of the Fret King Esprit here https://www.musicradar.com/reviews/guitars/fret-king-black-label-esprit-i-bass-573896 which praises the pickup and its vari-coil control which just looks like a blend control to dial out the j coil to leave just the mm coil.

Anyone ever used one? Trevor Wilkinson talks about it @ 1:49 in this video after a quick demo @ 0:43.

Thanks, Dean.

Edited by SubPlucker
correction
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

I've just ordered a second one of these after fitting one in my fretless Jazz. I used a Stingray scratch plate as a routing template to get both the 'sweet spot' and the right sized rout. It looks to be identical in size to a 'standard' Musician pickup, as the scratch plate is a lovely snug fit around the pickup. 

 

There isn't really any information on wiring it up, so I had to get my meter out to check which coil is which; not even a sheet of paper in the packet...

 

Wiring is as follows: 

Red wire is HOT for J coil

Thick Black wire is GROUND for J coil

Thin Black wire is HOT for MM coil

White wire is GROUND for MM Coil.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

For anyone interested, here is the wiring diagram for the Fret King Esprit bass which uses the WJM with the vari-coil feature. When this pot is fully "open" it shorts the j coil to ground, when fully "closed" you have both coils in series and then anywhere else you get a blend between the two. Note that this is unlike the typical musicman pickup which has the coils wired in parallel.

fretking esprit wiring.pdf

Edited by SubPlucker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 20/02/2019 at 17:43, SubPlucker said:

Thanks for the info. How does it sound? Are the coils noisy when soloed?

Sounds really good - nails the Stingray sound (well, maybe 95% there) and not noisy at all when soloed. Really glad I put these on my Jazz basses now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool but I don't really see what's special about this pickup. Most MM pickups I have seen are 4-wire affairs so that you could do this vari-coil idea with any of them. I think a series/parallel switch is more useful as I don't like the sound of the bridge J on it's own. Good to know it sounds good though, and it's not too expensive so that may be reason enough.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
On 25/02/2019 at 16:38, SubPlucker said:

Cool but I don't really see what's special about this pickup. Most MM pickups I have seen are 4-wire affairs so that you could do this vari-coil idea with any of them. I think a series/parallel switch is more useful as I don't like the sound of the bridge J on it's own. Good to know it sounds good though, and it's not too expensive so that may be reason enough.

A MM pickup will have one big polepiece per string, the jazz pickup has two small ones per string. They sound different enough that Leo Fender took a patent out on his early G&L pickups that could switch between them both

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Ive just put one of these in my bass, in a "jazz" style setup.

Only thing i found was that the thin red wire was the MM coil hot, and the thin black wire was the JAZZ coil hot (opposite to stated above)

Sounds really good though - jazz coil only with the tone rolled off for that Jaco-esque tone, MM coil only with open tone for a more P bass sound, and both coils for a 'Ray sound.

I love it! 🙂

211018101_1705746939619639_212893593703504218_n.jpg

Edited by jimcroisdale
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...