P Bass with added soapbar

[jezzaboy]

Having seen the p bass with the additional humbucker in the "yamaha attitude retro" topic in the bass guitar section of gear, I have had a moment of clarity!

I am thinking of adding a soapbar pickup in the bridge position of my Jap p bass. I can get a new Wilkinson one for £12 which should do the job and wont make me cry if it dont work out.

Can anyone give me advice regarding wiring the thing up. Can I wire it up to the existing wiring and fit a mini switch to flick between the two pickups? Is this a good or bad idea? Have you a better idea?

I can solder and knocking the crap out of the wood wont be a problem but if anyone has done something similar can you give me some pointers/thing to watch out for.

Cheers Jez

[peted]

I got Jon Shuker to fit a MusicMan pickup to my Japanese Squire P. Because both the P pickup and the MM pickup are designed to be full range solo ones it sounds [i]massive[/i] when they are used together. Used it live a couple of times and it had a tendancy to actually dominate the mix a bit too much. I thoroughly recommend adding a 2nd pickup to your P!

[EdwardHimself]

Hmm maybe you could wire it up so that it's got 2 volume controls and a blend pot? If you like tone controls maybe you could make the volume pots concentric volume/tone pots.

[Tait]

[quote name='peted' post='420870' date='Feb 27 2009, 01:27 PM']I got Jon Shuker to fit a MusicMan pickup to my Japanese Squire P. Because both the P pickup and the MM pickup are designed to be full range solo ones it sounds [i]massive[/i] when they are used together. Used it live a couple of times and it had a tendancy to actually dominate the mix a bit too much. I thoroughly recommend adding a 2nd pickup to your P!

[/quote]

i'm in love with your bass...

also, everyone says it sounds massive when both musicman and p pickups are used together, but when i use them both it sounds thin and nasal, i hate the sound of them together. does anyone know why that might be? its not just personal taste either, if people said it sounded good thats one thing, but its definatly not massive.

[Mikey R]

[quote name='LWTAIT' post='422666' date='Mar 1 2009, 09:05 PM']i'm in love with your bass...

also, everyone says it sounds massive when both musicman and p pickups are used together, but when i use them both it sounds thin and nasal, i hate the sound of them together. does anyone know why that might be? its not just personal taste either, if people said it sounded good thats one thing, but its definatly not massive.[/quote]

Are you sure the two pickups are in phase with each other? If the polarity of one is reversed then you only get the difference of the two signals, which would only be the trebly end.

[Tait]

[quote name='Mikey R' post='431353' date='Mar 11 2009, 11:07 AM']Are you sure the two pickups are in phase with each other? If the polarity of one is reversed then you only get the difference of the two signals, which would only be the trebly end.[/quote]

that sounds about right. how do i make sure if they are in phase with each other? and fix it if not?

[EdwardHimself]

[quote name='LWTAIT' post='434538' date='Mar 14 2009, 12:29 PM']that sounds about right. how do i make sure if they are in phase with each other? and fix it if not?[/quote]

it's pretty simple. If there is a big drop in volume and bass when you put them together chances are it's out of phase. Just switch the wires for one of the pickups round the other way and it should be fine.

[Tait]

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='434557' date='Mar 14 2009, 01:03 PM']it's pretty simple. If there is a big drop in volume and bass when you put them together chances are it's out of phase. Just switch the wires for one of the pickups round the other way and it should be fine.[/quote]

ahh cheers, i think you're right, ill give that a go sometime

[Mr. Foxen]

Passive belnd pots are never ideal. I wired my p to have 2 volumes and thats it, mostly due to space limit.