Les Paul Wiring

[David Schwab]

Yes, a Jazz Bass is an excellent example. The one I just pulled out and plugged in.. with the volumes all down.....hums... just like they all do. Short the tip to ground, and all is silent.

Must be your bass. None of my basses hum at all turned down... or up for that matter. They also don't have single coil pickups and Jazz basses have zero shielding. Could have been your cable also. Ask any bass player with a Jazz bass and they will say the only way to get them quiet is to turn down the volumes... unless they have shielding and hum canceling pickups of course.

The bottom line is that the two volume Les Paul type wiring is useless for mixing two pickups, which is why it's not used on any two volume basses, and many guitars.

If it hums than you will have to convince a lot of luthiers of that fact. Even EMG's come wired that way, and you wont hear any hum from them.

[Sweetfinger]

Must be your bass. None of my basses hum at all turned down... or up for that matter. They also don't have single coil pickups and Jazz basses have zero shielding. Could have been your cable also. Ask any bass player with a Jazz bass and they will say the only way to get them quiet is to turn down the volumes... unless they have shielding and hum canceling pickups of course.

The bottom line is that the two volume Les Paul type wiring is useless for mixing two pickups, which is why it's not used on any two volume basses, and many guitars.

If it hums than you will have to convince a lot of luthiers of that fact. Even EMG's come wired that way, and you wont hear any hum from them.

Um... the vast majority of EMG's are NOT wired that way. In fact, EMG's don't COME wired. The ONLY time I would ever wire EMG's that way is if the instrument is a Jazz Bass, or if the customer specifically requests it. I see proportionately few guitars with this wiring scheme and today, I see few basses with that wiring. Most multi-pickup basses have a blend/balance control and a master volume, which is wired the 'quiet' way.

I'm one luthier who needs no convincing. A few times a year I get asked something like "My (insert instrument name here) hums with all the volumes turned off. Can you look at it and tell if theres a problem?" I end up explaining the problem with that type of wiring and they'll decide whether to convert the wiring or not. Usually, bass players don't mind the hum as long as they know that something isn't "wrong" with the bass. Guitar players who are playing with moderate to high gain will always convert. They don't seem to be 'blenders', either After fixing over 10,000 guitars in my professional career, and dealing with this very issue on several occasions, I have protocols for how things get wired:

1. Default is "standard" wiring with pickups connected to outer lug of pot.
2. If a guitar has "blend" type wiring, I consult with the customer and figure out whether the noise has been/will be an issue for them

BTW, EMG's DO have some hum inherent to their design.

[David Schwab]

Um... the vast majority of EMG's are NOT wired that way. In fact, EMG's don't COME wired. The ONLY time I would ever wire EMG's that way is if the instrument is a Jazz Bass, or if the customer specifically requests it. I see proportionately few guitars with this wiring scheme and today, I see few basses with that wiring. Most multi-pickup basses have a blend/balance control and a master volume, which is wired the 'quiet' way.

The volume and tone controls do come wired, even with the guitar pickups.

Look right here:

Jazz Bass:
http://www.emginc.com/displayproduct...&categoryid=25

And here's a single Strat pickup pre wired:

http://www.emginc.com/displayproduct...7&catalogid=47

EMG's are wired the way the guitar they are made for is wired. SA's get wired like Strats, etc.

Blend controls are wired like a Jazz bass, pickup to the wiper, otherwise tuning one pickup down would mute both of them.



Many bass players don't like blend controls because a lot of those pots don't have a best taper. There are a lot of basses with two volumes.

IThey don't seem to be 'blenders', either

Guitars a totally different thing. Most switch from one pickup to the other. Bass players usually blend pickups.

BTW, EMG's DO have some hum inherent to their design.

What design might that be? When I was using EMG's. it was the only pickup I could sit in front of my monitor, and not pickup that buzz.

You know they are totally enclosed in a brass faraday cage.

They actually changed the design on the 58 because it hummed too much, and renamed it the 85. The 58 was a better sounding pickup.

[Sweetfinger]

The volume and tone controls do come wired, even with the guitar pickups.

Look right here:

http://www.emginc.com/displayproduct...7&catalogid=47

EMG's are wired the way the guitar they are made for is wired. SA's get wired like Strats, etc.

I'm lookin' and I don't see... please show me where the leads from the pickups have been soldered to the volume pot at the factory.

The volume and tone pots do usually come as an assembly, but are able to be wired either way, with the exception(which I already mentioned) of the Jazz Bass, and that's just the volume/tone pot assembly. The pickups AREN'T wired when you get them(yes, I know you can get the pre-wired pickguard assemblies) -I sell about a hundred individual pickups before I sell an assembly, which is why I say a majority of EMG's are NOT wired '50's' style, or any other way.

If bass players don't like their blend knobs, and prefer two volumes, why don't I spend my days and nights switching all the basses in town to that configuration? Conklin, Ibanez, Cort, Samick, Tobias, Warwick, ESP,Fender(active deluxe), Schecter, Music Man, Peavey, B.C. Rich, G&L, Traben, Laguna Ocean, Lakland, Hamer, Yamaha, Pedulla, Parker, Jackson, Smith, Alembic, Fodera, Zon, Modulus, Steinberger, and Washburn all outfit their multi-pickup basses with blend pots and master volumes - from the cheap $400 dollar instruments up to the $4,000 instruments. That's all I see. If bass players REALLY preferred two volumes, which would be cheaper, BTW, I'm guessing that those basses would come with that circuit....but they don't. Just about the ONLY basses I can find that are wired with two volumes with pickups to the wipers are essentially vintage types: Jazz Basses, Rickenbacker, and some(not all) Gibson basses.

If EMG's don't hum, why do they have measured specs for hum on the first page of the informational insert that comes with the pickups?

Output noise @ 60 Hz by model (db):
81 -91
85 -89
60 -89
60A -91
58 -91
HA -91
H -90
SV -115
S, SA, SAV all -90
pretty much all their pickups fall into those ranges.

[David Schwab]

I'm lookin' and I don't see... please show me where the leads from the pickups have been soldered to the volume pot at the factory.

You need to look harder... I said "The volume and tone controls do come wired, even with the guitar pickups." I did not say the pickups are soldered to the volume pots.

Below is a screen shot from the link I supplied from the EMG page on the Jazz pickups. See the pots? See the wires soldered to the pots? So yes, the POTS are pre wired. Do you see which lugs do not have wired soldered to them? I marked them with red arrows. It's the wiper lug. The second file I attached is from the EMG instruction sheet.

The wiper's lug has nothing soldered to it, because that's where you solder the connection from the pickup. With the single pickup version, such as a P bass, they wire it the "correct" way with the output to the wiper (even though they have the sheet marked wrong).

Look, you obviously know what you are talking about, but I'm showing you this is how almost every 2 pickup bass is wired.... if they have a blend pot they are still wired this way! Because blend pots are wired the "bad" way. They have to be.

The only two volume bass I ever had come to me wired like a Gibson was an Aerodyne Jazz bass that also had a Gibson style pickup selector. The owner didn't like the way turning one pickup down turned them both down, so he had me rewire the volume pots like a regular Jazz bass. All his basses are Jazz basses.

EMG's used to sell the S and SA pickups with a prewired harness that just dropped into the pickguard. The only thing you had to do was wire the pickups to the switch. They now sell loose pots because people put them in other guitars besides Fenders. You had to cut the bus bar they had soldered on, off the backs of the pots to change the spacing.

The volume and tone pots that come with the bass pickups are prewired, you solder the pickup to the volume and and wire it to the jack.

I haven't bought an EMG pickup in over 10 years. But I still have a box full of the prewired pots.

As far as all those basses you list... they either have a blend pot, which is wired what you call the "bad" way, and a master volume, probably wired the "good" way, or they have two volumes wired the "bad" way.

I can list three I had in my shop the last month... a Pedulla MVP (blend and master volume), Schecter (two Jazz bass wired volumes) and a Ric 4003.

If bass players don't like their blend knobs, and prefer two volumes, why don't I spend my days and nights switching all the basses in town to that configuration?

Head on over to TalkBass. You will see many discussions on this. The issue is that the majority of blend pots don't give you full volume at the center detent. And some players don't like the way they sound.

I had blend pots in all my basses, and when I added a third pickup to one of them, I switched it to three volumes. I liked the tone better, and then switched my other two basses to two volumes. At the time they all had EMG's in them, since I was an EMG dealer since using them at American Showster in the 80's.

I think the two volume setup on a Les Paul is just dumb. I had rewired mine to one master volume, two tones, and a Varitone.

But in the end it's all personal preference.

[Sweetfinger]

Look, you obviously know what you are talking about, but I'm showing you this is how almost every 2 pickup bass is wired.... if they have a blend pot they are still wired this way! Because blend pots are wired the "bad" way. They have to be.

Yes, Blend pots ARE wired the 'bad' way, but because the pot is ganged, it isn't possible to turn both pickups down with the blend, which is exactly the situation that will cause noise. The master volume is wired the 'good' way. THAT'S how the noise issue with a blend pot is mostly eliminated. Occasionally I'll encounter a bass with a blend where you can hear the hum levels rise slightly in the areas between the detent on the pot and 'full on' either pickup. Sometime for giggles and grins, wire a master volume the 'bad' way and see what happens when you turn it down.

I guess the bass players in this town don't go to the talkbass forums, because I can't ever recall having been asked to convert a bass from blend to separate volume. I've converted blends to switches on a couple occasions where the customer didn't want to wait for me to get a blend pot in when I was out of them, or of the correct type. Then again, I would not put much stock in what players say on Talkbass, This, or any other e-forum you care to name, because it is a relatively small portion of the players out there. The likes/dislikes/habits of the people who participate in these threads do not translate as an accurate sample of the greater population of musicians IMO.

As an example: I'm a relatively high volume repair and service shop in a major metropolitan area. My customers are everyone from homeless bums who busk for change to rockstars that have sold millions of units and everybody in between. As I stated before, I can't recall being asked to change a blend knob, but I am specifically asked regularly to install straplocks on guitars. From my perspective, guitars falling off their owners (or a fear of it) is a common problem among guitar players across the board. Blend knobs on basses that irk their owners enough to even ASK about a solution....not EVEN on the radar screen.

[David Schwab]

I think the real issue on basses is trying to passively blend pickups. For the first time in a long while, I'm playing a totally passive bass. All my other basses have separate buffers for each pickup, and an active summing amp to mix them.

I think passive is always a compromise of sorts. I'm not saying that the "good" way to wire a volume pot isn't the right way. I just think it doesn't work well with two volumes. The "bad" way allows you to mix two pickups, but it dulls the tone more. My only issue was I have never experienced extra noise wiring pots this way.

The thing with some blend pots, like the one they sell at Stew-Mac, has the log tapers on both pots going in the same direction! So at the center detent, one pickup has like 200K to ground, wile the other has about 25K! That's clearly not the right way to do it. You need special tapers, and they need to be opposite. Ideally at center each pickup should be on full with minimal loading.

The Stew-Mac blend pot works better than I would expect, but I think it has to be effecting the tone of one of the pickups. The blend pots that Bartolini, Basslines and EMG use don't have this issue.

My customers are divided into the plug and play I don't care players, just get the action low... and the really fussy ones that agonize over things I don't even hear!

Here's a test I just did with my passive bass plugged into the hi-z input on a Roland VM-3100Pro digital mixer. The bass has two humbuckers of my own design, two 500K volume and a 500K tone pot wired like a Jazz Bass. The bass has minimal copper foil shielding (some under the pots) and the strings are grounded.

In the clip I'm cranking the mic pre on that channel to 3:00, which is plenty loud. I'm sitting about 6 inches from the mixer, which is injecting a LOT of digital noise into the signal. I'm also not too far from my CRT computer monitor.

Then in the clip I'm turing the volume knobs all the way off. You hear a lot of white noise from the mic pre, but you don't hear anything else. If I pull the plug out of the mixer, it shorts the input and reduces the white noise very slightly. But this is louder than you would ever need to set the mic pre!

http://www.sgd-lutherie.com/media/noise_test.mp3