I'm a band teacher and play bass but have never gotten into wiring... but two of our school-owned basses are having wiring issues so it's time for surgery. This video REALLY cleared up my concept of how to do this correctly and I'm confident I can fix them now. Thank you Roy!
What a great, informative, easy to follow video. I've been playing bass (mainly P's) for almost 40 years and never knew how they were wired. I always had someone fix them for me. I wish videos like this had been available all those years, I would have saved a lot of time and money fixing them myself. Thanks for posting. Peace.
Hey Roy, this video is gold dust! Thanks so much for uploading. I just finished completely replacing all the electronics & wiring for a Squier P bass, followed your instructions, plugged it in, and it worked perfectly first time! Fantastic!
this video helped me solve my pbass problem. I made the silly mistake of following the instructions instead of going with what I thought to be correct. gotta love an online purchase.
Bought a P bass pickup set "Pre-wired" on Ebay. Not gonna try to even describe the mess I received. Think the guy just started grabbing wires and soldering. De-soldered everything then found your video. Best one I've found for this kind of thing. Plus I got some great new tips on soldering. Will definitely be recommending you in the future. Very well done, Mate. Well done.
Best just to get a hot solder gun and start all over. That's why Fenders are all the same from day one. If it's not broke don't fix it. Same with the Guild Starfire Bass. They all been made the same going on over 50 years. Fender P & J Nice to work on. Ya can work on it in the back of your car, . . . .bro. We talk funny like that in the USA, Mate, Have a Fosters on me, ...... Cheers.
Cooel, nice job. I'm getting ready to take a black Fender Jazz MIM 1999-2000 to the neck and body(shield it). I found a deal on reverb.com. I just ordered from a dude in Minnesota. stock/mint pups, pots (pre-wired) mounted on the cover(no scratches), white pearl pickguard, all nice screws for $60+ ship$10. Tell me what u think of this idea? Check this out. I'm thinkin use the old chrome cover to test it out first. To see how it works I take Muriatic Acid add a little water not much. Take a paint brush and wipe it over the control cover, bridge, tuners, screws, ends of the extra long strings (need to melt clear plastic on the ends so they don't put a eye out). Then wash the stuff off with a little water. That will turn all the parts into instant old rusted looking like they sat out in the back yard for 50 years. Won't hurt the the finish or clear paint on the guitar. Then use the old pickguard for a template to mark a thin piece of pewter to make a pewter pickguard (can't use any metal around the pups, they would hum like a Indy car) I'm really thinking about it. I haven't seen this idea. Use a section of old tarp (3.5in.) for the strap. Make a Fender Rat Bass for my self, look all wild and shit.,
Do you think you can make one for a vintage P Bass, that has the copper pickup cavity shield, to pot cavity and shielding plate. I think it looks like there's more involved. Thanks
Fine techno kick from screwdriver onto pick-up! I've been soldering a pick-up wire back on but although it makes a signal it has bypassed the volume pot. I'll look again tomorrow.
Hi Roy! this an awesome tutorial. Im not really into electronics but i like doing things by myself so i can learn. this will work on other bass that i have but i have a BB1000S that has a bridge and neck (not sure if it's mid) im not all techy. and it also has a selector. can you do a tutorial for something similar? it would be a great help
my pbass kept on buzzing when i touched the metal parts "grounding issue" when I used this method of wiring. I ended up soldering the cavity ground wire to the input jack where the hot wire is and that worked.
I was looking at the remarks 'cause I had the same problem. I eventually discovered that if I ran a wire between the tops of the pot's all was well. It connected the ground.
I have a question - have you used the conductive shielding paint to eliminate the single coil squeal? If so, how effective is it? Does it need to make contact with the metal grounding tape you have on the back of your pick guard and the ground wire that would run from the bridge?
The capacitor type on the tone is snake oil. The only bad capacitors are ceramic bc those are microphonic and electrolytic bc is noisy and most of them are polarized. But there absolutely no diference between the poly 25 cents part and an orange drop or paper on oil or whatever fancy stuff you put in there. Spend the money on better pots and input jack Those are mechanical you get a longer lifespan of those parts.
hi daniel. as long as the cap is good quality its not necessary to use an expensive or specialty cap. I had these paper in oil caps laying around so I used them in a few builds and projects. They sound great and I mentioned in the video that its really all personal preference. This particular paper in oil capacitor is a bit smoother in the treble roll off though i noticed so to me it was worth it.
Capacitors go along with the tone you are looking for. .047 is so close to .050 fender for jazz and classic or vintage tone p .1 fender cap. Put those in my fender player series and squier CV 70. SURE SOUND GREAT. My next jazz I'm going to use stacked pots neck .1 and bridge .050.
+Stephen Fink It has a touch of play in it but I have used this pot a bunch and it works perfectly. If this was for a paying customer then I would replace it but it was for a friend.
Yeah man, I think that’s from hitting it with the iron for too long. You gotta be fast sometimes. I find using 63/37 solder and getting it on the iron, then putting paste on the lug and just giving it a little tap and it will spread nice and even. I can’t tell you how many switches and other stuff I’ve melted doing that. Soldering paste makes tinning lugs 100x easier, for me at least!
I am on the process of doing this within next few days. I have SD Quarter pounder and I was wondering if it´s ok to use 500K knob as a volume and a 250K as a Tone ? Or should they both be 250K ?
its really personal preference. the standard is usually 250k pots but I prefer 500k. The tone will be slightly brighter but you have more play in rolling off the treble, etc. Using the 500k as a volume is fine though
correct me if I'm wrong. I did some soldering yesterday and ended up with 500k volume and 250k tone. 500k volume is a bit brighter, but the 250k tone smooths it down (with .68 capacitor) but still gives me a good amount of adjustability.
Does this work for squier p basses? Minus the new capacitor and pickups, I had some wires fall out and didn't wanna jack up the bass for the rest of its days. Feedback is appreciated
I bought new CTS Pots for my MIM P Bass, and I think I followed your instructions exactly. But now the Tone Pot works, but the Volume Pot does not. The bass plays full volume and turning the Volume Pots seems to do nothing.What could I have done wrong? Thanks, Bob
Thank you for the video. I purchased some new pickups for my p-bass and am new to wiring. Very helpful. One question, Can you describe what the capacitor does for the bass in this situation and how it helps? Thank you
sausyyy the capacitor is what makes a tone control a tone control. It changes the amount of high frequency bleed (read loss) to the ground. changing the values will give you different properties.
Hi Roy, I wired my p bass exactly (so I think) like you showed but the volume pot doesn't work. If you could help I would greatly appreciate. Can send a picture. Thanks in advance.
something is not hooked up correctly or you have a cold solder. Go back and follow these steps exactly and you might find your issue. Sometimes its the smallest detail you missed, a faulty part or something is touching something else causing a sound cancellation altogether.
Great video but confused on the comment that you can use a orange drop cap. but you decided on a paper and oil as an upgrade. What exactly does this upgrade actually do?
the guy who said nothing is actually not correct. its really personal preference. I notice a smoother treble roll off on the tone controls and had these paper in oil caps laying around so I used it. Again its all personal preference. Many people use aftermarket caps so I wanted to mention them in the video but its certainly not about that. hope that helped.
Roy can you tell us the name of the cap? i read 047 paper and oil?...im not english so i cant understand the name and specifications please.. Thank you for all!
there are a bunch of different ways to wore a p bass but this is how i do it and it works perfectly! I repair these professionally for people and this is just the way i like to do it.
Great video. . one question though. I've seen people wire the ground wire from the bridge to the tone pot instead of the volume pot. Is this wrong and if so why?
its not wrong, just different. the pots are grounded together in most case so whether you attach the bridge ground wire to the tone of volume pot shouldn't make a difference.
@@roycox4415 hey Roy good evening I just need your advice on this one. I'm doing a pbass project and have two pots, one is b500k and the other an a500k which one should I use for volume and which for tone?
its not that is changes the tone but rather how smooth the top end is when rolling off or on the treble as a whole. very small differences but they can be audible
you have wired up the capacitor in a weird way. Typically with the volume and tone tabs facing each other. the capacitor goes from the volume top tab (-ve) to the tone middle tab.
Incorrect. This is exactly how standard p basses come wired . Look up the diagrams for standard p bass wiring and then watch the video closely. The cap stays with the pot itself in this case. It’s not like a strat where it jumps across pots.
kleyo libor yes you can but will have a very bright output, you can cut that with a resistor onto the output jack but really you lose control and becomes more complicated than having the pickup wired to the pots, there are a lot of differing opinions and forums describing that very thing, if you are just wanting wide open all of the time you could still run to a volume pot set full and bury it under pickguard just being careful not to let any wires touch
If you followed all of the steps with absolute accuracy and you still don’t have sound then you have to retrace your wiring to find the issue. The wiring procedure here is 100 percent correct but sometimes you will have something not making complete contact or your pickup is damaged or defective in someway. You may want to test the pickups first on a multimeter to make sure you have working pickups. If you are sure they are working then you have to trace each connection in your wiring while having the guitar plugged in. Even make sure your guitar cord is not the issue. It only takes one little thing to kill the whole signal flow
@@somedude7281flap jack is asking what the VOLTAGE VALUE is on the capacitor being used.. so no .047 is also not the answer to the question being asked here. To me It looks like a 400v cap
fab fab fab.just followed so easy and rewired the studio stand by bass which had be fkd up stripped it and its now better than ever,thanks alot!!!!!
I'm a band teacher and play bass but have never gotten into wiring... but two of our school-owned basses are having wiring issues so it's time for surgery. This video REALLY cleared up my concept of how to do this correctly and I'm confident I can fix them now. Thank you Roy!
What a great, informative, easy to follow video. I've been playing bass (mainly P's) for almost 40 years and never knew how they were wired. I always had someone fix them for me. I wish videos like this had been available all those years, I would have saved a lot of time and money fixing them myself. Thanks for posting. Peace.
I did this last night.I made a bit of a hash of it.I wish I’d watched this first.Thanks for posting.Its very useful.
Hey Roy, this video is gold dust! Thanks so much for uploading. I just finished completely replacing all the electronics & wiring for a Squier P bass, followed your instructions, plugged it in, and it worked perfectly first time! Fantastic!
always happy to hear that!!!!
this video helped me solve my pbass problem. I made the silly mistake of following the instructions instead of going with what I thought to be correct. gotta love an online purchase.
Great video, thank you! I’ve been assembling a 51 P using an Allparts body and Squier neck and this is my final step
Great video! It helped me rewire my P-bass tremendously. Cheers!
Awesome video!! Thanks buddy. I finally have my tone control back.
Excellent instructional video! Thanks for posting this.
Thank you for your time on this, l followed your step by step and it was easy.
again thank you
Great walk-through! Thanks!
Awesome video, I'm going to use this as a guide next week when I rewire my p bass.
So glad it was helpful!
This video make me master wiring any strat & strat guitar style comes to me for repair . So thank you
Fixing my P tonight. Excellent video thanks!
Thx for the Perffekt tutorial, it helps me verry much !!!
Excellent video! Thanks.
thanks guy it all came together with out issues, thanks again -Jeff
Great job buddy!
thanks a lot! this was very very helpful!
Great video
Bought a P bass pickup set "Pre-wired" on Ebay. Not gonna try to even describe the mess I received. Think the guy just started grabbing wires and soldering. De-soldered everything then found your video. Best one I've found for this kind of thing. Plus I got some great new tips on soldering. Will definitely be recommending you in the future. Very well done, Mate. Well done.
Best just to get a hot solder gun and start all over.
That's why Fenders are all the same from day one.
If it's not broke don't fix it.
Same with the Guild Starfire Bass. They all been made the same going on over 50 years. Fender P & J Nice to work on.
Ya can work on it in the back of your car, . . . .bro.
We talk funny like that in the USA, Mate,
Have a Fosters on me, ...... Cheers.
This is actually a bass I built myself. Got it all torn apart and redone. Plays like a champ now
Cooel, nice job. I'm getting ready to take a black Fender Jazz MIM 1999-2000 to the neck and body(shield it). I found a deal on reverb.com. I just ordered from a dude in Minnesota. stock/mint pups, pots (pre-wired) mounted on the cover(no scratches), white pearl pickguard, all nice screws for $60+ ship$10.
Tell me what u think of this idea?
Check this out. I'm thinkin use the old chrome cover to test it out first. To see how it works
I take Muriatic Acid add a little water not much. Take a paint brush and wipe it over the control cover, bridge, tuners, screws, ends of the extra long strings (need to melt clear plastic on the ends so they don't put a eye out). Then wash the stuff off with a little water.
That will turn all the parts into instant old rusted looking like they sat out in the back yard for 50 years. Won't hurt the the finish or clear paint on the guitar. Then use the old pickguard for a template to mark a thin piece of pewter to make a pewter pickguard (can't use any metal around the pups, they would hum like a Indy car)
I'm really thinking about it. I haven't seen this idea. Use a section of old tarp (3.5in.) for the strap.
Make a Fender Rat Bass for my self, look all wild and shit.,
Do you think you can make one for a vintage P Bass, that has the copper pickup cavity shield, to pot cavity and shielding plate. I think it looks like there's more involved. Thanks
Do you think you can make a video, using the three 60's /70' vintage style copper shieldings
can this wiring also be used for a jazz bass? 2 volume knobs and a tone
Great video. Can i use a 40w soldering iron or I really need the 60w?
Superior Info, KUDOS!!
Yes, very nice PaperinOil Cap!! I like Orange and Soviet Capacitor!! Thanks, Greetings from Rio!!
Absolutely! Thanks for the comment!
Brilliant video. Would love one for a PJ bass - particularly with blend control!
Noted!
Fine techno kick from screwdriver onto pick-up!
I've been soldering a pick-up wire back on but although it makes a signal it has bypassed the volume pot. I'll look again tomorrow.
Thank you for saving me some bucks brooo😃😃now my bass is working i was even planning to buy a new one thinking its spoiled.....
Hi Roy! this an awesome tutorial.
Im not really into electronics but i like doing things by myself so i can learn.
this will work on other bass that i have but i have a BB1000S that has a bridge and neck (not sure if it's mid) im not all techy.
and it also has a selector. can you do a tutorial for something similar? it would be a great help
How many volts is the cap mate?
my pbass kept on buzzing when i touched the metal parts "grounding issue" when I used this method of wiring. I ended up soldering the cavity ground wire to the input jack where the hot wire is and that worked.
I was looking at the remarks 'cause I had the same problem. I eventually discovered that if I ran a wire between the tops of the pot's all was well. It connected the ground.
I have a question - have you used the conductive shielding paint to eliminate the single coil squeal? If so, how effective is it? Does it need to make contact with the metal grounding tape you have on the back of your pick guard and the ground wire that would run from the bridge?
yes its touching the ground screw in the cavity
The capacitor type on the tone is snake oil. The only bad capacitors are ceramic bc those are microphonic and electrolytic bc is noisy and most of them are polarized. But there absolutely no diference between the poly 25 cents part and an orange drop or paper on oil or whatever fancy stuff you put in there. Spend the money on better pots and input jack Those are mechanical you get a longer lifespan of those parts.
Roy, How come you didn't run a ground wire between the volume and tone pots? I've always done that.
I had to do this to eliminate buzzing.
Change de Capacitor of my Fender P Bass MIM and Pots, for 2 CTS log, and Fender Original PU's.. stayed much better with this combination.
Thank you for your time in doing this video it's very helpful
Would you suggest this cap?
What would you say this can do over an orange drop?
hi daniel. as long as the cap is good quality its not necessary to use an expensive or specialty cap. I had these paper in oil caps laying around so I used them in a few builds and projects. They sound great and I mentioned in the video that its really all personal preference. This particular paper in oil capacitor is a bit smoother in the treble roll off though i noticed so to me it was worth it.
Capacitors go along with the tone you are looking for. .047 is so close to .050 fender for jazz and classic or vintage tone p .1 fender cap. Put those in my fender player series and squier CV 70. SURE SOUND GREAT. My next jazz I'm going to use stacked pots neck .1 and bridge .050.
Thanks!
Thanks for this
My pleasure!
That cap is yuuuuuuuge!
Question. That first lug on the volume pot is moving around. Shouldn't that be replaced? Isn't that risking a failure?
+Stephen Fink It has a touch of play in it but I have used this pot a bunch and it works perfectly. If this was for a paying customer then I would replace it but it was for a friend.
Yeah man, I think that’s from hitting it with the iron for too long. You gotta be fast sometimes. I find using 63/37 solder and getting it on the iron, then putting paste on the lug and just giving it a little tap and it will spread nice and even. I can’t tell you how many switches and other stuff I’ve melted doing that. Soldering paste makes tinning lugs 100x easier, for me at least!
Roy Cox I think it’s because they use electric paste to hold that stuff down sometimes and the iron liquifies it.
What's the value of the capacitor?
I am on the process of doing this within next few days. I have SD Quarter pounder and I was wondering if it´s ok to use 500K knob as a volume and a 250K as a Tone ? Or should they both be 250K ?
its really personal preference. the standard is usually 250k pots but I prefer 500k. The tone will be slightly brighter but you have more play in rolling off the treble, etc. Using the 500k as a volume is fine though
correct me if I'm wrong. I did some soldering yesterday and ended up with 500k volume and 250k tone. 500k volume is a bit brighter, but the 250k tone smooths it down (with .68 capacitor) but still gives me a good amount of adjustability.
Does this work for squier p basses? Minus the new capacitor and pickups, I had some wires fall out and didn't wanna jack up the bass for the rest of its days. Feedback is appreciated
yes
Thanks for the video. Do you have any tips on reducing proximity buzzing?
The only thing that helps is the copper shielding inside the body. Helped mine a lot!
Thanks. So, copper is better than tin foil?
+mrpositronia in my opinion, yes, much better!
This was really helpful, thanks!
I bought new CTS Pots for my MIM P Bass, and I think I followed your instructions exactly. But now the Tone Pot works, but the Volume Pot does not. The bass plays full volume and turning the Volume Pots seems to do nothing.What could I have done wrong? Thanks,
Bob
You've wired it up wrong mate lol
Thank you for the video. I purchased some new pickups for my p-bass and am new to wiring. Very helpful.
One question, Can you describe what the capacitor does for the bass in this situation and how it helps?
Thank you
sausyyy the capacitor is what makes a tone control a tone control. It changes the amount of high frequency bleed (read loss) to the ground. changing the values will give you different properties.
@@ilp8817 excellent response. please respond to everyone who asks with your response!!!
@@roycox4415 thanks!!!
Hi Roy, I wired my p bass exactly (so I think) like you showed but the volume pot doesn't work. If you could help I would greatly appreciate. Can send a picture. Thanks in advance.
something is not hooked up correctly or you have a cold solder. Go back and follow these steps exactly and you might find your issue. Sometimes its the smallest detail you missed, a faulty part or something is touching something else causing a sound cancellation altogether.
Great tutorial. Whats is the value for the capacitor? my english its very bad :(
.047
Hi mr Roy can do pJ bass wiring I like your way of explaining
Great video but confused on the comment that you can use a orange drop cap. but you decided on a paper and oil as an upgrade. What exactly does this upgrade actually do?
Nothing
the guy who said nothing is actually not correct. its really personal preference. I notice a smoother treble roll off on the tone controls and had these paper in oil caps laying around so I used it. Again its all personal preference. Many people use aftermarket caps so I wanted to mention them in the video but its certainly not about that. hope that helped.
@@roycox4415 Bullshit, nobody can tell the difference as long as the values are the same and the caps are 100% in working order.
The pot with the capacitor on it. Is that the volume or tone pot?
Tone pot
Subbed
Appreciate you!
Roy can you tell us the name of the cap? i read 047 paper and oil?...im not english so i cant understand the name and specifications please.. Thank you for all!
047uF Angela Jensen Copper Foil Paper-In-Oil Capacitor
thanks a lot!
volume b500k tone a500k?
I ordered the p bass wiring kit from stewmac and the wiring diagram it came with it totally different than how you're doing it
there are a bunch of different ways to wore a p bass but this is how i do it and it works perfectly! I repair these professionally for people and this is just the way i like to do it.
this is also the way the standard american p basses are wired
Great video. . one question though. I've seen people wire the ground wire from the bridge to the tone pot instead of the volume pot. Is this wrong and if so why?
its not wrong, just different. the pots are grounded together in most case so whether you attach the bridge ground wire to the tone of volume pot shouldn't make a difference.
@@roycox4415 thanks Roy!
@@roycox4415 hey Roy good evening I just need your advice on this one. I'm doing a pbass project and have two pots, one is b500k and the other an a500k which one should I use for volume and which for tone?
hi
how many uF and WVDC in this capacitor please
the scheme is same
you didn't understand my question .
I still can't solder my p bass and I keep watching these videos I need the black wires soldered which I don't know how to do on a squier.
Can you improve the sound of the with a different capacitor?
its not that is changes the tone but rather how smooth the top end is when rolling off or on the treble as a whole. very small differences but they can be audible
@@roycox4415 thank you
@@charlieburns1385 anytime!
you have wired up the capacitor in a weird way. Typically with the volume and tone tabs facing each other. the capacitor goes from the volume top tab (-ve) to the tone middle tab.
Incorrect. This is exactly how standard p basses come wired . Look up the diagrams for standard p bass wiring and then watch the video closely. The cap stays with the pot itself in this case. It’s not like a strat where it jumps across pots.
those are not identical pots, right?
Does it matter the type of solder you use??
Also if I'm using an orange drop, can I still follow your steps or is it different?
Great tutorial!
+Cody Wheaton thanks so much Cody! Hope it was helpful!
+Cody Wheaton steps are identical no matter the cap used as long as the cap you do use is hooked up to the same exact tabs I show to use in the video.
Technically no, but in audio related projects I do recommend using good quality solder. I use carden.
has anyone tried wiring the pickups directly to the jack?? no pots
kleyo libor yes you can but will have a very bright output, you can cut that with a resistor onto the output jack but really you lose control and becomes more complicated than having the pickup wired to the pots, there are a lot of differing opinions and forums describing that very thing, if you are just wanting wide open all of the time you could still run to a volume pot set full and bury it under pickguard just being careful not to let any wires touch
thank you for the reply! i'll try things out.
Good job brother! Nothing to it👏👏
Appreciate it!
Anyone that can help me? I followed every step of the way Roy showed me, but I still don't have signal coming from the pick ups..
If you followed all of the steps with absolute accuracy and you still don’t have sound then you have to retrace your wiring to find the issue. The wiring procedure here is 100 percent correct but sometimes you will have something not making complete contact or your pickup is damaged or defective in someway. You may want to test the pickups first on a multimeter to make sure you have working pickups. If you are sure they are working then you have to trace each connection in your wiring while having the guitar plugged in. Even make sure your guitar cord is not the issue. It only takes one little thing to kill the whole signal flow
@@roycox4415 Good tip, thanks!
asmr for bass players
I have 3 wires on my pickup wtf is the 3rd one ?
Probably for coilsplit or reversing polarity. A lot of pickup brands come with thosr options but are not required to use in normal wiring.
Припоем "как бык насрал"
HOW MANY VOLTS IN THE CAPACITOR?!? Jesus Christ, is there a reason everyone on here, including the OP, has just flat out refused to answer that?!
He says in the video .047, your capacitor size isn’t uniform, it really just depends on the tone you want
@@somedude7281flap jack is asking what the VOLTAGE VALUE is on the capacitor being used.. so no .047 is also not the answer to the question being asked here. To me It looks like a 400v cap
He’s right. I’m pretty sure it’s a 400v
1:40 BASSically
Great video
So glad it helped