Wax potting a Sterling by Music Man Ray4HH humbucker bass guitar pickup with Gulf Wax on a stove

00:00 The Problem
00:45 My wax potting setup
06:00 The melt
13:16 Submerging the pickup
14:00 The soak
19:45 Removing pickup from wax
My first attempt ever to wax pot a bass (or guitar) pickup. I bought a Sterling by Musicman Ray4 HH Stingray style bass and something was wrong with the pickups. They sounded great but made a LOT of noise when I tapped on them. You don't really know how often you touch the pickups until you've heard it clearly come through your amp :( Wax potting is often used in guitar pickups to reduce squeal at high gain or high volumes. Most people call that "microphonic." Here I'm trying to use it to literally keep my pickup from sounding like I'm tapping on a microphone while I play.

[@kubicki2000]

Wish me luck! Will reinstall tonight or tomorrow.

[@60degreelobwedge82]

Did this work? One thing I did that improved the sound on my sterling was wire it in parallel vs series. I peeled back the insulation and the other 2 wires were twisted together. It's a lot quieter now and the volume knob works better: smoother transition going from silent to a clean loud, rather than silent to loud to distorted like it did before.

[@kubicki2000]

The plastic on the pickup warped some. Kinda left a bad taste in my mouth from that so I haven't reconnected it yet but I will get it done soon.

[@klaymeister]

You went the extra mile. I would have swapped pickups. I actually have on 2 Sterlings.

[@kubicki2000]

I still haven't reinstalled the pickup. :) It's on the list though. What did you switch over to? Did you also change out the preamp? Inquiring minds want to know 🙂

[@elanehayduk7255]

promo sm 😅