Music Man Wiring

[JimBeed]

Well thinking ill be going with a music man pick up to go in my next build
but however does anyone know of a way to condense the controls onto say two concentric pots?
i was thinking of doing an active for this one to maybe get more from the pick up.
i know concentric pots are easily used with passives but wasnt sure about actives.
The reason for this is that where the controls are on the Iceman 5 string
im wanting to omit the two closest to the back to give more room for part of the design that is going to be on the front of it.
Basically to save some of the image having some chopped off under the knobs.
Any ideas would be appreciated.  ccasion14:

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

IRC, the MM pickups are passive.  It's the preamp that's active.  Regardless, concentric pots don't care if the bass is active or passive.  A pot does different things depending how it's wired.  As for wiring, it shouldn't be any different.  Just get the correct valued pot, get the MM schematic and translate to concentric pots.  They are still pots after all, just stacked. 

 

[JimBeed]

Ah right cheers, yeah that all makes sense, just wasnt sure if needed special pots for active but seems not so, thanks again  ccasion14:

 

[drewfx]

Typically, after an active stage you need to use 25K pots instead of 250K or 500K (because it's low impedance).

But most preamps are available with the appropriate pots included. And if it's a passive PU/volume/tone followed by a simple active buffer, you use 250K/500K pots prior to the buffer.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

Well, I have a five with a MM pickup in it.  Here is my rundown of what I did.  I have an Aguilar OBP-3 pre and a Nordstrand MM5.4.  The MM 5.4 has four wires coming off of it, two for each "Coil" of the MM pickup.  I ran that into an on/on/on mini switch so that I could have series, single, and parallel outputs from the pickup.  Then it goes to the volume knob.  This could be stacked (with a tone knob for instance), but not with the active pre controls.  The values of the pots are different and don't mix.  The pre could have a stacked pot and cut the number of knobs down by one, in my case there would still be three (vol, eq1, eq2/eq3)  I just used four pots and left it at that.  The volume knob also has an active/passive push pull on it.  It is just a bypass of the pre for passive, and into the pre for active.  You can't have stacked knobs and push pull on the same pot, they don't make that one.  The run down of the bass is Pickup - miniswitch - Volume knob (passive/active switch) low - mid - high knobs on the active pre - output jack.  The mid knob has a push pull to move the mid boost/cut frequency.

My thoughts about all of that?  I like the control.  There is a lot there to play with and it works well.  The series is very grungy, the single is slap happy, and the parallel is good for the bulk of the bass tones used.  The active pre lets me dial it in very fast to what I want it to sound like.  It is all I need in a five string fretted bass, for now.
Patrick

 

[JimBeed]

Ah Cheers very much, that sounds like a good set up to have, ill keep that in mind.
Slight update ive redesigned the  layout of the design so it is no where near the controls and sits up top above the bridge and pickup,
so ill probz get all four holes done by warmoth, add a mini switch hole like i did with my z bass.
send it off to get painted.
And after ive bought everything,
take it to my nearest guitar luthier for him to assemble due to the design being more than my transparent purple was  :hello2:
This is coming together well i think