P Bass wiring harness for single humbucker?

[Michael Britton]

Mike Britton here.

 I've been around guitars much of my 75 years. But this is the first time I ever got involved with the wiring, and I'm a bit lost.

 I'm modding/refinishing a low quality Chinese guitar, single humbucker in the bridge position and I'm struggling with things like "Screened cables, and capacitor values,

 What gets soldered to what etc.,etc.

 I ran across this ready made wiring harness for a P base and my naive logic says "It's got 500K pots and a capacitor, why wouldn't it work for my needs on my 

 single humbucker 6 string guitar?' Am I missing something here? Thanks, Mike

[daddymack]

close...you will need to add some capacitors...and trace your ground line from the bridge.

Wiring a single pickup is pretty basic, and there are tons of diagrams and tutorials out there .

[badpenguin]

Yeah, that would work. The only change you might want to do is the capacitor. Basses typically use a .047, whereas a guitar is typically .022. (The bigger the number, the more treble gets cut.)

here's a simple diagram:

1 Humbucker/1 Volume/1 Tone (guitarelectronics.com)

[Michael Britton]

23 hours ago, badpenguin said:

Yeah, that would work. The only change you might want to do is the capacitor. Basses typically use a .047, whereas a guitar is typically .022. (The bigger the number, the more treble gets cut.)

here's a simple diagram:

1 Humbucker/1 Volume/1 Tone (guitarelectronics.com)

Thanks, I have that schematic saved. There is a lot of talk about shielded cable, but this guitar was originally wired with regular 26 ga plastic insulated wire.

I understand that the thicker the wire, the less resistance. I have a ton of 16-18 ga wire from my job with a big ag co. Can I use that?

[badpenguin]

If you can solder it to the pots without over heating the pots, sure, go for it.

[isaac42]

16 hours ago, Michael Britton said:

Thanks, I have that schematic saved. There is a lot of talk about shielded cable, but this guitar was originally wired with regular 26 ga plastic insulated wire.

I understand that the thicker the wire, the less resistance. I have a ton of 16-18 ga wire from my job with a big ag co. Can I use that?

You could, but you don't need to. The resistance of the wire is completely negligible in this context. Simple, solid hookup wire is up to the task.

Shielded wire is often used from the pickup to the controls, but not always. In my experience, shielded wire is rare inside the control cavity. Many people will shield the cavity itself. Odds are you won't need to.