Hello fellow Fellow EBMM fans,
I have always been a fan of Music Man basses, and have used the humbucker on multiple builds, but always preferred the series sound of the pickup.
Recently I picked up a beautiful dropped copper EBMM special HH 4 string, and I loved the variety of sounds from the 5 way switch. That said, I was comparing it to my very unique Fender Rascal bass that also had a 5 way selector switch that I modified for series rather than parallel, (the rascal has 3 lipstick single coils). After A/Bing them for a long time, I could not seem to get the same rich low mid grunt out of the 18 volt EBMM preamp. I was not too interested in diving into a Mod on a brand new, and very expensive bass, however I just could not stop thinking about it. I began to try to convince myself that the added series 4x impedance of series wiring would overload the preamp, but others on this forum noted the new special with it's 18 volt headroom could be up to the task. I cracked open the control cavity from the back and was pleased to see all the neatly arranged terminals, and massive 5 way super switch! I thought, this would be an easy modification, until I saw only 3 wires coming from each pickup! This was not going to work! I pulled the pickups out, and was pleased to also see a very professional circuit board behind each coil, and adding additional wires would be fairly strait forward.
Seeing that all the pickups and and switch connections were easily accessible from the back, and totally independent of the preamp except for one single white input wire, I decided to take the plunge.
The pickups were the first step, and required de-soldering the ground wire from corner terminals on each side, and adding a long yellow and red wire to each pickup. These added wires were fished into the control cavity. The rest was developing a schematic for the 5 pickup options. I chose my 5 options based on personal preference and based on the best sounds from my rascal lipstick pickups. The last position 5 left in parallel per the factory setting, and identical to a standard H bass. I will be adding some more shielding to the control cavity, because this has a few more wires, and I like my basses very quiet.
I am attaching the schematics, and please understand this was a personal preference modification, and the factory parallel setup may be superior in many ways for many reasons.
I would imagine this would also work with Sterling HH bases with the addition of a 5 way super switch.
I would welcome any comments or critiques, I very rarely post, but thought this may be interesting to someone.
I have always been a fan of Music Man basses, and have used the humbucker on multiple builds, but always preferred the series sound of the pickup.
Recently I picked up a beautiful dropped copper EBMM special HH 4 string, and I loved the variety of sounds from the 5 way switch. That said, I was comparing it to my very unique Fender Rascal bass that also had a 5 way selector switch that I modified for series rather than parallel, (the rascal has 3 lipstick single coils). After A/Bing them for a long time, I could not seem to get the same rich low mid grunt out of the 18 volt EBMM preamp. I was not too interested in diving into a Mod on a brand new, and very expensive bass, however I just could not stop thinking about it. I began to try to convince myself that the added series 4x impedance of series wiring would overload the preamp, but others on this forum noted the new special with it's 18 volt headroom could be up to the task. I cracked open the control cavity from the back and was pleased to see all the neatly arranged terminals, and massive 5 way super switch! I thought, this would be an easy modification, until I saw only 3 wires coming from each pickup! This was not going to work! I pulled the pickups out, and was pleased to also see a very professional circuit board behind each coil, and adding additional wires would be fairly strait forward.
Seeing that all the pickups and and switch connections were easily accessible from the back, and totally independent of the preamp except for one single white input wire, I decided to take the plunge.
The pickups were the first step, and required de-soldering the ground wire from corner terminals on each side, and adding a long yellow and red wire to each pickup. These added wires were fished into the control cavity. The rest was developing a schematic for the 5 pickup options. I chose my 5 options based on personal preference and based on the best sounds from my rascal lipstick pickups. The last position 5 left in parallel per the factory setting, and identical to a standard H bass. I will be adding some more shielding to the control cavity, because this has a few more wires, and I like my basses very quiet.
I am attaching the schematics, and please understand this was a personal preference modification, and the factory parallel setup may be superior in many ways for many reasons.
I would imagine this would also work with Sterling HH bases with the addition of a 5 way super switch.
I would welcome any comments or critiques, I very rarely post, but thought this may be interesting to someone.
