How to Wire a P-Bass Pickup

Bass players like to keep their eyes peeled for a good old P-Bass (Fender Precision Bass) that someone is getting rid of. In many instances you will have to do some restoration to the bass, includes installing a new pickup. Installing pickups on a P-Bass is not very difficult. You simply need to understand how to wire the P-Bass pickup.

Get on line or go to your local music shop and look through the different P-bass pickups available. Talk to someone who can help you decide which pickup will give you the sound you want.
Most P-Bass pickups will come with a diagram showing you how to wire the P-Bass pickup. The following is a guide to help you follow the diagram.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Soldering gun
• Electrical tape
• Phillips head screwdriver

How to Wire a P-Bass Pickup

1. You will need to take the strings off your bass and remove the control panel located on the backside of the bass.

2. Unsolder the wires that connect the old bass pickup to the volume knob, the tone knob and the output jack. There will also be a ground wire going to both the body and the output jack: remove those as well.

3. Once you have removed the old pickup, place your new P-Bass pickup in to the cavities and pull the wires through to the control panel.

4. Locate the wires on the P-Bass pickup. You will have three wires coming out of each pickup. The colors may vary, but the positioning will be pretty much the same.

5. You will see two shorter wires, one coming out of the bottom end of the top pickup and one from the top end of the lower pickup. You will want to connect these wires together. Solder them and tape them with electrical tape.

6. Now, take the wire that is positioned at the top of the pickup closet to the fretboard and connect it to the volume knob. The volume knob will have two prongs sticking out of it for you to solder wires on. Solder this wire onto the first prong.

7. Now take one of the loose wires that came with the pickup and solder it from the prong you just soldered to the middle prong on the tone knob. The tone knob will typically have three prongs sticking out of it, one already attached to something, one free with a solid tip and one free with a hollow tip. Solder your wire to the free solid-tipped prong.

8. You will need one of the free wires that came with the pickup set for this next part. Look back at the volume button again. There is one prong that you have not used. You will need to solder a wire from this prong to the input jack of the bass. The input jack will have two prongs on it. One prong will be extending from the inner circle of the jack and the other prong from the outer circle. Solder your wire to the prong coming from the outer circle.

9. Next we wire the grounds. On the top of the volume knob there will be two points for your ground wires. The point for the pickups is the point closest to the pickups. The middle wire coming out of both of your pickups is the ground wire. This wire is often colored green, but not always. Take the ground wire from the first pick up and solder it to the point on the volume knob. Then take the ground wire from the bottom pickup and solder it to the same point as the one you just soldered. It is fine for the wires to be touching each other.

10. Now we move to the second ground point on the volume knob. You will need to solder a wire from there to the tone knob. The tone knob has a point on top of it for your ground wire.

11. Again, solder a ground wire to the same spot on the volume knob. This time run it to the input jack. Solder it to the prong coming from the inner circle of the jack.

12. Lastly, there should be a wire in the pickup set that has a hollow ring on the end of it. Solder this wire to the same ground spot on top of the volume knob as the last two steps. This wire runs to the body of the bass. You should screw it to the wood on the inside of the bass.

References

• P-Bass pickup wiring diagram
• P-Bass pickup wiring diagram

Resources

• A good P-Bass pickup diagram.