Seeking help. Lets re-wire a Starfire bass!

[zulu]

Okay thanks for looking! Here again is my 1970 Starfire II bass. It has been hot mess modded, el kabonged, and de fretted! I bought it with the hot mess mods to the electronics. I sold it once. I found it again in another pawn shop a few years later and bought it again! Then I El Kabonged it. Headstock break! Found a nice local luthier who did a good repair and a nice fret pull and fill. I love it.

So. I have never addressed the lame electronics mods. Can I find some help here figuring out a simple enough wiring diagram?

I believe I have all the original wiring components with the addition of

1. guitar pickup in the middle (I want to take this pickup out. I'll cover the hole. This bass is not picky about cosmetics.)

2. a mini three way toggle that works in unexplainable ways with the original three way toggle to make the pickup selections.

3. an (additional?) small master volume knob.

So, here is the silver lining about this ill conceived and poorly executed modification: they cut a huge hole in the back of the bass. It makes the wiring access easy, and they actually did a decent job with the hackery on the back.

When I play my bass, I fiddle with the toggles and tap the pickups until I have only bisonic active, tone and volume maxed, and suck switch in non suck mode. The bridge pickup has its own sound, not bad, but the bass is magic with the bisonic, so the bridge pickup never really gets used.

I am tempted to strip the circuit down to a single pickup volume and tone. I could leave all the other knobs and switches there, just disconnected.

Maybe I should just remove the center pickup, and revert the wiring to stock layout - retaining the rare usefulness of the bridge pickup and the never usefulness of the suck switch.

My favorite control setup for a two pickup guitar is Master volume, Master tone, and pickup 'pan' knob with center detent.

I am seeking opinions, what would you do? I am also seeking probably a little extra help ie 'guitar wiring for dummies'

Thanks for looking

 

[Happy Face]

Attention Mellow One!

 

[lungimsam]

Cutting the cavity cover in the back was their stroke of genius for you. That will make access a cinch for a new harness!

I turned my SF1 into a SF2 with V/blend/tone harness with excellent results.
Highly recommended if you want two pups.
Or, if you just want the one pup, a simple V/T would be a cinch!

Or. If you want a specialist in multi pickup and power up mods, mellowgerman is the fellow you want. He will hopefully be along soon to tell you!! He has lotsa good examples of his own and your SF2’s current condition is a pallete he would most enjoy for his supercharging electronics art!

 

[zulu]

Cutting the cavity cover in the back was their stroke of genius for you. That will make access a cinch for a new harness!

I turned my SF1 into a SF2 with V/blend/tone harness with excellent results.
Highly recommended if you want two pups.
Or, if you just want the one pup, a simple V/T would be a cinch!

Or. If you want a specialist in multi pickup and power up mods, mellowgerman is the fellow you want. He will hopefully be along soon to tell you!! He has lotsa good examples of his own and your SF2’s current condition is a pallete he would most enjoy for his supercharging electronics art!

I love what you did with your starfire. I bet that setup is super versatile.
I should do that. But
@mellowgerman
has tons of valuable experience with this.

 

[lungimsam]

Here’s what I used for the harness:

CTS 1MG audio taper volume pot(CTS-EP-4988)
CTS 500k Blend pot (CTS-EP-6386)
(Could also use a Bourns 500k blend pot PDB182-GTRB-2504)
Stellar tone Tonestyler in place of a tone pot.

Is this your second fretless SF?

 

[zulu]

Nope I just have one... but I bought it twice lol

 

[lungimsam]

I’m thinking of converting one of my Starfires to fretless but can’t decide which one!!!!

 

[zulu]

I’m thinking of converting one of my Starfires to fretless but can’t decide which one!!!!

I totally recommend it! It wasn't quite as simple as I'd imagined. Make sure you'll be able to lower the action at the bridge (and nut!) the same amount as the fret height. It could possibly bring your strings too close to the pickups. Filling the fret slots brings up choices of material and color.

And of course playing a fretless instrument is a whole 'nother animal.

 

[zulu]

Some gut shots. Can anybody identify this guitar pickup?

 

[mellowgerman]

I think you're on the right track here, Zulu! Firstly, I think the master volume control on your bass may well be original. The placement is correct for a 2-pickup Guild from that era, but there were also specimens like my 1970 M-85-II bass that didn't have the master volume control... so it could just be a well-placed addition with a period correct master volume knob.

I don't think you can go wrong whether you go bisonic-only or bisonic+hagbucker. That said, I would definitely remove the tone-suck switch. Part of the reason they are called this is because they actually tone-suck in BOTH positions, one is just more useful/tolerable than the other. If you remove that part of the circuit all-together, you will for the first time hear your Bisonic in all of it's true glory.

If you do decided to go with bisonic+hagbucker via blend control, I would just make sure to either (1.) get something like a Noll no-load blend or (2.) use a more basic blend pot, but cut the tracers at the ends of the resistive track. Either way, when you are on just one pickup or the other, you will not be putting unnecessary load on the circuit, as you would be with an unmodified basic blend pot.

 

[mellowgerman]

On a sidenote, the Patent sticker on that guitar humbucker almost looks like it originally read 2,737,842... in which case: https://reverb.com/item/63194524-vi...or-your-les-paul-burst-conversion-restoration

That said, I was never interested enough in those Gibson PAF humbuckers to fully research what kind of Patent # variations there may have been and what those would mean for it's value and origins. Anyway, maybe worth looking into!

 

[zulu]

I don't think you can go wrong whether you go bisonic-only or bisonic+hagbucker. That said, I would definitely remove the tone-suck switch. Part of the reason they are called this is because they actually tone-suck in BOTH positions, one is just more useful/tolerable than the other. If you remove that part of the circuit all-together, you will for the first time hear your Bisonic in all of it's true glory

Can I just clip it out of the circuit and jump the two wires together that were connected to the switch? Or do I remove the buttload of caps mounted on the tone pot?

 

[mellowgerman]

Can I just clip it out of the circuit and jump the two wires together that were connected to the switch? Or do I remove the buttload of caps mounted on the tone pot?

I forgot exactly how the suck-circuits were wired on my 1967 and 1970 Starfires - it's been years since I chopped them. Also, since Guild isn't exactly known for 100% consistency between specimens, I'd have to take a look at a diagram/map of your wiring or clear photos with traceable paths.

Essentially though, I would just make sure that nothing is in the circuit that you're not using. If it's just some capacitors or resistors still connected to ground on the back of a pot, they shouldn't be affecting your signal if the other end of the component is clipped and doesn't connect to anything else. I hope that's helpful!

 

[lungimsam]

Maybe you could just unsolder the input and output wires of the suck switch off that volume pot lugs and see if removing the switch from the circuit that way works. Easy enough to reattach if it doesn’t.
You’re just disconnecting that switch from the pot but leaving everything else the same and in place.
Or,, rip it all out and wire it up like this to fit one, or two Bisonics:

 

[lungimsam]

PS - the resistor/caps circled in red on this single pup diagram are really not needed in this circuit and can be omitted for simplicity. Can just use the two 500k pots and the .022uf cap and wire it up as shown, which is the similar to how any single pup/2 control can be wired. But don’t use oil in paper style cap cuz the value changes as it dries up over time. I’d just use an orange drop cap or Mallory cap. Your bridge ground wire gets soldered to tone pot shell, and also solder a wire there that then connects to the ground lug of the output jack.

 

[lungimsam]

Or….another variation for a one pup/ 2 control:

 

[Happy Face]

This stuff is wicked cool.

 

[Nuuska]

First - very quick - idea that comes to my mind is to strip all old harness - then wire it as "normal" dual pup w Master Volume.

Then only question after you cover the remowed centre-pup is - what to do w those two small switches - use them for sumpting? Or simply cover them holes ?

 

[zulu]

a Noll no-load blend

Ordered

 

[zulu]

Ordered the blend pot along with a ' premium p-bass wiring wiring kit' that has just vol and tone with an orange drop. I plan to wire the three new pots into the existing potholes, then clip all the other wires and leave all knobs and switches in place for now - rather than remove anything and plug holes.