Wiring for Motherbucker and P90? (e.g., Manson 007)

[djc_1988]

Being a big fan of OoS, I decided to buy some pickups from that time period. I bought a Kent Armstrong Motherbucker and a Seymour Duncan SP90-2n. Is there any info on how these pickups are wired in the Manson 007?

(Hope these questions haven't already been answered somewhere. If they have, I failed to find them.)

Btw, I understand the 007 no longer has a Motherbucker. I still want to stick with the Motherbucker, for my best chance at that OoS sound.

Specific questions:

1. MuseWiki says the 007 has no tone pots. Is that true? Seymour Duncan's P90 diagrams recommend a tone pot, so I'm a little anxious to omit it.

2. MuseWiki says there's just one volume pot. Do the Motherbucker and P90 really share just one volume pot? I see online that Kent Armstrong recommends a 1M volume pot for the Motherbucker, and Seymour Duncan recommends a 500K pot for their P90's. Should I pick one or the other? Maybe some other value entirely? And what taper? (Log, linear?)

3. How is the Motherbucker wired? Are all four coils in series with each other, acting as one big pickup? Or maybe wire each humbucker in series (relative to itself), and then in parallel (relative to each other)? I can upload diagrams if my wording is unclear.

4. How are the Motherbucker and P90 wired to the pickup selector switch, relative to each other? In parallel or in series? If I had to guess, I'd assume parallel.

5. Anything else I should know that I haven't thought of?

 

[redchedda1337]

I had this combo in a dodgy self build mattocaster about 15 years ago

I wired the motherbucker coils up in series iirc, and then just had a 3 way switch (as the black Manson appeared to) to select it and the hot p90

The output on the MB was unbelievable but it definitely did the whole OoS thing, especially if you have some sort of Marshall & a fuzz factory. 

There are lots of options for the MB but I don't recall any info about Matt using it in any complicated manner other than max output as I'm describing.  

 

[djc_1988]

Wow; it's been a year. It took me a long time to get around to wiring up my pickups, and even longer to come back and report on it.

Addressing my points above:

1. I did add a tone pot for the P90, just to have the option. Dialing it all the way up shorts it, meaning it's practically not even doing anything. So worst case, I could always leave it turned all the way up. Kind of wish I did the same for the Motherbucker.

2. Never found an answer about sharing the volume pot, so I just went with separate volume pots for the Motherbucker and the P90. IIRC, I did a 500k for the P90 and a 1M for the Motherbucker, both audio taper.

3. I used a rotary switch to try to provide multiple wiring options for the Motherbucker, but I don't think it was worth it. The switch had four possible options: all four in series, first two in series, second two in series, and just one. Oddly, one of the "two in series" options sounds very much like the "all four" option, and the other "two in series" option is significantly quieter. The "just one" configuration also doesn't seem very useful. Kind of wish I just wired all four in series.

4. I wired the P90 and Motherbucket in parallel with each other on the selector switch.

[djc_1988]

Edited June 21, 2021 by djc_1988
One of the pictures disappeared after submitting...