L2000 Mod complete!

[1983L2000]

Hi all,

I've finally complete the modification of my L2000 - it now has a three way switch for Parallel / Inside Single Coils / Series (instead of the 2 way S/P), and a push-pull on the volume pot to disable the inside coils - i.e. it offers Outside Single Coils when the afore-mentioned switch is in the parallel position. I have kept the Series caps... I just love the OMG tone at the flick of a switch.

Many thanks to the community - DavePlaysBass, Sunbeast, Femto, and Ken of course for all the information they made available, and the inspiration! And I also have to give very special thanks to fender3x for sharing the applicable wiring diagram and validating my "interpretation".

P1000928 L.JPG (180.44 KiB) Viewed 16536 times

I completed the mod over 3 days, but in about 4 hours overall. I had very, very, limited experience with soldering, and none with as small components - I hope the picture is bad enough quality that I don't get boo'ed - but I managed, which means that pretty much anyone can

I did mess up though... with the first half-failed attempt, I had wired the push-pull SPDT the wrong way around - everything was fine but the "push" standard position was killing the inside coils instead of the "pull" one. It's silly but since the 'kill coils' position was supposed to be the 'special' one, it made more sense the other way around. Anyway about 45 minutes later (told you, I'm not good at this), everything was in order.

I live in an apartment in Geneva, so I haven't yet had the opportunity of testing at full/normal volumes, so these are only initial impressions going through (half decent) headphones, or an old Nemesis NC410 at low volume (and at low volume, it tends to muffle the sound a bit, which evens out tonal characteristics). But:

No hum issues.

The SC Outside pickups together do have the scooped Jazz Bass sound. I wouldn't say that it replicates a 70's vintage JB, but you could for sure use this position when you would want to pull out the JB (well if you have a nice one, pull it out by all means). Slaps great ( I don't ), and from my earlier days I do love the fingered 'flute' JB sound, so it's all good.

The SC Inside pickups together have a wonderful kick, they are punchy but have nice definition and clarity - I really like this setting a lot, this alone was worth the effort.

Single coils on their own - I like them more than I thought. When I listened to the Femto samples on my PC, they sounded a bit shrill and honky, but they actually are more full than anticipated whether with a nice bridge burp, or a neck deep hollow growl, and should have their use - apart maybe for the outside bridge single. The inside coils have my preference, but I must say - maybe because I used a JB for too long - that when using either the neck or bridge pickups alone, I felt like adding a bit of the 'other' SC. Since a dual volume mod (from a diagram fender3x shared with me) is too much for my skills, I'll have to play a bit with the onboard preamp, or my amp's EQ, which I haven't touched much so far, for improvements in that area.

Note that I have only really tried passive mode (except the SC outside with pre+treble boost with great results), and running active seems to yield slightly different tones (is it because of the V1.0 preamp or do recent tookays show the same behavior?), so I'm expecting even more greatness

In any case, and with the still available previous Series/Parallel settings, this is one hell of a versatile bass. Even if it won't "replicate" a JB, a Pre, a MM, I can see how in any situation where you'd want one of these sounds, the tookay will offer a tone that will work, and more, plus its own. And the nicest thing is that in any setting, I still feel it's my bass I'm playing, with its underlying great 2k tone.

Anyway, this was a very, very positive experience and I would encourage anyone tempted but unsure of the difficulty to try it. It is easy, and well wort it.

Thanks again for/to the forum - it not only got me to buy a tookay, it then made it even better.

P.S.
Someone had launched the idea of sharing their favorite settings... I think this would be great to have a thread in the forum with preferred switch/eq setups to give G&L newcomers some starting points and ideas. Even the always (un)popular 'how to get close to a [favorite bass] sound' pointers would be quite useful - not that I believe in replicating another bass' sound, but I always have this type of reference in my head when looking for a tone for a new song (and so does your average band leader!).

[fender3x]

I hope the picture is bad enough quality that I don't get boo'ed - but I managed, which means that pretty much anyone can

Looks like you did a great job. The real proof, tho, is that it all worked when you got it hooked up

Since a dual volume mod (from a diagram fender3x shared with me) is too much for my skills, I'll have to play a bit with the onboard preamp, or my amp's EQ, which I haven't touched much so far, for improvements in that area.

Well I doubt that it's beyond your skills... but it's a pain in the butt to do that. I got the idea from Sunbeast. It was only when I began to map it out that I discovered that in involved re-doing the entire tone stack. It's no more difficult than what you have already done...but it is a LOT more time consuming.

I like the inners too. The outers are good, and I can definitely see using them from time to time, but the inners are just a great sound, and unique to these basses. Either way you should, if anything, have less hum than you had before. With the caps you only had one truly humbucking setting: parallel. Now inners, outers, as well as series and parallel are all humbucking. Nice additional benefit

Have fun, and thanks for the report!

[BluesBassPlayer]

Ya think someone would make a custom preamp, with all the great options as a drop in replacement. Are you listening G&L? I have a L-2000 BABE with the single coil option. I asked Flash ( the dealer), if he could single coil my other G&L's, he said it was too involved.

Jimi

[duff2]

I have had my L2K Tribute bass for a few months now. Its amazing how much of a bang for the buck these basses are. Excellent playability and stunning quality considering the ~$650 US street price. That being said, I never really cared for the sound of the humbucking pickups, especially in series mode. I much prefer the clarity and open-ess of single coil pickups, so I decided to mod my L2K bass from Dual Humbucker Parallel-Series to Humbucker Parallel-Single coil (Neck outside, bridge inside). I chose this mod as opposed to the 'dual outside' and 'dual inside' single coils as it was very straightforward to perform. All that was required was a repositioning of the two green wires as shown in the diagram below. Before this mod, I hardly ever picked this bass up. Now I can't put it down! This mod sounds AMAZING!!!!! The only drawback now is that my Jazz bass won't be getting nearly as much attention as before! LOL

Cheers,
Duff2

[palmann]

Duff2,

sorry I don't get it. My '97 L-2000 is wired like David described in his document (see attachment). How does this translate to your Diagramm?

Gruesse, Pablo

[deltafred]

Pablo

The drawing you have attached looks very much like the standard Parallel/Series with OMG capacitors on. (I may of course be wrong). It uses the standard 2 position switch, C&K 7401...

The single coil mod uses a different switch, C&K 7411... It has 3 positions, the outer positions are the same as the standard switch, the middle position does some cunning things that when wired as shown gives you single coil, or inners (or outers) if you have both pickup selected.

You can download the data sheet for C&K switches from the Digikey website.

fred

[palmann]

I think this wiring (with the capacitors) was standard in '97. I removed these in both ~97 L-2000 I got, because I felt they don't make much sense for me.

I just realized that Davids Mod 4 in the "GL_Wiring.doc" is exactly what I want. I just confused series with parallel once again...

EDIT: Forget it. I got a very old version of Daves document. I kust downloaded the new from 28-Feb-2008.

Gruesse, Pablo

[wazdabaz]

Well. My time to mod my tribute l2500 has come. I have found plenty of info on the matter but still got confused. My latest question came when I checked the guitarsbyleo gallery schematics of the stock wiring:
and the moded 3 switch wiring which I am not sure if it is inner or outer coil:


According to these pictures:
I have to change the yellow/white pots of neck pickup.
Put the black neck wire to the ground (can't i just leave it to the top middle pot?)
Put the green neck wire to the top middle pot.
But then what is the blue wire?

And yet another confusing pic:
I suppose that this is similar to the view of the photos. But it shows the yellow wires at the middle pots while my stock wiring has them at the right. So, i think I might not be reading this diagram right or maybe it has something to do with different wirings?

[deltafred]

wazdabaz

Hello and welcome to BBL.

I don't know if you realise but it is not just a matter of swapping a few wires on the switch to do the single coil mod. You need to change the switch from an on/on (4 pole 2 way), to an on/on/on (C&K type 7411) which is a 3 position switch that is the same as the original in the outer positions but in the center does some fancy routing that allows single coil selections.

Here is a thread on the SC mod viewtopic.php?f=4&t=256

And yet another confusing pic:
I suppose that this is similar to the view of the photos. But it shows the yellow wires at the middle pots while my stock wiring has them at the right. So, i think I might not be reading this diagram right or maybe it has something to do with different wirings?

2 things about this picture.

1. I think that the way the 4 pole switch is drawn is confusing you, the 'pots' are actually a representation of how it switches (if you follow my meaning).

2. It is part of the old 'USA' schematic, you can tell because it has the OMG capacitors on it, so will not correspond to a Tribute. The wiring on the Tributes is a functionally equivalent but simpler solution. (It is also used on the newer USA models.)

fred

[wazdabaz]

deltafred ,
thank u for your reply. Yes, I know that I 'll also change the whole switch. I suppose that the second photo shows a three way switch. What I don't understand is the blue wiring that shows up in the second photo and if this wiring has anything to do with DavePlaysBass' #7 mod. Actually, DavePlaysBass' doc. seems to be the only completed source @ the whole internet. Keep searching further and only more questions show up. Until now I was seeing the DavePlaysBass' diagram as a drawing of the pots and not as a way the switch will work (and I had learned that the capacitors should be missing in my tribute). But this seems confusing to me. Is there any photo or a thread with a photo (like the guitarsbyleo gallery photos I posted?) . Oh. And I forgot to mention that I am really interested on the push/pull volume mod which there is nowhere to be found as far as i googled. I am really skillful at soldering wirrings but I can't read well the diagrams.
Thank u for your time