I play my first gig with my new punk band on July 3rd. They love the P bass sound, but I wanted a more aggressive sounding pickup....something HOT, and decided on the DiMarzio DP146 Will Power Middle. It's the same pickup Billy Sheehan uses in his Yamaha Attitudes.

When I opened the packaging I noticed the instructions included wiring for a series/parallel switch, so I thought, "What the hell." I drove to Radio Shack (electronics store)and picked up a DPDT 2-position switch, and decided to give it a try. Standard wiring is Series, which is a little louder, and has a very deep low end. The additional setting(with the switch) is Parallel, which is a little lower(volume-wise), and not a deep sounding.

I REALLY like it with this particular pickup. I've had the old S-1 switch Fenders, and didn't care for the parallel setting on those basses, but I believe this particular pickup sounds AMAZING in either mode. With the punk band, we have a couple of songs that actually call for a nice deep tone, but the parallel mode/thinner tone definitely fits the bill on a couple of the songs where we're going for that "classic" punk tone.

Here are some pics...let me tell you....you need a lot of patience to wire up the switch...I added a little heat shrink afterwards to make sure none of the wires/contacts touch.