pick up problem

les electric · #1 02-22-2014, 04:21 AM

Hi all, my ES135 has a problem with one pick up being much louder than the other, I have turn the volume down on the neck pick up or I get a surprise when flicking from the neck pick up where the volume is way down to the bridge pick up. Any thoughts on what the problem is likely to be. The obvious one would be the pick up itself, maybe the windings are on the way out. Cannot seem to find what the resistance should be.

clintj · #2 02-22-2014, 05:01 AM

Has it always done this, or started recently? Other possible culprits are pickup height, a defective or worn out pot, or maybe even a bad capacitor.

muscmp · #3 02-22-2014, 02:13 PM

have you made any changes to it lately? try lowering the louder pickup. the neck pickup is usually not as loud. if i am correct, those are probably p90 pickups. could also be a loose pickup wire attached to the pot.

play music!

Dru Edwards · #4 02-22-2014, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clintj

Has it always done this, or started recently? Other possible culprits are pickup height, a defective or worn out pot, or maybe even a bad capacitor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by muscmp

have you made any changes to it lately? try lowering the louder pickup. the neck pickup is usually not as loud. if i am correct, those are probably p90 pickups. could also be a loose pickup wire attached to the pot.

play music!

Clint has a great question, is this a new problem or has it always been like this. If it's always been like this try lowering the louder pickup, as muscmp said.

les electric · #5 02-23-2014, 06:58 AM

when I bought it, it had a faulty toggle switch that would only spring back to the middle position and the neck pick up indeed had a broken wire. I soldered it back and it was ok, I also repaired the switch. They are P100 stacked humbuckers, not the best apparently. I will have to spend some time working on it, not the easiest guitar to work on being hollow bodied and having no removable panels. I will inspect the pick up wiring first and then switch the wires on the toggle to eliminate the volume/tone controls as a problem.

clintj · #6 02-23-2014, 07:36 AM

If you have a multimeter, you can test each part of the harness individually once you have it out of the guitar. According to the Gibson forums, P-100R's should read around 6.1k, P-100T's between 9.4 and 16k. Significantly lower than that could indicate an internal short in the pickup coil itself, which will give you a reduced output. Good luck!

les electric · #7 02-25-2014, 09:45 AM

thanks for that info, I will pick a day when I am feeling calm and remove the harness and do some tests. Not the easiest guitar to work on. Like keyhole surgery.

Tony Done · #8 02-25-2014, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by les electric

when I bought it, it had a faulty toggle switch that would only spring back to the middle position and the neck pick up indeed had a broken wire. I soldered it back and it was ok, I also repaired the switch. They are P100 stacked humbuckers, not the best apparently. I will have to spend some time working on it, not the easiest guitar to work on being hollow bodied and having no removable panels. I will inspect the pick up wiring first and then switch the wires on the toggle to eliminate the volume/tone controls as a problem.

I think P100s are fantastic for smooth slide sounds. The main problem I have found with them is that, presumably because they have two huge coils (about 19K each), they pick up a lot of rf noise. The way I get mine to work both for tone and noise reduction is to use a very bright amp (H&K St. Dual EL84), and wind the treble off on the guitar until the noise is sufficiently reduced.

I don't think this is likely with a 450K ohm or so pot, but could the earth connection on the neck pickup volume pot have broken so that it is acting as a resistor rather than a voltage divider? Ie, not losing any signal to earth?