Did I Short Out My Pickup?

JoelMongeon · #1 06-18-2019, 09:47 PM

So here's what happened. I bought a new pedal (a Keeley Aurora Reverb) that does not have a battery compartment and did not come with an external power supply. I had one "universal" 9v adapter on hand, so I plugged the pedal in to try it out. I was using my Takamine N10, which is equipped with an L.R. Baggs Lyric (active).

With the pedal off, the dry signal passed through just fine. When I turned the pedal on, nothing but speaker hum. So I went to the music store, thinking maybe my adapter was the problem. They plugged the pedal into a 1 Spot and got no sound out of it at all. But I hadn't brought my guitar with me, so maybe the floor model I picked up was faulty. I bought a 1 Spot from the store and took it home. Tried the pedal again. This time I couldn't even get a dry signal from the Takamine. I tried out my other guitar, which has a K&K Pure Mini (passive), and the pedal worked perfectly.

Then I took the pedal out of the equation. No sound from the Takamine. The volume knob makes a little noise when you turn it, but nothing from the strings. Assuming the first adapter I tried out was really bad, is it possible that I shorted out my pickup? None of this explains what happened at the music store, since I used a different guitar and a different power supply, but I'm worried now that it'll be an expensive repair if I damaged the wiring inside the guitar.

jonfields45 · #2 06-19-2019, 05:14 AM

Speaking as an EE with plenty of experience checking out pedal schematics it is nearly impossible you damaged the guitar from the pedal. The pedal input is isolated from the pedal power supply by a capacitor or very high resistors. Any voltage that could damage the guitar would have fried the much more delicate digital electronics needed to make a reverb too.

First step is a new battery in the guitar.

JoelMongeon · #3 06-19-2019, 09:42 AM

I should have noted that a new battery was the first thing I tried. I was hoping that was the only problem. But now even with a new battery and all of my settings where they usually are, I'm not getting any sound. As I said before, the volume knob itself is transmitting a signal, but the pickup is just a single condenser mic and that doesn't seem to be picking up any sound.

jonfields45 · #4 06-19-2019, 01:27 PM

A long shot might be a second bad battery or you are using a TRS (stereo) cable that is not turning the Lyric on (if it uses a grounded ring for power on). Baggs has good tech support and it would be worth giving them a call.

JoelMongeon · #5 06-19-2019, 11:39 PM

Just tried it with three different cables. Still no signal. This is the strangest thing. I'll contact customer support and see if Baggs can lend any insight. Thanks for your help, John!