Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

[PizzaMaker]

Hey all,

I recently modded my trash LP with some pretty gnarly wiring - push pulls for split & parallel on each pup plus toggle switches for series & parallel between the pups (JB & Jazz).

Picked up the guitar yesterday and noticed the neck was quite loud compared to the bridge and majorly bassy & unplayable. Volume & tone pots (DiMarzio 250k & 500k respectively) still work fine, as does the JB in the bridge. Prior to this it tended to have a sweet melodic warm tone. Now it's bloody awful.

Is this more likely to be a wiring issue or a pickup in the last throes of death? I'm changing the wiring again soon but if I need to swap a pup I'd rather wait until I have the new one before I start.

Cheers

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

Adjust your pickup height first. The neck position is going to be louder and dark than the bridge so try to calibrate the pickups height so that volume and tone aren't unbalanced. Capo at the 12th fret and use the bottom of your string as your guide. Then measure 3/32 for bass side and 2/32 for treble for the bridge pickup. You can probably set the neck to 4/32 for the bass and 3/32 for the treble side for the neck pickup. If the neck is still too dark rotate the pickup so the screw coil faces the bridge. If it's still too dark try hex poles instead of fillsiters.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

yep. check your pickup height.

follow the specs. they are in the instructions. they come in the box. along with the pickup. might be on the SD site.

 

[PizzaMaker]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

Pickup height is right - it's the first thing I checked. It's where I've always run it.

One day the pickup was fine, the next it wasn't.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

could be time to break out the meter and get to work testing connections

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

My first guess is your series switch is somehow on when the neck is selected (possibly too many wires too close to each other and touching in the control cavity).

If you switch to the neck and tap the bridge pup with something metal, does it make a sound? Or is the bridge truly off when in the neck pup selection position?

 

[PizzaMaker]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

could be time to break out the meter and get to work testing connections

I was afraid of that but I think I'll wait. I'm re-wiring soon to replace the 250k pots with 500k and some different tone caps. After this is done I will know if it's a dying pup or a dodgy solder.

My first guess is your series switch is somehow on when the neck is selected (possibly too many wires too close to each other and touching in the control cavity).

If you switch to the neck and tap the bridge pup with something metal, does it make a sound? Or is the bridge truly off when in the neck pup selection position?

Beau, you could have hit on something here. The volume increase is on par with a series setup although that doesn't account for the booming bass. Until the other day when this occurred the guitar got loud and trebly when in series, and the phase switch dried it out to a nice page-ish rasp.

I'm at work at the moment but I'll check this when I get home. Hopefully it's something a simple re-wire will fix - new Duncans are damn expensive in Australia and I don't have the patience to wait for them to come from the USA.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

The other option is that your cap could be shorting to ground.

And the net is always the place for pickup purchase....much cheaper.

 

[Mr. B]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

If you find that there is no mistake in wiring, get the 250k pot off your Jazz neck. The JB can deal with 250k sometimes, the Jazz cannot. I never use less than a 300k on my JB's either.

 

[Archer250]

Re: Jazz - booming bass, pup or wiring?

Get the 500k for both.