vol pot help!

[bin4christ]

i recently acquired an epiphone les paul..

wen i played it this morning, found tt the bridge pickup is v soft wen run on cleans..n wen run thru a dist it's louder but still v soft compared to other pickup positions..wen i tweak the vol pot it doesnt seem to make a difference.

wat can i do?

 

[jon__]

adjust the pickup height for neck and bridge until the individual volumes are balanced..3 simple steps:

1. find a screwdriver and adjust the bridge and/or neck pickup height by turning the screws on either side of the pickup ring.

2. play something through an amp and listen for the volume balance.

3. repeat until the individual pickup volumes are balanced, and you can hear both neck and bridge characteristics clearly when you use both pickups.

hope that helps

 

[bin4christ]

i dont think it's the pickup height problem..the bridge pickup is already high..

 

[jbarks]

Lower the neck pickup?

 

[bin4christ]

kicky:doesnt help lah..it's the bridge pickup..got nth to do with the neck pickup at all..

 

[bin4christ]

hey mates,i opened the back n fiddled with the wire tt i think links the pot to the pickup n ther's no prob wen i plug it in..

hee maybe i got potential as a luthier :lol: ..

 

[ShredCow]

kicky:doesnt help lah..it's the bridge pickup..got nth to do with the neck pickup at all..

actually, it makes sense. If the neck pup is too close to the strings, the bright pup would seem weak in context.

 

[penguin]

is the pu out of phase? or the switching is kinda reverse?

 

[Dongara]

If you can borrow a multimeter you can test to see whether the pickup is damaged internally or the volume pot is. Damaged pickups and damaged volume pots with high resistance will produce low outpu.

Set the multimeter on resistance scale and connetc to a guitar cable and connect cable to guitar. Set all pots (volume and tone) to maximum. The reading should now show the DC resistance of the pickup (approximately) neck and bridge should be between 8 to 12 K for a humbucker and the middle position should be half that (two pickups running in parallel). The figure increase as you turn the volume pot off.

If the figure is very high (i.e. 100K) then either the pot or the pickup is damaged. Disconnect the pickup from the pot and check again. If the figure is normal, then the pot is damaged, so replace it. If the figure is still high, then repair or replace the pickup.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

[jbarks]

is the pu out of phase? or the switching is kinda reverse?

Phase reversal can only happen if both pickups are on... If I'm not wrong, he's talking about switching to the bridge pickup and since the neck pickup isn't in the signal equation here, there's nothing to reverse the waveform with

 

[embryo]

This is actually a common among Epi guitars that use the 3 way toggle. Yup the problem is the 3 way toggle switch. Best to replace it with an original Gibson switch as I do find cheaper ones get intermittent after awhile. Hope this helps.

 

[bin4christ]

it's been changed to a gotoh 1 by a previous owner..

 

[embryo]

it's been changed to a gotoh 1 by a previous owner..

Heh. The originals on Epis do luk very Gotoh to me.