Dead pickup or dead pot?

[paologregorio]

Hi all,

Last night while playing , the signal from the bridge pickup of my Geddy Lee J bass cut out and is completely dead, and it has some increased hum from what it had before the pickup signal cut out(the neck pickup still works). I've already checked the wires, and nothing is visibly broken, so I think it might be a dead p/u or a dead pot. Can anyone tell me how to test the pot and the pickup to see if either is the problem?

I know it's not a Rick bass, but it's a Geddy Lee J bass, and Geddy Lee also plays Rick basses, so I figured it was okay. Besides, I already own five Rick guitars, so I currently don't have the $ for a JG 4003, which is on my list!

[stevebasshead]

I'm assuming there's no crackling from the pots so it's probably not dirt on the contacts within. Could be a dry solder joint. I'm not sure how exactly to test pots but to test your pickups get hold of a multimeter, set it to measure resistance (ohms) and simply press the two leads to each of the wires coming off the back of your pickup (maybe try it on the working one first so you know approximately what reading to look for). Then try the suspect pickup.

Hope this helps,
Steve.

[paologregorio]

Thanks Steve!

Evidently I did not examine the wire leads to the pickup closely enough; as I carefully removed the bridge pickup from its body rout, I noticed that the white lead was not attached to the pickup, but at the bottom of the pickup cavity, with the end barely visible. Upon attempting to gently pull the lead up, I discovered that it was taut. I removed the control cavity cover to find that at the factory, the assembler had routed the white lead between the pickup and pot around the input jack. There was no slack in the lead, so each time the guitar cable was plugged into the bass, the lead was strained, until the wire lead broke where it was soldered to the pickup. I trimmed the end from the wire, de soldered the broken end from the pickup, tinned the newly trimmed end of the white wire lead, soldered it back in, and BANG, good as new! Woo Hoo! I am quite pleased that I didn't even have to leave the house to complete this repair.

Thanks again for the input Steve.

Paul

[stevebasshead]

I'm glad you're all sorted