Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

The weirdest thing happened tonight...

I went to play my 330 in the middle position and noticed that the sound was extremely quiet and muffled. Twiddled the knobs a bit, but nothing changed until I got to the "blender" knob (sorry, I am sure there is a Ric lingo term for this, I'm just not aware of what it is), at which point I had the muffled sound on one side, and the bright sound of the bridge on the other. Tried the guitar in the bridge - full sound, bright, articulate. Tried it in the neck - not even half the volume, no treble at all. Again, twiddled the knobs to see if I had done something stupid, but nothing changed.

So I popped the hood and took a look around for any lose wires. Everything looked fine, so gave it a quick cleaning while the pickguard was off, closed her up and plugged in. Problem solved. Not sure what the heck could have happened, but she's working fine now.

Any ideas what the problem could have been?

Ric-o-gremlins?

There's a cold solder joint somewhere. Sometimes something gets loose in the jacks too.
Sometimes some loose buffing compound will get caught
in the switch contacts.

Don't look now, but the Ric Gremlins are back. Same problem, only this time I couldn't get rid of it.

Any ideas on how to find it or troubleshoot it?

Well, I took the pickguard off tonight and used my multimeter on the hot leads of both pickups (connected at the switch) and ground

Bridge was around 10.5
Neck was around 1.7

Unless I am checking these the wrong way (as described above), something seems very off with the neck pickup. The only thing I can think of is taking it out and looking at the wiring on the bottom of the pickup.

What should I do at this point? I've only had this guitar since June.

Well, this is hard to believe, but after two months away, this problem showed up again.

Guitar played fine Monday night through my amp. Changed the strings. Played again, everything was fine. Put it away.

Picked it up the following night, and this problem was back. I got frustrated, so I put it back and called it a night. Picked it up the next morning, it worked fine.

Went to use it again tonight - started out fine (I think, but I am not positive since I was playing in the bridge), and now it's back again.

This time I recorded what it sounds like - only the problem started to go away as I played! It is very audible in the beginning of the clip, but by the end it is almost gone. Clip two is only a few minutes later, and the problem is completely gone.

Note that all pickup volume and tone controls are on full, and the blend control is set to get the max signal from the neck. This clip starts in the neck, than middle, than bridge. I am not touching any controls other than the switch. Also note the "static" that occurs in the neck and middle position - this is not the recording or the equipment. I tried it with other guitars and it only happens with my Ric, in these positions.

Any clues, tips or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

http://www.twin-a.com/music/Ric_Clip1.mp3
http://www.twin-a.com/music/Ric_Clip2.mp3