Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Folks,

2002 360/12, though it was purchased new last summer....

With switch in the treble position, I'm getting a lot of cut out. If I move to treble and bass, middle, position, the cutting out seems to go away.
I've checked and switched cables but that didn't help.

Could I have a switch going bad? How would I check it out?

Thanks,

I had the same thing. I removed the switch, and fiddled with the contact a bit, and it went away. It was a pain to do, I wasn't too thrilled about it myself.

I general put a piece of paper (non-glossy & no ink) in between the contacts when closed and move it in and out. This always does the trick for me. An index card is ideal for its stiffness. Just use the part at the top with no lines. I don't know if the ink can transfer but why chance it.

The switch is certainly the place to start, but if it seems OK and your stumped you might also want to check the normal phone jack. The jack has a switch built into it and a lot of metal stuff hanging off of one side of it (unlike a normal, plain phone jack or the Ric-O-Sound jack). It's often a very tight fit in the hole made for it in the body. If it's up against the wood or gets turned a little bit in it's hole so that the switch mechanism is against the wood it can cause your pickups to cut out - maybe all the time, maybe just when you wiggle the cord running to your amp. The fix is either to turn it slightly on the jack-plate so that it's clear again or to go inside the control cavity and Dremel out the inside of the hole in the body a little bit to give it a little more space.

Whether or not that's the case here, I can't say, but it's something worth filing someplace in the back of your brain. If you ever do have the problem, it can be very frustrating to find and correct it. You spend a lot of time checking and re-checking all the wiring and switches (which are perfectly fine on the bench) but when you reassemble the guitar suddenly the pickups are cutting out again. The first time it happened to me, I spent about two hours messing with my wiring and getting totally frustrated before I figured out that the problem was caused by wood, not by anything electronic.

Thanks for the tips and pointers folks. I'll be looking at it tonight.