Greg Ferguson
New Member
This is what's going on… The guitar was working great, then I put it in its case for a couple of weeks, and when I took it out the neck pickup was running about 6 dB below where it had been. Previously it balanced very nicely against the middle pickup and the bridge, but now the sound output is obviously lower. And, what is probably significant, but is weird, is that rolling off the tone reduces the pickup's output to almost nothing. I can barely hear it, whereas the middle and bridge are just as loud, only without treble, as I'd expect. Switching to engage the middle and neck pickups causes a big bump in bass response and output when the middle pickup engages, and that level remains when I switch to the center position.
I can hear the mini-toggle for the neck pickup change between the coil split and normal position, but, again, the output isn't close to the sound of the other pickups. The pickup heights are correct according to the setup page and haven't been adjusted.
I gave both the volume and tone controls a little spray of cleaner, which hasn't helped. The 5-way will be my next target because maybe its contact for the neck has something on it. Wiggling wires while the strings are sustaining hasn't resulted in any clicks or unexpected noises so I don't think any wires or solder joints are broken, but possibly there's a cold-solder joint that finally gave up so I'll reflow all the connections if nothing else seems to help.
Do the symptoms sound familiar to anyone? I'd like to focus on one particular problem rather than take the shotgun approach for fixing this.
I don't think anything degaussed the pickup, because it would have affected the middle and bridge pickup magnets too.
Thanks.
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