Volume drop-off - could pickup be the problem?

Marc Friedland · Post by **Marc Friedland** » 12 May 2008 9:59 am

At a gig last night, the first song was fine.
Then all of a sudden there was a very large drop in volume.
From the testing I was able to perform, it appears the problem is not the cable, amp or input jack.
By the process of deduction does this mean it has to be a pickup problem or can it be something else?
My Carter is about 12 years old; do pickups just fail at some point?
Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions.
Marc

BTW
I was able to play by cranking up the amp enough.
It was only about 1/4 volume and it didn’t have a rich full sound, but I was being mic’d so at least they were able to get some sound to the audience.

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 12 May 2008 10:03 am

Very well could be. A friend just got his fry-pan back from another friend that used it at gigs right next (like 10' away) to the ocean, and it was next to dead. He swapped out the coil for a newer one and it came back to life.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 12 May 2008 10:36 am

Marc,
If you have humbucker on there you can check the resistance and see if you shorted out a coil. 12st humbuckers measure around 20.0k to 25.0k or in the ballpark. If the pickup only measures 10K or so that is your problem. I don't have the numbers on hand for Bill Lawrence pickups though. A single coil can short out also. I would go over all my connections and cables first before screwing with the pickup.
If the guitar sounds brite, thin and sorta hollow and has way less volume it sounds like a pickup short to me.

Bo Legg · Post by **Bo Legg** » 14 May 2008 1:50 pm

The last time I had a problem like that it was my Peavey Tubefex processor. I was just wondering if you are using a processor I've had more of those go bad than I have pickups or amps.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 15 May 2008 1:35 pm

Find someone with an ohmmeter, and have them check the pickup. Pickups fail very rarely, and I'd be a lot more apt to suspect a bad connection somewhere, than I would a bad pickup.

Roual Ranes · Post by **Roual Ranes** » 16 May 2008 2:47 am

If your volumn pedal has a pot.......that would be my first suspect.

Blake Hawkins · Post by **Blake Hawkins** » 17 May 2008 6:05 am

Marc, What amplifier are you using?

sonbone · Post by **sonbone** » 17 May 2008 1:47 pm

I've had the same problem you describe several times in the past 25 or 30 years. As best as I can remember the score is: 1 time it was the pickup, 1 time effects processor needed internal connections re-soldiered, 1 time amplifier needed internal connections re-soldiered. Oh, almost forgot once I had to change the output jack on the steel, when I took it off it fell apart in my hands. Troubleshooting is sometimes pretty difficult. I think I've gone quite a few weeks in the past before finding the problem.

When my pickup started giving me problems, it became noisy. I didn't really notice a volume drop. When I removed it from the steel and unwrapped the tape (stock single coil Zum from when Bruce wound them), I noticed some corrosion (probably years of high humidity) around some of the windings. Replaced it with a Bill Lawrence and it's worked fine for the past 12 or 13 years.

The processor and the amp where both over 10 years old and had many, many hours on them before these problems arose. The tech that fixed them (Slemmons Electronics in Dallas) said it was a common maintenance issue and that the connections should be re-soldiered periodically. Since then I've brought a couple of seemingly dead effects back to life just by opening them up and re-flowing all the connections.

Marc Friedland · Post by **Marc Friedland** » 26 May 2008 9:38 am

An update--
The first things I immediately did were to take the volume pedal, amplifier, and patch cords out of the equation, so I knew they couldn't be the reason for the problem.
A couple of days later I brought my guitar to Tom Bradshaw. He tightened a couple of things, soldered a few areas that he said looked fine anyway and that fixed whatever the problem was, even though he wasn't convinced he made any significant changes. I still use the same amp, volume pedal, cords, etc and it all works fine every time now.
Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions.
Marc