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So I get to the recording studio, plug up, crank the bassman, and .. silence. I switch it over to the rhythm circuit, it works. The night before I adjusted the neck pickup and tightened some knobs, somehow it stopped working. Is there anything in teh guitar that could just 'break'? I just resoldered every joint, no change. I know the pickup works as I can use it in the rhythm circuit, but the entire lead curcuit is just gone. What possibly could have happened??

im thinking the rythm circuit switch is bonkered. my 64 does this, probably due to dust inside the switch. open her up and shoot some compressed air in the switch, give it a good wiggling and try try try again i guess. you can use a multi meter to check the switch if you have one handy, all guitarists should keep one handy for quickly troubleshooting things like this

something is probably being grounded out. check to make sure nothing is touching anything it's not supposed to.

or, possibly something is not being grounded that is supposed to be grounded. so check that there's no ground wires unconnected.

is this the general schematic I should check everything with? I remember having a nicer one at some point..

http://www.jag-stang.com/wp-content/upl ... ematic.gif

It sounds like where you tightened a pot you turned it internally and now something is touching something it shouldn't sending the output of the lead circuit to ground.

This is weird!

I can turn the lead channel volume pot off and you can hear it cut down the noise. What does this mean?

I think that's perfectly normal. hum and noise should go away if you turn the volume all the way down.

mage wrote:I think that's perfectly normal. hum and noise should go away if you turn the volume all the way down.

Well, yes - but in combination with no guitar signal? It is normally like that but its odd that that still happens when it seemingly stopped working. What could have happened? I went over it again today, redid more solder joints. I am totally miffed. Bizarre

the pot is the last thing in line before it goes to the jack [right?] so technically it is still sending whatever noise/hum you're getting to the jack. Good thing is, that noise is usually amplified by the pickups [right?] so it shouldn't be anything south of that [RIGHT?]

sorry if my poor attempt at nerding has failed, just my potentially worthless input
but seriously, multimeter

Do you have a meter? If not try to get one and meter things out.

I'm going to a friends house with a multimeter. What should I check though? It suddenly sopped working so it's not like a solder joint stopped?

check everything starting from the jack.

So I brought a digital meter home, and on every solder joint I've checked it says 1. I checked ends of wires, too, all '1'. How do I check the switches?

I would start by selecting the ohmmeter, going to the ends of the pickups and checking that the pickup is giving the number of ohms expected (not sure about jag pickups, but I think it's something like 6 or 7k), then keeping the common test lead where it is and moving the other down the signal chain to see at what point things start to mess up.

mage wrote:I would start by selecting the ohmmeter, going to the ends of the pickups and checking that the pickup is giving the number of ohms expected (not sure about jag pickups, but I think it's something like 6 or 7k), then keeping the common test lead where it is and moving the other down the signal chain to see at what point things start to mess up.

end of the pickup leads?
ugh this is pissing me off, everything seems in working order..

yeah.

mage wrote:yeah.

common test lead is red?

well, whatever one you plug into "COM",

its on the ohm setting but if I put one .. 'thing' to each lead it just stays at '0L'

huh.