cunnins4 Posted June 9, 2006 Report Share Posted June 9, 2006 Hi guys, i just installed two 57 classics in my Epi Les Paul. The neck one sounds fine, just need to adjust the height. However the bridge one doesn't sound good at all. I've read all of the other posts on this, but no one seems to have had this specific problem. When i select the bridge pickup, the sound does come through to the amp, but it's very weak. Compared to the neck, it's on a 0.5 out of 10, the neck being 10. When i was installing them i wired the inner wire to the lug on the pot, just like the old pickup and soldered a piece of wire to the back of the pot to the wire mesh around the connecting wire to ground it. It worked fine, but my brother (Electrical Engineer) told me to redo the soldering because he didn't think they looked very good. Then the whole pickup stopped working. Urghhh. We spent ages last night trying to get it to work. Soldered, resoldered. Removed, cleaned. Restripped the wires. I did everything again, checked everything, and nothing. Then i tried fiddling with the wires while my brother plucked a string on the guitar and i would momentarily get a sound. It sounded perfect when it came through, but would disappear too quickly. This suggested to me that the connections were bad. I left it until this morning, and installed the neck pickup. It worked perfect first time. No problems. Tried the bridge again, redid everything, still nothing. The only thing i could think of is that i damaged the pot when i repeatedly applied heat to it to solder and resolder it. Would this be right? The signal that comes through is clearl enough, just really, really weak. Any help would be greatly appreciated as i've been looking forward to upgrading my guitar for ages. Thanks guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted June 9, 2006 Report Share Posted June 9, 2006 It's quite easy to nuke a pot by overheating it, yes; try alligator clips (or similar) directly on the pickup leads, straight to output, bypassing the pot entirely, and see if you get a good, strong signal that way. If you don't, there's probably something wrong with the pickup itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cunnins4 Posted June 9, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2006 It's quite easy to nuke a pot by overheating it, yes; try alligator clips (or similar) directly on the pickup leads, straight to output, bypassing the pot entirely, and see if you get a good, strong signal that way. If you don't, there's probably something wrong with the pickup itself. BRILLIANT! Wish I'd thought of that before. I don't have alligator clips, so i just used some wire, and it worked a treat. Gonna buy a pot now. What value do i need to get? Quality, thanks man! Bouli Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted June 9, 2006 Report Share Posted June 9, 2006 Glad I could help. 500K, audio (log) taper is pretty traditional for ' buckers. Should actually be printed on the pot somewhere, though. You may need/want to get long-shaft pots because of the Les Paul-ness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cunnins4 Posted June 9, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2006 Thanks man, really appreciate the help. I got the pot there and installed it. My dodgy soldering caused a couple of hickups, but she's playing great now. Ah, it's beautiful. So powerful compared to the stock ones. tee hee...... thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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