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Why Do My Pots Suck?


low end fuzz

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so; preamps are by far my favorite thing ever invented, but in this situation, a lil over the top;

im wiring one jazz pup to vol tone;

i wire it all up and i get sound and what not; but there is no change( besides the amount of hum )when i turn the knobs;

the volume stays at one consistant level with a small hum, when i crank it 'full' the hum clears up; same thing with the tone, it does nothing;

theres not one 2 pot diagram that does anything i havent tried and its the same result; i switched around through alot of pots;

i got these a while back in bulk from allparts; is this my problem?

i have both 500 and 250 and its all the same story;

now most of you are gonna first say the hum is from improper grounding; which is technically true; because im doing the 'pre'wiring in a harness to drop in when its done; and im grounding to a common piece of copper stuck on my block; its like looking into a sheilded cavity; but the hum isnt the problem ; its the not changing anyhting thats driving me nuts!! (just to clarify)

the 500 and 250 are different in the respect one are linear and the other audio taper; i cant remember which is which; but neither are doing anything so who cares!

is this an allparts issue or a me being stupid issue; its ok, ican take it; i just want them to work!

thanx

i know its long, im frustrated

grant

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I am having a lot of trouble working out what you are talking about :D

is this an allparts issue or a me being stupid issue; its ok, ican take it; i just want them to work!

So...my guess it's the later over the former...

more details, diagram and clearer explanation please

pete

PS...you ground to a piece of copper?!?#@$?

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i guess its kinda jumbled, as im trying to explain all this crap;

im gonna plug away a little and think of smaller ;more precise problems to hurdle , buy process of elimation and see what happens;

and i dont ground to a 'piece' of copper; i have a setup for wiring thats a block of wood with holes for the pot shafts to sit with copper tape over the entire face to ground to ,to simulate the inside of the cavity.

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Do you ground this to the strings...? I hope so.

I do not think that it will be a pot problem, more a wiring one. The likely hood of a faulty pot is slim...but if you have tried two, I think the problem lies elsewhere...

pete

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Well, how can we help or even have an opinion if we don't even have a picture or diagram?

defeated=bypass..kind of.

is this a bass "jazz" pickup or a jazz guitar?

take the pickup and connect it directly to a jack plug...does that work? Right, now add a volume control...got that working, right...add a tone control...done! Make sure at all times the strings are grounded...to be sure add a wire directly to the strings and see if that works. make sure your cable is working ok.

Do you have a multimeter...attach it to the centre tag of the pot and either outside one...turn the pot and you will see the resistance rise from 0-250K/500K proving to you that the pot works...

That said, I have been having problems with a wiring and the tone control seems to be causing no end of problems...eventually I left it out for a while :D . But if I were to ask for help, I'd have to draw up the diagram...if anyone can help me with my problem on the details I have given, I'd be very surprised.

So, post a diagram of exactly what you have done, or try the steps above. If pots fail, it is ususally a mechanical thing and you can see or feel the problem...if not these are unlikely to be the problem...but that is what the multimeter is for!

pete

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im gonna search 'defeated' right now; but for the chance of coming up empty can you explain this;

to me that sounds like something im doing is bypassing the pots job; which seems what is exactly happening!

Yes, what I meant is that you must have somehow inadvertently bypassed the volume pot so that it is basically doing nothing now.

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