Electric guitar has almost no output

wasted pixels

Short and sweet: I was given a vintage Strat as a gift, and it's a beautiful piece of work except for one little thing... it doesn't seem to have any output. It has the right amount of buzz for a Strat (especially the 1-3-5 positions on the switch), but the actual notes are barely audible. I have to turn my practice amp (a Vox Pathfinder 15) all the way up to hear a note.

I've checked the obvious bits; reflowed any questionable solder joints, pickups seem to be fine. The notes sound, they're just incredibly damn quiet. The amp is fine, cable is fine, so it has to be the guitar. Is there something obvious/specific that I should check, or should I use this as an excuse to rewire and get fresh pots on it?

Edit: It might be worth noting that the guitar's wiring is very, very standard.

Oski

I'd take it to a shop and have them check around a little bit. They pots might just be old or you might have something more serious.

Khavall

Are the strings maybe Acoustic strings?


EDIT: Or if you don't know, have you tried throwing some electric strings on it to see if it helps? I have a suspicion it will.

I know it seems really weird and obvious-seeming, but it would explain things, and I can completely see it happening. Someone is about to give away or sell a guitar, and they realize they haven't changed the strings in a while, so they grab a set and throw them on the guitar. Only it turns out they grabbed some nice Acoustic Bronze strings instead of some nice magnetic Nickel/Stainless Steel strings. Bronze is all sorts of shitty magnetics-wise, so the pickups just don't pick much up. You'd get the buzz because the electronics are all fine, they're just not getting much interruption of the magnetic field.

garroad_ran

I actually have a similar problem with a '98 California Series strat I picked up a while back, so I'll be watching this thread with some interest. Unfortunately, I haven't really had time to prod around the electronics for a while, so I haven't been able to figure out what the problem on mine is.

Stupid question but: are the pickup heights ok? Also, have you tried replacing or at least cleaning the output jack?

Technicality

If you have access to a multimeter you could plug in a jack and test the resistance across the two points. With the volume on max, and a single pickup connected (switch on 1, 3 or 5) you should be getting around 10kOhms IIRC. If its a lot higher, something is probably loose or dirty, and providing extra resistance. If its a lot lower you probably have a short circuit somewhere.

If this is the case, and fiddling with the tone controls and switching pickups with the switch makes no difference to the volume you can rule out those sections, which leaves you with the volume knob, the output jack and the wiring connected to these.

If you are getting around 10k its unlikely to be the electronics, and my guess would be Khavali is right.

Typhoid Manny

An easy way to check if it's the strings is to get an electric drill and put the spinny part right next to the pickup you have it switched to. if it picks up the sound of the motor spinning, then the pickups and wiring are fine and it's the strings, or possibly the pickups are sitting way the hell too low, which is unlikely but also possible.

But if it's a normal amount of hum and it doesn't get ridiculously loud when you crank your amp, I'm pretty certain it's a set of acoustic strings on there, which you need to take off right now or it'll rip the bridge straight out of the body.

Khavall

Or an easier way is just to look at the color. Electric strings are nickel, so silver colored, acoustic strings are bronze, so.... bronze colors. It's the sort of thing where if you're familiar with the differences and think about it it kind of seems obvious, but as I said before, it's totally understandable to miss and have happen, just because, I mean, hell after 4 years of playing guitar casually I've only changed strings once, because I was performing on acoustic and I broke a string. Electric I don't even notice when I change except when one breaks.

Kate of Lokys

He doesn't have acoustic strings on there. He just put a new set on before he started tinkering, but they are most definitely intended for use on an electric. He's been playing guitar longer than I've been playing computer games, give him a little credit :P

The capacitor is fine, too, he checked it with a multimeter. And he replaced the wiring leading to the output jack, which didn't make a bit of difference.

The real problem is, this guitar is the only instrument he has up here - he doesn't have anything to test parts in. He could spend half a day with an overpriced bottle of electronic components cleaner patiently stripping all the old solder off everything, then carefully redoing all of the wiring, only to discover that hey, the wiring was actually fine, the problem must be somewhere else. At this point, I'm leaning towards thinking that the pots themselves, because the thing is about 30 years old and it really shows its age in some places. (The tuners were literally falling apart while he was replacing them). But we're in Canada, so going out to the local over-priced guitar shop and dropping $50 on a new set of pots would be an expensive way to figure out that they're not the problem either.

Any other suggestions?

wmelon

well you should be able to easily check the resistance in the pots since you have a multimeter handy. the resistance between the sweeper and either end should range between 0 ohms and 250k ohms or 500k ohms from all the way one direction to the other.

acidlacedpenguin

Kate of Lokys wrote: »

He doesn't have acoustic strings on there. He just put a new set on before he started tinkering, but they are most definitely intended for use on an electric. He's been playing guitar longer than I've been playing computer games, give him a little credit :P

The capacitor is fine, too, he checked it with a multimeter. And he replaced the wiring leading to the output jack, which didn't make a bit of difference.

The real problem is, this guitar is the only instrument he has up here - he doesn't have anything to test parts in. He could spend half a day with an overpriced bottle of electronic components cleaner patiently stripping all the old solder off everything, then carefully redoing all of the wiring, only to discover that hey, the wiring was actually fine, the problem must be somewhere else. At this point, I'm leaning towards thinking that the pots themselves, because the thing is about 30 years old and it really shows its age in some places. (The tuners were literally falling apart while he was replacing them). But we're in Canada, so going out to the local over-priced guitar shop and dropping $50 on a new set of pots would be an expensive way to figure out that they're not the problem either.

Any other suggestions?

I'm in Canada too and I can get pots for like $0.50. Unless you're above the perma-frostline you're doing it wrong.

You could get some 20K resistors and wire them in place of the pots. If your pots are 100K that should "lock" your output levels at ~80% or higher for higher pot values.

you could try taking them out of the CCT, locking your output at 100%.

Does it make a scratch sound when you turn the pots?

are you plugging into the amplified input on the amp?

have you checked to see if the amp is the problem and not the guitar?

wasted pixels

OP here, sorry for not replying sooner, got called out of town yesterday.

As Kate pointed out (bless her for defending my honor. *blush*), I did indeed use the correct strings (EB Hybrid Slinky), so we can safely rule that out. I've resoldered most of the connections, so cold joints are ruled out. The amp is 100% fine, so that's out. That leaves either three dead pickups (unlikely), a wiring problem, or (as has been suggested) a problem in one of the pots. I was hoping somebody had seen this exact problem and could tell me "hey, your volume potentiometer is grounding out" or something, but no such luck, I guess.

It looks like I'm going to have to disassemble the whole pickguard and check the components one at a time. Thanks for the input, everyone.

acidlacedpenguin wrote: »

I'm in Canada too and I can get pots for like $0.50. Unless you're above the perma-frostline you're doing it wrong.

Where? I'm not trying to be a smartass at all, I just haven't been able to find an electronics shop anywhere up here (I'm in London), and Fender 500k pots are $rape at the local guitar shop.

Pheezer

If you buy your parts from an electronics distributor rather than a guitar store you'll find a massive price difference. It won't say Fender on it, but so long as you buy the right resistance and it's constructed using the same materials you should get the same results.

acidlacedpenguin

yeah sorry, didn't mean to sound like an ass but pheezer answered the question. honestly I did exagerate a little, unless you're buying by the thousand, prices should be between $1 and $3.

here's a link to one that's $2.70 each

http://ca.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=AJuy2W0p6tqpi4MHodFyVQ%3d%3d

wasted pixels

Pheezer wrote: »

If you buy your parts from an electronics distributor rather than a guitar store you'll find a massive price difference. It won't say Fender on it, but so long as you buy the right resistance and it's constructed using the same materials you should get the same results.

As mentioned, though, I can't even find an electronics place locally, and the place penguin is linking me to is showing $20 to ship 3 pots (D:). If there's a reliable Canadian based electronics outlet that I should be looking at, I'm all ears, seriously.

Unknown

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Pheezer

Electro-Sonic in Winnipeg has sold me a few things, never looked for pots though (http://www.e-sonic.com/acc/home.aspx)

Look for electronics parts distributors in Canada (google that).