ButterFingers
Hi everyone
Once again I am in need of some advice/help.
I recently bought an Ibanez AEL40SE. Long story short, I now have the following problem:
When I plug the guitar into my Laney Lionheart (L5T-112) and I turn the volume up to about 6/10 (which is normally pretty loud), with the guitar volume halfway, I get almost no sound from the amplifier. It seems as if my pickup is not working or maybe it is the volume knob.
I know my amp is working and there is nothing wrong with my cables. When I test with my electric guitar on the same settings, the sound is much louder.
Also, when I turn the volume knob on the guitar from zero to full, I get a lot of noise, which increases as the guitar volume is increased.
The pickup is a Ibanez SRTn.
Does this sound like a pickup problem or something else? Please help.
Thanks.
Nico
AlanRatcliffe
Firstly, to quite the "instructions" from my old Shin-Ei Companion Fuzz - "When sound, she become small, replace battery". ? A silly thing that many forget to check. It can be embarrassing to take your guitar into a tech only to have him change the battery and give it back.
The AEL40 has a B-Band UST and the Ibanez preamp. Sounds like the preamp is working, which narrows down to pickup, pickup plug or socket on the preamp. Check the plug and socket for dirt by unplugging and plugging back in a few times. If that works or you get intermittent sound, spray some contact cleaner and to the plug/unplug thing again.
If that doesn't work it's probably the wire has broken away from the pickup itself. You don't say what type of noise it is, but if it's just hiss, then it's the hot that's broken, if it's hum, it's the negative. Either way, the pickup will have to be replaced. Confirm by gently wiggling the wire from inside as it goes into the hole under the bridge - if you get intermittent sound, that confirms it.
ButterFingers
Thanks Alan.
I will check it out tonight. I have not worked on an acoustic before, but I suppose one can take out the tuner/pickup on top of the guitar and also the box where the cable plugs into on the side?? Or how do I check for loose wires?
I did check the batteries to see if that was the problem, but it's not. The type of noise I get when turning the volume knob is a hiss/ssshh that gets louder as I turn the volume up. However, when my guitar volume is at about 3/4 of the way up, I seem to get some output from the guitar to the amp, but it is very soft and definitely not what I would expect. It seems as if the guitar's volume knob only starts working at 3/4 of full volume and even then it is pretty soft.
The bad thing is that I bought this guitar brand new from Paul Bothner in Cape Town and only once I got home, which is in the middle of the Northern Cape, I found that there was a problem. So obviously I phoned the guys and I sent the guitar back to them via courier. They sent it back to me saying that they could not find anything wrong with it...so now I want to find the fault myself so that I have proof when I speak to the guys at Bothner's.
I am no expert, but I do not think that there should be a hissing noise on the amp when I turn up the guitar's volume, or am I wrong?
AlanRatcliffe
I usually leave 'em in place and work through the soundhole to check things like that.
A bit of hiss is normal on most systems and the turning up the preamp volume will make it louder - that's how I know the preamp itself is likely OK. Just wiggle the plug where it goes into the preamp while scraping the saddle with a fingernail.
It's also possible that the socket is loose on the circuitboard, which would require a quick resolder if you are comfortable doing that. Then you would have to remove the preamp.
