Noisey pot on Treben Chaos

[Kevinmach]

I was due to pick up this bass from a very honest guy on craigslist who told me there is a noisy pot on one of the blending knobs.

http://www.zzounds.com/item--TRBC4

He had a friend who was gonna buy it and was in no hurry to sell in general, so he and I have been corresponding back and forth on it for a long time now.

We were gonna finally do the deal today, and he said he went to plug it in cuz he hadn't played it in a while and noticed crackling. He sent me an email apologizing profusely. He said it looks spectacular, but he wouldn't feel right selling it to me unless it's 100%.

To be honest, I am not terribly concerned about it. Half the guitars and basses I've own have had noisy pots at some point. I am not a gigging musician, just a studio guy. So to me, it's not a huge issue. At $200, with a hard nylon case, I think it's still a really good deal.

He's calling guitar center, but they said they need to call traben, who is not open today. Does anyone know what these things typically cost? It has active pickups if that makes a difference. I really don't care if it's a $20 fix, but I also don't wanna be too hasty and find out that this is some special pot that costs $60, if there even is such a thing.

Educated guesses will do. Thanks for the help!

[konodl18]

I don't have a lot of experience with active basses but I know for passive guitars and basses all you need to do is spray some contact cleaner like DeOxit into the pot and work it around a little and that should solve your problem. You can google or go to youtube and a search fixing dirty guitar pots and there are a bunch of instructional vids if you are not too familiar with pulling a guitar or bass apart.

Its pretty simple and becomes a standard procedure for those of us who pick up lots of used gear or own vintage/old gear. Guitars/basses and amps.

Derek

[Kevinmach]

Thanks konodl.

He said he said he pulled the back off and tried to blow into the pot to get the dust out, but I suspect that you probably would need some kind of canned air or cleaner to really know if it's anything beyond dust or dirt on the contacts. That very well could be all it is, especially if the bass has been sitting for a while.

I am just preparing for the worst case scenario of replacing it, to make sure I can live with it if that's all it is.

He seems to be a really nice guy and was flexible on his price, etc- I hate to put him through a hassle of trying to get it fixed. I mainly play out of my house at very modest volumes, along with some occasional recording (I am a novice in every sense of the word). The last bass I bought on craiglist had a noisy pot too- it's been a year and it's bothered me so little, I still haven't even tried to clean it, let alone replace it.

[dnarock]

nah its a traben throw it in the garbage ! wanna buy my washburn ? lol

[Kevinmach]

No thanks, my first bass was a washburn back in the 80s, before you were born :P

Actually, the reviews it got were really good- guys who owned high end basses saying it played and sounded better than stuff they paid over a grand for.