Is this pickup toast...

[JeffreyG]

Hi, my J-Bass neck pickup has some problems. It's a Basslines SJB-1 (vintage jazz).

I was getting massive feedback and I was thinking one of the pickups had gone microphonic. So I isolated it to the neck pickup and pulled it out and this is what I found:



Hard to see in the pic... but there is a piece of the copper winding wire loose. You can see it if you look at the third pole piece from the right. Can wax potting fix a pickup in this shape or is this too far gone?

[meev992]

My vote goes for the wax.

[luknfur]

You can take a meter and measure the DCR and compare it to the SD site specs. Looks like a broken winding. If so, the DCR will probably be less than the specs (assuming the other end is shorting out into rest of the winding). The winding is one long wire so if it's severed with no short - the meter should read zip and the pup should put out no sound.

Regadless, it's my understanding microphonics is the result of loose components vibrating and can include pups screws, springs, and components not even within the pup itself. If the source is outside the pup than dipping the pup is not going to help to my knowledge.

The pup is apparently useless as is so if you want to try your hand at dipping (not easy to do properly) you've got nothing to loose.

Before I did anything, I would wire the pup directly to the jack to see how the pup itself (with nothing intervening) performs. Probably won't be any different but I would find out.

[GeoffByrne]

Take it to a tech.