First J bass pickup install gone wrong

[Norwoodrules]

Hi Everyone,

I'm trying my first pickup install on a squire J and the bridge pup works great but the neck won't work.

The pups work--i've heard them.

It likely has something to do with my brutal soldering.

here's a pic. The white wire still needs solder. I soldered it, it didn't work, I started over.

BTW, looks like this set of duncan designed has been worked on before.

any help would be awesome. be gentle.

 

[line6man]

I can't tell if the third terminal of the pot is grounded to the case or not?

 

[Norwoodrules]

its grounded to the pot case.

 

[levis76]

I assume you wanted to install the EMGs to improve the sound of your bass? If you know you can't solder very well, which is nothing to be ashamed of, then find someone who can. Exchange a favor if you don't have any cash to offer. Getting them installed correctly and without poor connections is crucial to the improvement your trying to make. One cold solder joint could really cause your bass to sound like crap. One common mistake when soldering pick up leads is people tend to overheat the ground shield when they solder it to the pots. When it heats up too much it melts thru the signal wires insulation and grounds the signal, therefore you get nothing from that pick up. Try soldering the shielding to a short piece of wire then solder the wire to the pot. I did that with mine and it worked great.