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Having troubles with pickups

gary mitchell

gary mitchell

Jul 14, 2008
2,020
1,671
austin texas
#1
I have a 1990 MIJ SR800 Ibanez , it has the original p/j red letter active pickups in it. This bass is almost mint condition. But all of a sudden I am having a problem with the electronics. 3 Sunday’s ago I was at Church and we have a practice and hour before service to be warmed up for praise and worship. Well during practice my bass went dead so I put a new battery in it everything was cool. Any way I played my Jazz bass for 3 weeks it’s passive and Ibanez wasn’t touch , I picked it for the heck of it dead as a door nail . It’s got so I can’t trust it going thru batteries fast. Supposedly if it’s not plugged up the pickups are not active right . When I played my guitar and played rock and metal I use EMGs I used a SA/SA/81 set of EMGs battery lasted long time. So what do you think the problem with my bass maybe. I went to the store early today and man 9v batteries to me have gotten high copper top what ever the brand had 16 dollars on them . I bought the store brand $7.00 and had a hard time finding them. Like they are
Quitting making them are something of course it’s getting Christmas. What do you guys think is wrong with it.
4050A04E-47C8-4F27-96AF-FE953630D4E4.jpeg
 
#4
LoveThatBass said:
Either the output jack is remaining shorted when you unplug the bass and draining your batteries, or the preamp is now for some reason pulling more current. If your basses cavities has shielding in the bass the output jack nut may have loosened allowing the jack to rotate and short to the shielding.
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When I get out of Church tomorrow I will slowly start going through it and see my first thought was the output Jack. I really appreciate you getting back to me. But I will try everything first but if it comes down to it I will get the Geezer EMGs but that will be my last resort. I am retired and not a rich man.
 
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#5
gary mitchell said:
When I get out of Church tomorrow I will slowly start going through it and see my first thought was the output Jack. I really appreciate you getting back to me. But I will try everything first but if it comes down to it I will get the Geezer EMGs but that will be my last resort. I am retired and not a rich man.
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That sounds like a plan. Start with the free and easy then look elsewhere
 
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#6
I have put know shielding in it. It’s like is from the factory supposedly but the pickups were taking out once and I had a Guitar shop put them back in and they worked great. Didn’t have know problems. I went in my music room and took quick look didn’t see are feel anything loose. But after Church I am going to take everything out and check I am not going to unwire are unsolder any thing just going to check.
 
#7
If I read the 1990 catalog correctly, this bass has volume - balance - treble - bass. The preamp may be letting go. I would rebuild the bass with an EMG pre, as they make a preamp that can take the lo-z input of these pickups. Then again, if you have the $$$, this is a great opportunity to upgrade the electronics completely. Many fine companies have matching P/J pickups to a good new, low-noise preamp, including EMG. You already have the battery compartment, so why not take advantage of extra low noise active pickups as well.
 
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#8
The funny thing I had the serial number checked on this bass by an Ibanez dealer and I checked it . It is a 1990 MIJ SR800 with active electronics but it has know battery compartment weird . The battery just lays in there on top of the pots . I figured it had a little bag are something it went into . It bugs me I thought it might short out against the metal body of the battery, so I always rap the battery with black tape from top to bottom. If I get it fix and everything straightened up I am going to have a battery compartment put in. I have a friend excellent at that stuff said he would do it free.
 
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#9
I went in there about an hour ago and stuck a short cord in the input Jack, the nut on the input Jack seem really tight because but you could turn the cord back and forth and the end of the Jack where the wires were solder would turn a little back and forth but the nut seem very tight. I tried to tighten it a little more it won’t even play at all now with a new battery in it. Like I said I was thinking about putting EMGs Geezer P/J pickups in it. But what scares me if they will fit the same route. I wonder if those Low Z pickups in it now would play with out a pre amp would just play like passive pickups if you change the pots and stuff , probably not I guess.
 
#10
From what you’ve described you don’t have a pickup problem, you’ve got a preamp or jack socket problem. The second post by @LoveThatBass nailed it IMHO. With wobbling and twisting the jack socket there seems to be a good chance that you’ve now broken one of the wires or solder joints on the jack socket. Or even broken a slowly failing socket.

This is the right place to be trying to find a fix first off - rather than trying to change pickups. But it should be done properly by checking connections and continuity with a digital multimeter (only a few bucks off Amazon and a worthwhile investment) not by randomly doing things like waggling jack sockets around.

Perhaps try getting a good quality stereo jack socket (eg Switchcraft or similar) and rewiring in the new socket properly and working from there. But DO get a multimeter!
 
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#11
gary mitchell said:
I have a 1990 MIJ SR800 Ibanez , it has the original p/j red letter active pickups in it. This bass is almost mint condition. But all of a sudden I am having a problem with the electronics. 3 Sunday’s ago I was at Church and we have a practice and hour before service to be warmed up for praise and worship. Well during practice my bass went dead so I put a new battery in it everything was cool. Any way I played my Jazz bass for 3 weeks it’s passive and Ibanez wasn’t touch , I picked it for the heck of it dead as a door nail . It’s got so I can’t trust it going thru batteries fast. Supposedly if it’s not plugged up the pickups are not active right . When I played my guitar and played rock and metal I use EMGs I used a SA/SA/81 set of EMGs battery lasted long time. So what do you think the problem with my bass maybe. I went to the store early today and man 9v batteries to me have gotten high copper top what ever the brand had 16 dollars on them . I bought the store brand $7.00 and had a hard time finding them. Like they are
Quitting making them are something of course it’s getting Christmas. What do you guys think is wrong with it.View attachment 4892769
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It's probably needs a new barrel jack. Something's keeping it from switching off.
 
#15
I’d second the above, if that’s got a barrel jack that would be my first suspect. If you really want to troubleshoot you need a multimeter with a milliamp setting (most should have that, even the less expensive Harbor Freight ones). Disconnect the negative battery terminal from the output jack and connect the meter between the two. With no plug in the jack the milliamperes should read 0. If it does your problem is somewhere else. If it reads above 0 you could start at the pickup and disconnect things until it does read 0 and the last thing you disconnected was the culprit.

The next most likely guess is that something connected to the battery negative is touching whatever shielding the bass might have, especially if you were manipulating the output jack around.
 
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#16
gary mitchell said:
The funny thing I had the serial number checked on this bass by an Ibanez dealer and I checked it . It is a 1990 MIJ SR800 with active electronics but it has know battery compartment weird . The battery just lays in there on top of the pots . I figured it had a little bag are something it went into . It bugs me I thought it might short out against the metal body of the battery, so I always rap the battery with black tape from top to bottom. If I get it fix and everything straightened up I am going to have a battery compartment put in. I have a friend excellent at that stuff said he would do it free.
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I had the 5 string version SR885. It had two J-Style pickups. I got it for $225 used in about 1997 from a teenager who got his girlfriend pregnant, so was selling his music gear. I think he's a lawyer or a doctor now... lol!

It was a good sounding bass but I ended up re-routing it for EMG soapbars and had a friend in Toronto make a custom preamp for it. The original pickups sounded good but were a bit polite sounding. I sold it about 10 years ago.

Yes, back then Ibanez didn't use a separate battery box on those basses - they just (sometimes) wrapped the battery in a little piece of foam and jammed it between the pots. Nothing wrong with it. If it worries you, you can buy a little clip to bolt into the cavity.

If that bass is all original, try replacing the barrel jack. They weren't Switchcraft-brand, but a cheaper copy - installing the real thing might fix the problem and it'll last longer.
 
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#17
gary mitchell said:
The funny thing I had the serial number checked on this bass by an Ibanez dealer and I checked it . It is a 1990 MIJ SR800 with active electronics but it has know battery compartment weird . The battery just lays in there on top of the pots . I figured it had a little bag are something it went into . It bugs me I thought it might short out against the metal body of the battery, so I always rap the battery with black tape from top to bottom. If I get it fix and everything straightened up I am going to have a battery compartment put in. I have a friend excellent at that stuff said he would do it free.
Click to expand...

I've got a '98 SR800 and the battery also just hangs out loose in the control cavity. I think it was more common back then for this to be the case, we're a little spoiled these days with easy to open, discrete battery housings.

I don't know the answer to your original question, but it is a lovely bass. That dark blue is a great color.
 

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