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Highway One problem

big stubby

big stubby

Feb 1, 2007
198
129
#1
:help:Okay, heres a tough one. Has anyone ever had this problem? I was playing last week with my Highway one P bass thru my Fender Bassman 250/210 and everything sounded great, I packed up after the jam and brought everything home. I plugged everthing in yesterday and I only had half or less of the volume that usually comes out of my amp, so I figure it's an amp problem and bring it down to my local fender shop. We plug in a bass from the shop and the amp sounds just like it's supposed to. So I go home and get my bass which is oly about a year old and bring it back. Same problem with the volume. Any idea what could cause this? Bad pickups maybe? sorry for the long winded story. Thanks for your help.
 
#2
You need to have the output of your pickup checked pronto, and start going from there to pinpoint the cause. It could be a number of things but have a tech look at it first. The P-Bass is a pretty simple machine electronically in it's stock form and not hard to replace a part or fix a problem. I hope your problem is simple and easy to fix. Do you have any warranty on this bass that might be applied to your situation?
 
#5
I had a similar thing happen with my Squier P bass, only in my case the sound went out altogether. I opened it up and took a look and it turned out that the grounded lead of the cap on the tone pot was just barely touching the signal wire and intermittently shorting it out. Easy to fix, but I still used that as an excuse to go buy a new bass. :D
 
#9
I had a similar problem on an old Squier P, but it was one of the pots. You could actually rotate the pot past it's max if that makes sense (I'm not an electriconics wizard obviously). Basically you'de be rolling the knob up, it would hit max, but the pot still had about another 10 degrees left of turn in it that would roll the volume back off.
 
#10
big stubby said:
Yes the volume is up and the amp was plugged in too! thanks for your help. I do have it at the shop right now and I am checking on warranty info right now. Thanks Thump.
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I wish you good luck. I could list off a bunch of possible potential causes from the simple to the ' You gotta be kidding me!!' type, but unless you haven't had any basic electronic training, or the tools and experience, you did the right thing by having a tech look at it. I like the Highway 1 series P-Basses, they offer a lot of vintage vibe and tone for the money. I hope it all works out for you, and please keep us posted as to what they find out.
 
#11
whilst the bass is in getting checked i highly recommend getting the tech to change out the grease-bucket tone control and put in a better pot.
it'll make it sound fantastic....

sorry this has nothing to do with volume....i love highway 1s... just not their tone controls
 
#14
Okay, heres the deal. Just heard from tech and it seems that the pickup on my P bass is dying. It only puts out half or less of the volume. It's a warranty thing so no big deal other than I wont have my bass back until the new pup arrives. Has anyone else ever had this type of problem.
 
#15
My HW1 (the newer, upgraded model) also recently died. One day I took it out of the case, plugged it in an nothing happened. First time I have ever had any problems with a Fender - seriously.

Rather than troubleshoot more than just some basics (check wiring, cable, etc), I used it as an opportunity to do something I had been meaning to do for some time anyway: Change out the pups with Duncan Quarter Pounders and dispose of that silly Greasebucket circuit.
 
#16
big stubby said:
Okay, heres the deal. Just heard from tech and it seems that the pickup on my P bass is dying. It only puts out half or less of the volume. It's a warranty thing so no big deal other than I wont have my bass back until the new pup arrives. Has anyone else ever had this type of problem.
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I can't say I've ever had a pickup die on me other than I've had one go bad where the wire of the winding itself got a break in it somehow due to oxidation. It was a very old single coil. The other weird thing I've seen is a freind of mine who brought his Strat to where he worked, and he stowed it near a large electrical motor and the emf field deguassed the pickups or in simple terms it demagnetized the pickups, which ain't a good thing.

Did the tech ever tell you why your pickup went bad? I'm also curious as to why both coils would be bad scince your P-Bass has the standard split coil pickup. Both halves are wired up like a humbucker and to have a general volume loss on both coils does seem weird to me. At least your warranty is saving the day. I hope your bass comes back better than ever.
 
#17
thumpbass1 said:
I can't say I've ever had a pickup die on me other than I've had one go bad where the wire of the winding itself got a break in it somehow due to oxidation. It was a very old single coil. The other weird thing I've seen is a freind of mine who brought his Strat to where he worked, and he stowed it near a large electrical motor and the emf field deguassed the pickups or in simple terms it demagnetized the pickups, which ain't a good thing.

Did the tech ever tell you why your pickup went bad? I'm also curious as to why both coils would be bad scince your P-Bass has the standard split coil pickup. Both halves are wired up like a humbucker and to have a general volume loss on both coils does seem weird to me. At least your warranty is saving the day. I hope your bass comes back better than ever.
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The tech seemed a little stumped as to why it happened as well. I will try and get more info on this. However I did do a search and found a guy with a Highway One J bass that had the exact same thing happen to one of his pups (loss of volume and not completely dead) I think his was the same year as mine,06'. maybe a production error.
 
#18
John Wentzien said:
make sure they check the leads where they attach to the pickup, I've seen several "cold" solder joints where the leads meet the coil-wre...
Sometimes just adjusting the pickup height can be enough to pull that solder joint if it wasn't done well.
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Yeah, for sure... thats the first thing I'd have done after checking the output jack: a quick, yet through "reflow" of every single solder connection. This has worked on more than just instruments for me: XLR cables especially need this done if anything is ever 'amiss' with them... solder joints need careful scutiny.. time changes them and therefore they should be examined closely when issues arise.
 
#19
Hmmm. I have an '06 Highway One P as well. No problems so far, but I'll keep my eye on it. (I'll also make sure I never take it on a gig without a backup!) It does seem rather strange to die so quickly. I have a '75 P with the original pickup, and it's still going strong.
 

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