So I've had my Conklin 7 string for about 11 years now and everything has been fine up until this last week when during a jam session the sound would just begin to dim and slowly distort. I changed the batteries in it and the same thing continued to happen. I took it to my shop guy who said he thinks its the preamp but isnt 100% sure so I was wondering if any of you guys have had this issue before. I know the pickups tend to go bad pretty fast on these basses so if that the issue? IDK anything helps guys!
I haven't heard that and I've had mine (GT5) for 15y or so. I always thought the PUs were passive but I've honestly never looked. It's getting a resting on the W/E and a full set up, so I'll look then and check.
This is my diagnostic process for a situation like this. 0) (assumption is this step has already happened) Go over the wiring with a fine toothed comb and make sure there are no obvious faults - stray shorts, bad looking connections, corrosion, botched repairs from the past, etc. Extra attention on the jack itself. Check continuity with a cable inserted. Wiggle it. Make sure the jack is good. Also make sure the battery clip is good, and there is 9v (more like 9.4+ for a fresh battery) present at the preamp. Jacks and battery clips are natural wear items. 1) Disconnect pickup wires from wherever they go (i.e. a selector switch, blend pot, etc). 2) Disconnect the signal wire from the jack. Your preamp is now removed from the circuit. 3) One at a time, wire each pickup directly to the jack. Test play for a while. See if the issue is present. If the pickups play fine wired directly to the jack, then I would tend to agree with your tech that the problem is in the preamp. If a pickup does not play well wired directly to the jack - well, it's the pickup.
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