Last night I opened up my Geddy Lee jazz bass because I was getting a bad crackling sound from the output jack. I couldn't see any bad solder connections, but it seemed that jiggling the cord around in a way that flexed the tip connector was causing the noise, so I decided to just replace the jack. I had a spare jack in my parts bin so I warmed up the soldering iron and went to replace the existing one when I noticed something odd: The output jack sleeve terminal was not connected to ground.
Now... this bass has had the electronics modded many times over the last decade, sometimes by me and sometimes by my regular tech, so I don't know exactly when or who worked on it last, but is this normal? I just quickly googled a few wiring diagrams and they all seem to have the sleeve terminal grounded.
Thing is, it sounds just fine. It's dead quiet with both pickups on, like it should be, and even with one pickup solo'd it is pretty quiet for single coils. I replaced the jack in-kind with how it was wired before, and everything is functioning perfectly so I see no reason to monkey around with it, just curious if this is normal for certain jazz basses?
Now... this bass has had the electronics modded many times over the last decade, sometimes by me and sometimes by my regular tech, so I don't know exactly when or who worked on it last, but is this normal? I just quickly googled a few wiring diagrams and they all seem to have the sleeve terminal grounded.
Thing is, it sounds just fine. It's dead quiet with both pickups on, like it should be, and even with one pickup solo'd it is pretty quiet for single coils. I replaced the jack in-kind with how it was wired before, and everything is functioning perfectly so I see no reason to monkey around with it, just curious if this is normal for certain jazz basses?
Last edited: