Lakland owners: I need your help!

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced a light "popping" sound from their LH3 system when it's running in active mode?

I just picked up a 2006 55-02 here on TB with the Lakland pups & LH3 preamp. I finally got it setup properly and everything feels awesome, my only concern is this "popping" noise is present on seemingly random, but mostly low notes. It's almost like the sound of a loose pickup popping into place, or a static pop sound. After playing around a little bit I was able to make the reduce the sound, but only when I pulled the volume pot to disengage the active preamp. Any ideas about why this is happening and how it might be fixed? Only using this bass in passive mode is not an option, and neither is playing out with this sound invading my low end!

Any input or ideas would be very helpful! Thanks

 

Are the dip switches the midrange frequency selectors on the preamp? If so #3 is on and the rest are off... not sure if this is how it's "supposed" to be set.

 

I just tried this and with anything past 1/4 gain, the sound is there. It also becomes more pronounced if I pluck towards the bridge. I'm pretty much stumped at this point.

 

Didn't even know there was one . I looked around in the control cavity and didn't see anything that jumped out at me as a gain knob. Any idea where it's located?

 

Thanks for the help so far.

I found the schematic and located the input gain control, which is just a little screw. Since there's no label how do I determine what level it's currently set at? I'll just roll it back a little and test it to see if it is indeed the problem, but I'd like to know where it's set right now for reference. *edit* figured that part out

 

I did notice the volume increase from passive to active, which was pretty substantial actually, so maybe mine was just set too high. Unfortunately I'll have to wait until tomorrow to test it

If not the input gain, what else could it possibly be? I did test the battery too and it checked out.

 

I tried everything and so far the problem's still not solved. I also noticed that I get a lot of static when I'm not touching metal, a ground problem most likely. Anyone else experience this? I'm wondering if this could tie in with the "pop" sound. Also, I've discovered that the sound happens at low volumes too and when I'm plucking lightly.

I'm currently communicating with Kirk @ Lakland, but if you have any ideas please share. Thanks

 

Cool, hopefully I can get this fixed, although I do have my eye on another Lakland at the moment , so I may end up going the same route as you LightGroove.

When I pan all the way to the bridge pickup in active mode, the ground problem goes away and so does the pop! With the problem isolated to the neck pickup, how should I go about finding the source of the problem? I'm comfortable with soldering but there's so much in the control cavity I don't want to start removing things and get lost.

 

I opened it up and found the ground source, which looks like a little bronze or copper sticker. The wire running from the neck pickup was soldered to it, but I went ahead and added a little more to secure the connection. There was no clear gloss inside the cavity that I saw. Also, what do you mean by "ground paint"? It seems like the extra solder helped the problem, but it's still a little hissy compared to the MM pup. I'm wondering if I could just remove the ground from the sticker and connect it to the input jack ground like you had done, or if everything needs to be grounded at the same source?

 

did that already, but it didn't make a difference.