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Problems with SD Quarter Pounders?

bobbybass85

bobbybass85

Supporting Member
Dec 19, 2005
1,246
840
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Nashville, TN
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#1
:help:
So a few months ago i bought a P-bass copy (no brand found on it yet) from a friend. I brought it home and picked up a BAII and a pair of SD quarter-pounder pups for it (i bought them from another TBer). I took the whole set up in to my bass guy who does all my set ups, and assembled my latest bass. When i brought the bass home, the volume was about a quarter what my other bass is, and the tone is NON-EXISTENT. When i turn the tone dial, it acts like a second volume control, but all i get is uber-bright clangy highs, no bottom what-so-ever.

I took the bass back into the guy, we changed the pots, did some re-wiring, tried all sorts of capaciters and wiring arrangements, everything we could think of and it's made no improvements.

Are my pickups dead? or is there anything i can do? Thanks

B
 
#2
If the wiring in the bass checks out, there has to be something wrong with the pickup. Didn't you check it out before you brought it home? Did your tech check it out before giving it back to you?

You'd better get it looked at by someone who knows what he's doing.
 
#5
That's funny, but that seems to be my exact problem after installing a brand new Delano last night. Really bright highs and the tone control hardly works and eventually turns off the volume completely when turned all the way down. The volume control seems to work ok though.

I posted about this morning and will rewire differently tonight to see if it fixes the problem.

Good luck with your QP's....
 
#6
I just rewired my pickup and used the Seymour Duncan schematic and it's working perfectly now. Tone knob works fine and this Delano kicks some serious ass, I am suprised how powerful and clear this thing sounds in the low end and lots of bite to boot in the high end.

You must have done something similar to my initial wiring because we had the exact same problem.

I had the capacitor connected to both pots initially and now it's soldered to the middle foot and top of of the tone pot. I also soldered the black lead from the sleeve of the jack to this same location.

I soldered bridge ground, pickup ground and right foot of the volume pot to the top of the pot. Took hot white pickup lead and a black lead soldered to the left foot of the tone pot and connected both of these to the left foot of the volume pot.

I also think I may have switched the tip and sleeve of the output jack. This time I took a white(hot) wire from the tip of the jack to the middle foot of the volume knob and soldered the black ground to the top of the volume pot with the cap as explained above. The SD schematic clearly explains the tip and sleeve difference.

The Rothstein schematic gave me problems yesterday but with this SD schematic you can't go wrong.

Hope that helps, I'm sure your QP is fine!
 
#7
Yep,

if I had to wager I'd say wiring but that's making an assumption which is the worse thing to do in trouble-shooting a bass. With rare exception, a pup doesn't partially work and with a P you'd know if half the pup were bad. Something it's feeding is likely screwed up. There's not much in P bass to mess up so it doesn't get any simpler.
 
#9
DEFUNKTED said:
.....The Rothstein schematic gave me problems yesterday but with this SD schematic you can't go wrong........
Click to expand...

Defunkted:

Thanks for pointing out the typo in my pbass diagram, and sorry if it caused you a bit of agida.

I corrected it and re-posted the diagram.

Regards,

Andy

pbass.gif
 

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