J East preamp - noisy pot

[largo]

I have a J East Deluxe preamp in my Shuker bass. It's a few years old now but the volume pot is very noisy, especially over the last half of it's travel. Would appreciate any ideas on how to clean this?  I've emailed John East but no reply so thought I'd ask the group if there's anything might help.  Cheers.

[John Cribbin]

Deoxit. It's fairly expensive, but a tin will last a lifetime. Not WD40 ...

 

[largo]

Cheers John, I'll certainly look into that.  I had heard the East preamps used sealed pots, if there is such a thing. Anybody know?

[John Cribbin]

If you could take a post a picture of what you've got that would help.

A quick Google of East preamps shows, some with sealed, some with open and some with a mixture of pots. Probably depends on wht model you have fitted and possibly when it was made.

 

[largo]

it's the J-Retro 01 Deluxe found here at https://www.east-uk.com/index.php/all-products/j-retro-01-deluxe.html  

[John Cribbin]

Hmmm, from that link the three turquoise boxes from the left appear to be sealed pots, only the pot on the right appears to be open.

I'm thinking that's a replacment board scenario, unless someone with soldering skills can replace the part.

Some people remove the knob and spray the contact cleaner down the shaft, but I'd have a slight concern about the fluid remaining inside a sealed pot.

 

[largo]

Ah poooey!  Thanks for helping though, might be time for a new preamp.  Always fancied trying the Sadowsky.

[John Cribbin]

Someone may have a better idea, but ....

If it was me and a new board was the likely outcome, I'd try the cleaner down the shaft and work the pot to move the cleaner around. Then I'd turn the guitar face down and hopefully the excess fluid will drain out.

Worst case scenario, it doesn't work and you're left with a can of contact cleaner for future use.

 

[Jabba_the_gut]

I had noisy pots on one once. John  provides some fine spring that sat between the stacked knobs - I think this provided an electrical connection between the knobs and removed the noise. 

Did the job for me.

[mrn1989]

I had a J Retro with a scratchy Treble pot, as mentioned they are fully sealed pots, I messaged John, through the John East Facebook Page, and he said send him the preamp back and he would service it and send it back, never did to be fair just put up with it.

Best to message them on Facebook and ask 

Best of luck

[largo]

Thanks everybody for your help, I’ve tried a Facebook message so will see how that goes. Plan B is to buy some of the Deoxit if Mr East ignores my Comms. Thanks again.

[itu]

Sealing is not liquid resistant sealing. If you wouldn't get any help from Mr. East (which I highly doubt), and the reason for noise comes from the pot's track, you can soak that pot with lots of Deoxit and let the excess flow to a paper. Let that stuff act and turn the pot many times from end to end during the cure.

I have an old Pioneer A-656 stereo amp from the 1980's. Its vol pot (high quality "sealed" Alps, by the way) started to cut the right channel. Two weeks ago I put a good amount of deoxidizer to soak the pot and turned it maybe 42 times. Now it works like a dream.

[BassBunny]

John is notoriously bad at responses to email/pm.

I always ring him and he has always answered fairly quickly. He is also extremely happy to sort issues out with his products.

[mcnach]

9 hours ago, BassBunny said:

John is notoriously bad at responses to email/pm.

I always ring him and he has always answered fairly quickly. He is also extremely happy to sort issues out with his products.

 

He's always been good by email to me, even if sometimes it would take a few days to get a reply. However, I'd recommend a phone call if email does not seem to work. He's been really helpful to me with a variety of enquiries in the past. 

[largo]

Cheers everybody for your help. I've now spoken to the man himself and the plan is to send John my preamp so he can investigate further. Weird me playing my bass down the phone while he tried to figure things out at the other end! Anyway, fingers crossed it's nothing major and thank you all again.

[FinnDave]

I've found John to be very helpful, and generous with his time. I bought a uni pre from him, but my local guitar tech was unable to fit it into my Ibanez six string. I emailed John and he asked me to bring it over (he lives about 12 miles from me) and he spent a couple of hours with me on a Saturday afternoon just after Christmas talking bass, bands, and pre amps. He decided it was not possible to fit the pre amp into my bass, but was intrigued by the challenge. A truly genuine person. At one point he said to me 'Stanley Clarke was standing just where you are now only a week ago'. 

John East is a living legend.