NancyJohnson Posted April 18, 2020 Share Posted April 18, 2020 At Christmastime, I installed a John East Uni Pre 3 knob into one of my Lulls. To be honest, what with what's been going on in the outside world, I've not been doing that much playing, but a couple of weeks back I picked up the bass and was noodling. During my little session, I noticed that while the neck pickup was fine, the bridge pickup was very buzzy when you touched it, although it was silent otherwise. I popped John a quick email - to his credit he's been great - and the determination seems to be an earth/ground fault with the pickup. I've problem-solved at length here, run the pickups in isolation, swapped the pickups around etc. every conceivable combinations and the evidence leads to the pickup, although the pickup was fine pre-installation. Now then, does anyone know how to solve buzzy? Can I run a bit of wire from anywhere to anywhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor J Posted April 19, 2020 Share Posted April 19, 2020 Are the pole pieces exposed at the bottom of the pickup? Run a strip of copper tape along the poles, solder a wire to it and earth the other end. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcnach Posted April 19, 2020 Share Posted April 19, 2020 1 hour ago, Doctor J said: Are the pole pieces exposed at the bottom of the pickup? Run a strip of copper tape along the poles, solder a wire to it and earth the other end. This. Find a way to ground the polepieces and you'll be ok. If that is complicated (magnets being in the way, or epoxy or whatever), a little clear nail varnish on the polepieces will fix that too, but I'd try grounding them in the first place. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyJohnson Posted April 19, 2020 Author Share Posted April 19, 2020 Thanks for these. John has been brilliant so far, we're still not fixed, but he's been great. I have made a suggestion to him about how the pickup wires are connected and he's been positive about that, so maybe something might change on that front in a later iteration of the unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyJohnson Posted April 20, 2020 Author Share Posted April 20, 2020 All solved. Considering the complexity of the issue, we seemed to get it sorted. Turns out a ground wire had come off one of the pickups. I mean, you pay thousands for a bass, soldering fails...sigh. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prowla Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 I've got a J-Retro in one of my basses and it is really a great piece of kit - deep and authoritative bass. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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