Soledad Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 (edited) The output jack on my USA '98 Precision Special is still a bit troublesome. Had it looked at a while ago and I've been inside myself. The jack on these is very close to the tone pot and wiring is a bit crammed in that area. The problem is intermittent - part signal loss, earthy noise etc. It might not be the actual jack - the tone pot may be suspect. Hard to see but it sits at a very slight angle to scratchplate so I suspect the bass has stood on a stand for long periods, with tone knob under pressure (some stands don't fit P/Js). Can anyone recommend a permanent fix - alternative jack socket, different wiring routing, shielding somewhere, anything?? I'd like to keep it close to original but this needs sorting so I can rely on it. The pics are not really needed, but it's a mighty fine bass ! Edited October 16, 2021 by Soledad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beans-on-toast Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 First check that the jack nut is tight. Strain from the cable can bend the tip connection on the jack and make contact with the plug intermittent. The fix is to pull the jack plate and carefully bend the jack’s tip contact inward to make a better contact with the plug when it is inserted. One of these two often works. It is also possible that there is an issue with your instrument wiring or soldering, oxidation on the jack contacts (use deoxit to fix that), even a bad instrument cable. This would require an inspection to properly resolve the issue. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulThePlug Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 (edited) @SoledadWhere are you based might help... Bound to be some one with a soldering iron local... Often when the nuts get tightened the pots n jack socket rotate underneath... Pos the jack tip 'tab' just needs to face tother wag or the + be sleeved. Ah I see your Sevenoaks... I'm Orpington and would be more than happy to take a look with you... No promises but drop me a PM of ya likes. Edited October 16, 2021 by PaulThePlug 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soledad Posted October 16, 2021 Author Share Posted October 16, 2021 4 hours ago, PaulThePlug said: Bound to be some one with a soldering iron local... Good with soldering. This is an intermittent thing and it isn't the lead as I use several good alternatives. I can take jack plate out and it's all solid, nice contacts, no loose nut etc. I now suspect the tone pot. I'm going to swap that and see what I get then.Need to check what pot values for a std P/J tone pot.. Here we go, scratchplate off again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soledad Posted October 16, 2021 Author Share Posted October 16, 2021 Anyone know? Is the tone pot on a std P/J just a 250k? And is it log or linear? And which of those sounds more progressive, not a sudden gush of top in the last 5% kind of thing?? I could go and look I suppose 😃 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted October 16, 2021 Share Posted October 16, 2021 in passive guitars and basses the pots will be Linear for tone, and Logarithmic for volume - but they are interchangeable, it's all down to personal preference. Tone pots are LIN because it's generally more useful to have a constant rate of change on your tone i.e. a 1/4 turn takes 25% of the top end off (there's more to it than that, but it's a whole other rabbit hole), whereas the ear perceives changes in volume differently, so using a LOG tapered pot is the norm. Like I said, nothing will explode if you use a different tapered pot, but it's considered more useful to use LIN for tone and LOG for volume. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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