I have a Kramer Pioneer Bass that has a problem I can't seem to figure out.

Stock it comes with two pickups.

The front(neck) pickup looks like a P-Bass style.
The bridge pickup looks like 2 J-Bass styles stuck side to side.

There is a selector switch and some sort of coil splitting/combine
switch for the bridge pickup.

I bought it used and I know someone had been doing some soldering.

The front pickup has 4 wires White brown green yellow
The bridge has 8 wires 2x the above.

Two volume and one tone.

The problem I was getting was that the volume controls did nothing. They
had to be full on and that was intermittent. Also had a ground problem
noted by touching the strings.

So, I bought all new parts. I also removed the switches as I just didn't
want them. I wired it up per a 60's Fender Jazz. Very simple.


http://www.fender.com/support/diagra...131800APg2.pdf

where this shows a black and white wire. I had pairs. In the case of the
bridge pickup i had a quad. My colors are yellow/white and
green/brown. I don't know for a fact that they are paired correctly
but based on what was already there, it was what I considered a good
reasonable guess.

My tone cap is a new orange drop 473K. I assume that's nearly the same
as .05.

What happens now is this....

The ground buzz is gone when touching strings.

Turn up front pickup. good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up bridge volume. Good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up front pickup and then turn up bridge pickup and just when it
hits full on, the bridge pickup cuts out.

I can't tell that the tone control is doing anything.

The only difference in my circuit and the Jazz Bass is the output
ground. Mine is mounted to the wooden edge and thus I ran a ground wire
over to the pot the tone cap grounds on. Otherwise I have checked and
rechecked this very simple circuit which I can't seem to get to work.

Could there be something wrong with the pickups themselves? They play
and sound fine, just not when the pot hit's full open. When the middle
control hits wide open there is a considerable gain reduction also. IOW,
even though the front pickup continues to work, it looses a lot of
signal strength until the middle pot is turned down just a touch.

Thanks,

Tom B.

The Jazz bass has a metal plate that each pot and the output jack are
mounted to, which completes the ground side of the circuit.

If you are mounting everything to wood then you need to have a ground
wire connecting to each of the (3) pots and the output jack. Is that
what you have done? Trying to pick the ground off of one pot won't do
it in your case.

--Peter


Tom Baldwin wrote:
I have a Kramer Pioneer Bass that has a problem I can't seem to figure out.

Stock it comes with two pickups.

The front(neck) pickup looks like a P-Bass style.
The bridge pickup looks like 2 J-Bass styles stuck side to side.

There is a selector switch and some sort of coil splitting/combine
switch for the bridge pickup.

I bought it used and I know someone had been doing some soldering.

The front pickup has 4 wires White brown green yellow
The bridge has 8 wires 2x the above.

Two volume and one tone.

The problem I was getting was that the volume controls did nothing. They
had to be full on and that was intermittent. Also had a ground problem
noted by touching the strings.

So, I bought all new parts. I also removed the switches as I just didn't
want them. I wired it up per a 60's Fender Jazz. Very simple.


http://www.fender.com/support/diagra...131800APg2.pdf

where this shows a black and white wire. I had pairs. In the case of the
bridge pickup i had a quad. My colors are yellow/white and
green/brown. I don't know for a fact that they are paired correctly
but based on what was already there, it was what I considered a good
reasonable guess.

My tone cap is a new orange drop 473K. I assume that's nearly the same
as .05.

What happens now is this....

The ground buzz is gone when touching strings.

Turn up front pickup. good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up bridge volume. Good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up front pickup and then turn up bridge pickup and just when it
hits full on, the bridge pickup cuts out.

I can't tell that the tone control is doing anything.

The only difference in my circuit and the Jazz Bass is the output
ground. Mine is mounted to the wooden edge and thus I ran a ground wire
over to the pot the tone cap grounds on. Otherwise I have checked and
rechecked this very simple circuit which I can't seem to get to work.

Could there be something wrong with the pickups themselves? They play
and sound fine, just not when the pot hit's full open. When the middle
control hits wide open there is a considerable gain reduction also. IOW,
even though the front pickup continues to work, it looses a lot of
signal strength until the middle pot is turned down just a touch.

Thanks,

Tom B.

The Jazz bass has a metal plate that each pot and the output jack are
mounted to, which completes the ground side of the circuit.

If you are mounting everything to wood then you need to have a ground
wire connecting to each of the (3) pots and the output jack. Is that
what you have done? Trying to pick the ground off of one pot won't do
it in your case.

--Peter


Tom Baldwin wrote:
I have a Kramer Pioneer Bass that has a problem I can't seem to figure out.

Stock it comes with two pickups.

The front(neck) pickup looks like a P-Bass style.
The bridge pickup looks like 2 J-Bass styles stuck side to side.

There is a selector switch and some sort of coil splitting/combine
switch for the bridge pickup.

I bought it used and I know someone had been doing some soldering.

The front pickup has 4 wires White brown green yellow
The bridge has 8 wires 2x the above.

Two volume and one tone.

The problem I was getting was that the volume controls did nothing. They
had to be full on and that was intermittent. Also had a ground problem
noted by touching the strings.

So, I bought all new parts. I also removed the switches as I just didn't
want them. I wired it up per a 60's Fender Jazz. Very simple.


http://www.fender.com/support/diagra...131800APg2.pdf

where this shows a black and white wire. I had pairs. In the case of the
bridge pickup i had a quad. My colors are yellow/white and
green/brown. I don't know for a fact that they are paired correctly
but based on what was already there, it was what I considered a good
reasonable guess.

My tone cap is a new orange drop 473K. I assume that's nearly the same
as .05.

What happens now is this....

The ground buzz is gone when touching strings.

Turn up front pickup. good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up bridge volume. Good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up front pickup and then turn up bridge pickup and just when it
hits full on, the bridge pickup cuts out.

I can't tell that the tone control is doing anything.

The only difference in my circuit and the Jazz Bass is the output
ground. Mine is mounted to the wooden edge and thus I ran a ground wire
over to the pot the tone cap grounds on. Otherwise I have checked and
rechecked this very simple circuit which I can't seem to get to work.

Could there be something wrong with the pickups themselves? They play
and sound fine, just not when the pot hit's full open. When the middle
control hits wide open there is a considerable gain reduction also. IOW,
even though the front pickup continues to work, it looses a lot of
signal strength until the middle pot is turned down just a touch.

Thanks,

Tom B.

The cavity has a foil base for grounding. Only the output jack lacks any
sort of ground. That's why I mentioned the wire I added. But yes, the
pots mount to a common grounding foil.

Tom B.




Peter Sylvester wrote:
The Jazz bass has a metal plate that each pot and the output jack are
mounted to, which completes the ground side of the circuit.

If you are mounting everything to wood then you need to have a ground
wire connecting to each of the (3) pots and the output jack. Is that
what you have done? Trying to pick the ground off of one pot won't do
it in your case.

--Peter


Tom Baldwin wrote:

I have a Kramer Pioneer Bass that has a problem I can't seem to figure
out.

Stock it comes with two pickups.

The front(neck) pickup looks like a P-Bass style.
The bridge pickup looks like 2 J-Bass styles stuck side to side.

There is a selector switch and some sort of coil splitting/combine
switch for the bridge pickup.

I bought it used and I know someone had been doing some soldering.

The front pickup has 4 wires White brown green yellow
The bridge has 8 wires 2x the above.

Two volume and one tone.

The problem I was getting was that the volume controls did nothing.
They had to be full on and that was intermittent. Also had a ground
problem noted by touching the strings.

So, I bought all new parts. I also removed the switches as I just
didn't want them. I wired it up per a 60's Fender Jazz. Very simple.


http://www.fender.com/support/diagra...131800APg2.pdf

where this shows a black and white wire. I had pairs. In the case of
the bridge pickup i had a quad. My colors are yellow/white and
green/brown. I don't know for a fact that they are paired correctly
but based on what was already there, it was what I considered a good
reasonable guess.

My tone cap is a new orange drop 473K. I assume that's nearly the same
as .05.

What happens now is this....

The ground buzz is gone when touching strings.

Turn up front pickup. good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up bridge volume. Good signal. Turn down volume.
Turn up front pickup and then turn up bridge pickup and just when it
hits full on, the bridge pickup cuts out.

I can't tell that the tone control is doing anything.

The only difference in my circuit and the Jazz Bass is the output
ground. Mine is mounted to the wooden edge and thus I ran a ground
wire over to the pot the tone cap grounds on. Otherwise I have checked
and rechecked this very simple circuit which I can't seem to get to work.

Could there be something wrong with the pickups themselves? They play
and sound fine, just not when the pot hit's full open. When the middle
control hits wide open there is a considerable gain reduction also.
IOW, even though the front pickup continues to work, it looses a lot
of signal strength until the middle pot is turned down just a touch.

Thanks,

Tom B.

Tom Baldwin wrote:

I have a Kramer Pioneer Bass that has a problem I can't seem to figure out.


Have you tried a guitar group ?

Graham

I did some research on a Kramer site but it didn't really pan out. I
guess i'll look for a luthier/repair site. I was kinda hopeing the EE
types here might have some reason as to why the problem might happen
since the circuit is so simple.

I'm beginning to think something is wrong with that bridge pickup or at
least part of it.

TB


Pooh Bear wrote:

Tom Baldwin wrote:


I have a Kramer Pioneer Bass that has a problem I can't seem to figure out.



Have you tried a guitar group ?

Graham

Tom Baldwin wrote in
:

I did some research on a Kramer site but it didn't really pan
out. I guess i'll look for a luthier/repair site. I was kinda
hopeing the EE types here might have some reason as to why the
problem might happen since the circuit is so simple.

I'm beginning to think something is wrong with that bridge
pickup or at least part of it.

TB


Pooh Bear wrote:

Tom Baldwin wrote:


I have a Kramer Pioneer Bass that has a problem I can't seem
to figure out.



Have you tried a guitar group ?

Graham


sounds like the pickups are out of phase, so that when they
generate equal signals they cancel each other out.
..


--
Bob Quintal

PA is y I've altered my email address.

Tom Baldwin wrote:

The cavity has a foil base for grounding. Only the output jack lacks any
sort of ground. That's why I mentioned the wire I added. But yes, the
pots mount to a common grounding foil.

I would suggest NOT relying on a foil shield for a ground
connection. The foil is a shield only. Run a separate ground
buss to every point that needs one - the output jack, the
bridge, the back of each pot can, the 'common' of each
pickup, tone cap, etc.

It sounds like the PUs are 'out-of-phase' which really means
one has the wrong polarity. Did you try swapping around the
PU leads ?

You may try also in:

alt.guitar.bass -or-
rec.music.makers.bass

good luck
rd

Thanks guys. I think maybe you are on to something about "out of phase"

I did check my grounding and it's good. I jumperd everything to see if
it made a difference and it didn't. Like I said the bass is quiet and
there is no additional noise when I touch the strings or other hardware.

I also found some info on the wire colors. I have the wires paired
correctly but that bridge pickup is basically two side-by-side
humbuckers. Someone at least eluded to the fact that one may be reverse
wound. If that's true, you would think that my tieing all negative
together and all positive together would have resulted in it simply not
playing at all, but maybe I am mistaken. I'm going to start by using
only one of the pair and see if I can get that to work. I guess it's
also possible one of the pair is defective.


TB



RD Jones wrote:
Tom Baldwin wrote:


The cavity has a foil base for grounding. Only the output jack lacks any
sort of ground. That's why I mentioned the wire I added. But yes, the
pots mount to a common grounding foil.


I would suggest NOT relying on a foil shield for a ground
connection. The foil is a shield only. Run a separate ground
buss to every point that needs one - the output jack, the
bridge, the back of each pot can, the 'common' of each
pickup, tone cap, etc.

It sounds like the PUs are 'out-of-phase' which really means
one has the wrong polarity. Did you try swapping around the
PU leads ?

You may try also in:

alt.guitar.bass -or-
rec.music.makers.bass

good luck
rd