Squier PJ Bass - replaced wiring - now pickups have signal even when turned down

Lee Kirkham

Lee Kirkham

Jan 14, 2013
493
672
4,571
Mesa, AZ
www.3phaseband.com
#1
Hello everyone, I'm hoping you can shed a little light on my predicament. Let me give you the quick story:

Changed out wiring, pots and cap on my bass to better quality than stock. Everything is wired back up, volumes work, tone works, but for some reason even when the volume pots are turned down, there a little bit of signal leaking through. I've double and triple checked the wiring in case I had wired incorrectly, found no errors there. I read that it might be a grounding issue, so I've gone through and re-soldered all the grounds to be sure. Unfortunately, I don't currently have anything to check connections, like a voltmeter. The problem still persists.

I wired it up using a SD PJ diagram for passive pups, plus, this is not the first time I've done this. Here's the one thing that is NOT as the stock wiring was, please tell me if this might be the culprit. The cap is now an OrangeDrop .047uF, I don't remember what the stock cap was measured. Whatever the stock Squier Standard P-Bass Special were rated. The pots are 500K, just like the stock pots. I don't understand why that would cause this issue, but there's more I don't know about it than do know.

Any help you can offer is appreciated. Any questions, fire away, I'll answer what I can for you about it.
 
#3
That problem is caused by improper or faulty grounding of the pots. Occasionally, it can also be caused by having a break in the wafer of a pot, but the probability of having two damaged pots at the same time is quite low. In any case, to fix the problem, double check your grounding scheme, and make sure that the third terminal on each volume pot has a direct path to ground.
 
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#4
I mean. Line6man is pretty much the expert around here so plus one on whatever he says.

I'll add that this happened to me recently and it was because I overcooked the pot. Almost impossible to do with full size but apparently I'm getting pretty good at frying mini pots, and good quality Bourns at that.
 
#5
verstft said:
I mean. Line6man is pretty much the expert around here so plus one on whatever he says.

I'll add that this happened to me recently and it was because I overcooked the pot. Almost impossible to do with full size but apparently I'm getting pretty good at frying mini pots, and good quality Bourns at that.
Click to expand...

I thought it might have been a cooked pot too, I'm using Bourns minis, but even after changing one out, no dice, same issue.

I'll go through all my grounds again tomorrow. Rats! :(
 
#6
maybe post the diagram you followed. I've seen a few online that aren't complete.

as for soldering pots, I've been hand soldering for 30 years, and I still use heatsink clips for pot lugs. I have basses, pedals, hi fi stuff that's well over 20 years old and the 16mm alpha pots (cheapest!) are still fine.
 
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