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EPI Les Paul Custom Pro very weak neck pickup.

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Poppysilver_

New member
Joined
Mar 12, 2018
Messages
3
The neck pickup suddenly outputs like 10% of the volume it used to. this just happened to my epi Les Paul Custom Pro yesterday out of nowhere. Curiously though, inverting the phase with the pull switch fixes the problem, as in when i pull the switch to bring it out of phase while I have only the neck selected it starts outputting normally. I have no idea about guitar electronics so does anyone know how you would go about fixing this?
 
Z

Zentar

New member
Joined
Oct 1, 2011
Messages
830
Welcome.

Start simple. Inspect the cable connect. Do you have good pressure on the spring plug-in? Solid connection?
Shake the guitar upside down to listen for foreign metallic debris under the covers or around pickups.
Take off the covers in back and look for stuff like tiny foil shreds that made be shorting.
Remove the pickups and look for foreign stuff like screws on the magnets.
Get a magnifying glass and inspect the circuit board and pickups for foreign matter and bad solder joints.

One time I found a tiny spring off a pickup that had wedged under a circuit board.
 
P

Poppysilver_

New member
Joined
Mar 12, 2018
Messages
3
Zentar said:
Welcome.

Start simple. Inspect the cable connect. Do you have good pressure on the spring plug-in? Solid connection?
Shake the guitar upside down to listen for foreign metallic debris under the covers or around pickups.
Take off the covers in back and look for stuff like tiny foil shreds that made be shorting.
Remove the pickups and look for foreign stuff like screws on the magnets.
Get a magnifying glass and inspect the circuit board and pickups for foreign matter and bad solder joints.

One time I found a tiny spring off a pickup that had wedged under a circuit board.
Click to expand...

Hi, thank you for your reply!

I've already done everything you mentioned except bustin out a magnifying glass and inspecting everything really closely. Everything seemed fine to me.
What I don't understand is why pulling my phase reverse switch "fixes" the problem. I suspect it might be the Pickup Selector. How would i know if something was wrong?
 
fakejake

fakejake

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
1,287
Why not take the opportunity and drop in a prewired 50'ies style harness?
That'll probaly fix the issue and sound a lot nicer :jim
 
P

Poppysilver_

New member
Joined
Mar 12, 2018
Messages
3
fakejake said:
Why not take the opportunity and drop in a prewired 50'ies style harness?
That'll probaly fix the issue and sound a lot nicer :jim
Click to expand...

I plan on doing that eventually, right now though I'm fine with whats in he guitar, or i guess I would be if whats in the guitar was working.
I'm 90% sure the problem is the neck pickup tone knob. I don't really know how to troubleshoot that though.
 
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