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Neck tone control not working

burstone

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2002
Messages
6,748
Neck tone on one of my LPs doesn't seem to be working. Nothing happens when I turn the knob from 10 to 0. Neck tone pot measures out at 528K using a multimeter. Does this mean the neck tone cap is dead or there's a cold solder joint between the cap and the pot(s)? Also, when I tap on the pickup covers, the neck pup sounds quieter and less microphonic than the bridge pup which sounds much louder. Yet, when I play plugged in, the neck pup sounds fine to me except for the tone control not working. What do you tech savvy guys think is going on?
 

PaulD

Active member
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
673
It's unlikely (but not impossible) to be the cap, guitar capacitors rarely fail as they are not subjected to any voltage, much more likely to be a wiring / solder joint problem or a faulty pot. Try checking the pot resistance between the lug that the capacitor connects to and the grounded lug, it should read close to zero ohms with the tone control on 0 and close to the pot resistance (500 ohms) with the tone control on 10.
 

burstone

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 5, 2002
Messages
6,748
Thanks.
I'll look inside and poke around the cavity again. When I did last time when measuring the pot, everything seemed fine including all the solder joints, that's why I wondered if the cap is dead since the pot produced a reading of 528K on 10. Didn't measure it with the pot on 0 though. Maybe unsoldering and resoldering the joints would solve the problem. Did that with one of my teles when the neck pup all of a sudden dropped in volume and it came back to normal after unsoldering and resoldering.
 
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