Have you had a bad SD JB?

[BlueParfait]

Ran a few music stores... became the tech by necessity, between personal and through the stores I've handled alot. Personal easily 25+... Sell me some JBJ's

I've only had two JBJs, and a JBL, the rest were modern ones.

Quite frankly other than the fact that the older ones have slightly less bass, I can't really tell the difference

 

[Music&Chaos]

I'll try one. You ever used one? I have multiple mj JB's laying around and a few RTM's.

I can honestly say if anything, I've found the 80's ones to be less reliable from people swapping guitars, in and out etc.

I have not had the chance to try the Agressor. Buddy has a couple guitars with JBs. I think they are powerful and resposnsive and if the Agrressor has that same midrange power but with a bit more clarity, I think it would be a great sounding bridge.

 

[Rick Lee]

UPDATE

Oh man, what a pain in the ass. I threw in a Jalen Pinnacle, same problem. Replaced the pot with a new Bournes, same problem, reflowed the solder joints on the input jack, same problem. WTF else is there?! I think the culprit is the adhesive copper shielding I lined the cavity with. I got to thinking that the ground wire to the tremolo claw was touching the shielding where it comes into the cavity, which made it connect with the top of the pot and anything else that ended up touching the shielding. So I peeled the shielding away from anything other than wood and paint, played for a bit and it was a lot better. I will get every speck of that shielding out of there when I have some more time, but I think that's what was causing this whole thing.

 

[Music&Chaos]

UPDATE

Oh man, what a pain in the ass. I threw in a Jalen Pinnacle, same problem. Replaced the pot with a new Bournes, same problem, reflowed the solder joints on the input jack, same problem. WTF else is there?! I think the culprit is the adhesive copper shielding I lined the cavity with. I got to thinking that the ground wire to the tremolo claw was touching the shielding where it comes into the cavity, which made it connect with the top of the pot and anything else that ended up touching the shielding. So I peeled the shielding away from anything other than wood and paint, played for a bit and it was a lot better. I will get every speck of that shielding out of there when I have some more time, but I think that's what was causing this whole thing.

Womp womp. That sucks to hear but at least it looks like you found the source of your issue.

 

[Rick Lee]

Anyway, I hope I didn't malign SD in any way. I like the pickup a lot and it wasn't the issue. I've seen plenty of guitars with that copper shielding in the cavities. I guess it has to be applied kind of carefully and not just slapped on like I'm making a Faraday cage out of the cavity. But damn, what a pain in the ass. There really was nothing else that could have caused this, but I replaced everything else first. Sheesh.

 

[scottosan]

I had a $50 Gear Credit on my GC card expiring, so I grabbed a new SD JB to throw into my '83 Kramer Pacer. I wired it for coil splitting, sounded fantastic. Recently, while playing through my Suhr SL67, I started getting what sounded like bad preamp tube noise, howling, chirping, etc. I rolled and swapped out all preamp and power tubes, no joy. So I ran it through a different 2x12. Same noises. Then I ran it through my other heads (SLO100 and two 1959SLPs). Same noise, no joy. Changed cables, no pedalboard. Still same noises. I tried a Les Paul and no noise at all. This Kramer has one pickup, one volume knob and that's it. It has to be the pickup. It was the only constant in all that testing. I never noticed it before, so it can't be some factory defect. My tech says newer JBs suck and to only use old ones. I've had this for about six mos, so probably no chance of a warranty thing. Are current JBs subpar?

I assume that your Kramer doesn't have a tone control. Contrary to popular belief, the tone, even at 10 is sitll rolling highs off. Are you playing at higher volumes and gain? Both of my Charvels without tone controls would get feedback on high volume higher gain settings that wasn't present with guitars with a tone pot. Even more so in small room where you have high frequency standing waves.

 

[Rick Lee]

It does have a tone control, but it's disconnected. Has a two way micro toggle switch too, all disconnected. I only have one pickup, wired for coil splitting and use a push/pull volume pot.

 

[scottosan]

It does have a tone control, but it's disconnected. Has a two way micro toggle switch too, all disconnected. I only have one pickup, wired for coil splitting and use a push/pull volume pot.

At what volume and gain are you playing?

 

[Rick Lee]

My main amp these days is a Suhr SL67, both volumes on 6, no pedals. Guitar volume dimed. But as mentioned in the first post, this problem happened with every amp, every head, every cable, but not with other guitars.

 

[Music&Chaos]

UPDATE

Oh man, what a pain in the ass. I threw in a Jalen Pinnacle, same problem. Replaced the pot with a new Bournes, same problem, reflowed the solder joints on the input jack, same problem. WTF else is there?! I think the culprit is the adhesive copper shielding I lined the cavity with. I got to thinking that the ground wire to the tremolo claw was touching the shielding where it comes into the cavity, which made it connect with the top of the pot and anything else that ended up touching the shielding. So I peeled the shielding away from anything other than wood and paint, played for a bit and it was a lot better. I will get every speck of that shielding out of there when I have some more time, but I think that's what was causing this whole thing.

Womp womp. That sucks to hear but at least it looks like you found the source of your issue.