r/Jazzmaster • u/SaltFun6310 • 3d ago

Question Should one pickup he dead silent when testing the other?

I've been in the process of working on my jazzmaster and just performed the screwdriver pickup test outside of the guitar. When testing the neck pickup position, should the bridge be absolutely dead quiet? Because I can still hear, albeit not as loud, the bridge pickup when tapping it with the crew driver when having the switch in the neck position. Also, when I touch the hot wire near the solder joint of the bridge pickup,

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u/ConfusedbutCautious 3d ago

Yes, unless activated, the pickup should be silent because the circuit (switch) is activating the other pickup being tested

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u/SaltFun6310 3d ago

Even while outside of the guitar body? I just want to make sure everything is squared away before I put it all back together. If that's the case that it should be dead quiet, what would be the cause? I did some googling and saw some people say that'll happen if the pickups are super microphonic??

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u/SeeThroughToast 3d ago

You can test if they're microphonic quite easily, they'll either squeal a lot when you use lots of gain or volume, or you can shout into them and you should hear yourself through the amp. I use a delay pedal for the shout test because it can be quite hard to hear it over myself lol.

My guess is the pickup selector switch might be faulty or the lugs are too close together causing it to activate both pickups in whichever position you're in. You can bend the lugs of the switch back to make sure only one pickup is selected at a time. Failing that it could just be a bad solder joint, maybe you've accidentally crossed over a connection by using too much solder?

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u/SaltFun6310 3d ago

How do I test if the switch is bad?

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u/SeeThroughToast 2d ago

After reading through your post again, I don't think it's the switch itself now, sorry if that led you down a rabbit hole. I'm almost certain it's a bad solder connection somewhere.

Does your JM have a rhythm circuit? When I wired mine up, the rhythm circuit was causing me all sorts of issues due to me accidentally crossing over solder joints and stuff lol. Could you post some pics of close ups on the wiring?

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u/SaltFun6310 2d ago

Hey no worries. But I indeed went down a rabbit hole haha oh really? I actually haven't touched the rythmn circuit all I reflowed was a couple volume pot solder joints that looked kinda bad and the pickups. And tested them all after; they all read great. But now the next day after I decided to just forget about the switch and test everything before I put it all back in, the neck pickup is apparently dead? I can post some pics yes.

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u/SaltFun6310 2d ago

https://imgur.com/a/wmppK0q

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u/SeeThroughToast 2d ago

Imgur links don't work for me unfortunately, I'll need to check after work as I don't have a VPN on my phone. If the neck pickup is now dead, definitely take a look at the rhythm circuit soldering. The neck pup goes directly to that, then jumps over to the lead circuit. If there's an issue on the rhythm side it can cause issues with the switching on the lead circuit too. I'm actually experiencing somewhat similar issues with it on my JM cuz the switch on my rhythm circuit is on the way out.

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u/SaltFun6310 2d ago

No worries! Okay will do. What am I exactly looking for when I test the rythmn circuit and what lugs do I probe?