Help With My New Guitar

[Jebus]

Just last friday I bought a new epiphone les paul standard with a marshall 30dfx (my first electric guitar) and I'm having some problems with it...If anyone could help me/point my in the right direction it'd be much appreciated...

anyway...I first got the guitar and everything was fine...then I was playing and I switched to the rhythm (neck) pickup and I got hardly any sound out of it....to get anything decent out of it I had to turn it way up to 10, while getting a similar volume from my other pickup at volume 1 or 2...I found that if i pushed the pickup (both of my pickups move around a bit...I assume this is normal) then I got the sound back normal from my neck pickup...I'm guessing just a bad contact somewhere...but now it's gone again...I'm okay at pulling thing apart and mechanical/electrical stuff...but I don't really know much about guitars...and I don't want to fuck up the warranty...unfortunately the shop is 2.5 hours away...and I don't own a car...is there something I could possibly fix myself or should i take it back...but it's not really a problem to wait for a while cause I use the other pickup much more...

Thanks In Advance

[Jebus]

hmmm...okay I went away for a bit...when I came back I realized the jack for the guitar-amp lead was a bit loose...so I tightened that and all of a sudden the neck pickup works...I don't think I touched the pickup...could the jack have something to do with it...If the jack was fucked it'd mess up both pickups right?...I think I should find out how electric guitars work....

i guess if I can get it to work this easily...I can just wait till next time I head into the city where the guitar shop is...but some help would still be appreciated...

[Dirty Sanchez]

I'm no expert but to me it sounds like it could be something wrong with the switch. Anyway, i think you should bring it back to the shop to let them look at it when you get a chnce.

[holy reality]

yeah... and you should have gotten an agile
http://www.rondomusic.bigstep.com/homepage.html

(better quality then epi supposedly, and a fuckload cheaper)
though my switch is of a crappy quality and the pots aren't too great... all easily replaceable though.

a fuckload of harmony central users tend to be right about most things, and i haven't really seen any that say epis are better than agiles.


now then.... first of all, is the neck pickup as high as the bridge pickup? That would explain volume inconsistancies right there.... and it's easy enough to raise/lower yourself and if they ask you if you did anything to it just say no, what can they do about it? They probably don't remember exactly what it looked like when you bought it from them.

That may be advice though so since you just got it maybe just wait and have them look at it, and make sure they do it for free.

[Jebus]

thanks dirty sanchez and holy for the replies...now the neck pickup is a bit lower than the bridge pickup...which probably accounts for it being slightly quieter than the bridge pickup (that is, when everything is working properly) ...though I don't think that's the cause of the problem...see I fucked around with the jack and it fucked with the pickup again...I don't think it's the switch because I still ge something out of it...if it was the switch I'd get nothing right?....hmm...as for getting another guitar holy...I'm perfectly happy with this...except for the pickup problem...it's a kick arse guitar...

thanks

[deviatedwolf625]

hmm ... holy, he's in australia, doesn't that place only ship to the US?

As for your guitar, the pickups being loose slightly won't damage anything, but if they're uneven (not with eachother, but the pickup itself is sloped compared to the body) then you're in trouble and you need to fix it, or get it fixed.

Check the wires, make sure all of them are soldered good, there aren't any loose connections.

If none of that helps, then take it in/maybe someone else here can help you.

[holy reality]

"hmm ... holy, he's in australia, doesn't that place only ship to the US? "

good point...

[Jebus]

Well I finally asked my dad (he's an electrical engineer) to have a look at it...and after a bit of hesitation we just opened it up and bugger the warranty...turns out it was a bad solder on one of the connections on the neck pickup volume knob...so that was that...it was only on by a few strands and the wires were hooked together...so messing with the jack must have tugged it a little, which is why it sometimes worked...thanks anyway...raising the neck pickup a little made the volumes more level...so that helped as well...

cheers

[deviatedwolf625]

anytime d00d. glad to have tried to help, and see it's working now.

[Jebus]

Well the guitars still fine...but the footswitch for the amp shat itself last night...the switch jammed...some oil and banging it with my foot for five minutes fixed it but jesus christ...anyone in NZ planning to buy some gear is advised to stay well away from the palmerston north rockshop

[holy reality]

dammit man take it back and demand a new footswitch, they pretty much have to give you one.

[Jebus]

well I already opened it up and fucked around on the inside...i expect that the warranty on that (if there was one) is now void as well...plus I ain't asking my parents to drive 2.5 hours to replace a footswitch