It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
If it was a shorted tone cap it would affect the neck pickup as well.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
On stock JD wiring, when the five-way selector switch is over towards the neck, the tone control should be out of circuit.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Removing the strings and bridge to inspect the condition of the bridge/Treble pickup and its solder joints will be a drag.
If your guitar still has the original OTAX four-pole PCB selector switch, I would begin by inspecting the connections and cleaning the moving contact parts.
It was on a vintage tele I’d just bought. ICBM called it. Broken wire in the pickup shorting
If the coil is broken at the ground end, some signal will still leak through via the capacitance between the coil and ground (the pickup baseplate and the bridgeplate, on a Tele - which makes the result slightly stronger than the same thing on a Strat). It usually breaks at the ground end because moisture gets into the inside of the coil bobbin via the small hole in the flatwork, then condenses where the coil wire touches the magnets and corrodes through the wire.
If you're very lucky it can sometimes be a cold joint at the pickup eyelet, so it's always worth trying resoldering this first, or very carefully scraping the enamel off the coil wire - be *very* careful not to cut it - and metering to the other end of the coil to see if there's any hope… but there usually isn't.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
On the other hand, the stock MIJ pickup is no great shakes. Give it a decent burial and invest in a superior replacement pickup.
A faulty pickup does sound more likely.
The neck position Strat pickup gets to do all of the partial phase reversal business. I can not recall whether it is RPRW or not.
There is an argument for replacing both pickups at the same time.
In the JD circuit, by definition, only one of the two bridge + neck PU combinations can be made noise-cancelling. Given Donahue's regular use of vintage style Fender guitars, it is difficult to imagine him being overly concerned about whether selector switch position 2 or position 3 is the one with the partial noise cancelling.
The position 2 "quack" is achieved by a combination of frequency filtering and electrical phase reversal. It is a refinement of an idea first devised by Bill Lawrence.