Low Output From Thunder 1a Pickups

Hi, I am a relative newcomer to Westone, and have had my 1a for about 18 months. I play it through an Ashdown Mag 300, and the result is pretty good. However, even in active mode and played through the 'High' input, it struggles to move the input meter in to the red. I've also used it with a Boss studio, and the resulting levels of recording are very low, even when turned right up. Not an issue for general use, but are the original pickups on the weak side? Do they weaken with age? Can they be replaced, presumably with scavenged originals? Leave well alone?!

Any advice welcome

The MMK 45 pickups originally fitted to your guitar were pretty high output in their day (from memory about 11k ohms). You have possibly got a duff coil in one or both pickups. If your coil tap makes no difference to the sound, or indeed if it gives no signal in one position then that will be the cause.

It is easily checked with a multimeter and can sometimes be sorted by some gentle resoldering of wires at the coil.

Hoax

Yeah... MMK45s were, and still are!, pretty good p'ups when they're working well; sounds like yours might be a bit crook!! Geting a hold of replacement 45s can be a recipe for either empty pockets or loads of frustration, so maybe a set of something else that you quite like the sound of would do the trick?

And we like to see he new guys guitars in here, so feel free to show us what you've got....

At the risk of asking the obvious...are your batteries OK? :?:

Going off your amp and username this is a Thunder 1A bass, presume.
Should read app. 11.5-11.8. Sure they're not miles away from the strings?

If it plays on all strings your pickups seem ok. ie. complete circuit.

http://www.westoneguitars.net/fixme/wiring-diagrams/thunder-ia-bass/

Hi

Thanks for the responses.

Batteries OK, all switches/knobs doing what they are meant to, and action nice and low. One peculiarity is that to keep the sound output fairly constant I have to have the poles wound right down deep in to the pickup for the E and A string, but wound up just short of the strings on D and G. So, could be an issue with the latter pickup only, and in compensating I've turned the whole lot down.

Sounds like I need to do a bit more investigation.

Picture to follow.

Cheers

Ah ha!!

I had a problem like this once and it turned out to be that the magnet had broken away from the bottom of the windings. It kind of fell away lop sided and caused a less than satisfactory reponse generally, but particularly a big difference between treble and bass strings.


From memory, it was a pickup with twin magnets. One magnet was busted and flipped itself round due to the mutual attraction between itself and its partner. The thing just sounded terrible until I glued the magnet to the base with evostick.

Hoax

OK, thanks. Guess I will just have to get brave and take it to bits!