Guitar Input Problem

philbagg

philbagg

Just Killing Time
Hi guys, long time no see!

I'm having an issue with my RGA 121 Prestige at the moment. Whenever I plug the cable in all the way, there's no signal (well, there's the very faintest sound - barely audible below all the noise).

When I pull the cable out a small bit, I get full signal. I've replaced the input jack and the connections are solid. I've tried 4 different cables, different amps, pedals, the lot. Still the same issue.

There are 3 wires connected to the input jack, which I'd imagine are signal (tip), ground (sleeve), and the battery. My guess is that when the tip makes a connection, I get signal. But when the ground connects, the signal drops. If I'm right, is there an internal problem with the grounding of the guitar?

Thanks in advance!
 
Having the lead pulled out a bit means Tip and Sleeve of your TS jack cable are touching Ring and Sleeve of your guitar 1/4" socket.

You mention a battery; This is an active guitar?

I've seen a few electro acoustics where the receiving 1/4" socket has Tip, Ring and Sleeve, but expects a TS jack lead.
The sleeve of the cable connector bridges the guitar socket's Ring and Sleeve, which makes a ground path to turn on the internal electrics.

A lot of pedals use the same method and, as such, won't work with TRS cables.

You're not using one, are you?
 
No I'm using a standard TS instrument cable. Yeah it's an active guitar. Got Seymour Duncan blackouts put in around Christmas time. It was working fine until about a week ago
 
The output jack of a guitar with active electronics is a switching jack, and not a TRS. They both have three wires. What did you replace it with?
 
If it works intermittently, it's unlikely the battery. I'd still be suspicious of the output jack.
 
If it's not the jack, there aren't many other things that could be the problem. You say that it works sometimes if you play with the cord. That tells me it's the jack. It could also be a faulty connection, bad pre-amp, bad pickup, or a bad pickup selector.

Check the ground on the bridge, and all other connections.
 
JCH said:
The output jack of a guitar with active electronics is a switching jack, and not a TRS. They both have three wires. What did you replace it with?
Click to expand...

According to arcaxis' picture, it's as I described.
Philbagg, is that what you've got?

If you have a meter, check for continuity between all the points on the jack.
Do that at the jack with no cable plugged in, then again with a TS cable plugged in.
Also test between each guitar jack point and a known ground point on the guitar.
There's only so much that can go wrong; That should tell you what's what.

Inspect the jack socket whilst plugging in a cable too. It's possible that the tip just isn't making a good contact.(had this on a strat last week).

Cleaning all contact points does no harm too.
 
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also check the contacts for the switching part of that jack. Part of what it does in 'turn on' the lectricity so if those tiny contacts are dirty it might not be switching the active electronics on.
 
Hey guys thanks for all the input, sorry I took so long in getting back to ya!

I brought the guitar back to the same guy who put the Blackouts in the guitar back at Christmas.

Here are some of his lines:

"It's an internal wiring problem"
(I had then informed him that nobody had touched any wiring since he put them in, apart from replacing the input jack which he said was a good job)

"It should never have worked"

"This would also be why your tone knob never worked"
(I used to have a killswitch on the guitar, which he replaced with the tone knob. So, the tone knob started with him)

Some other info:

When I got them at first, there was a crunchy sound off of them. I know they're high-gain active pickups that would easily distort an amp, but the crunch was audible when I plugged directly into various interfaces with no effects (as in, completely direct), with the gain all the way down, the input pad turned on, the volume knob 90% of the way down, and barely plucking the string.

When I brought the guitar back to him at that stage, he effectively told me "that's just the way they sound". I didn't believe him but I didn't trust him either so I just left it. The crunch problem kinda went away on its own after that.

Also, as I said, I replaced cables, the input jack, and spent a good bit of money on petrol driving to these places to do so.

We never spoke about a price for the repair, but honest opinion, if he asks for money for the job, should I tell him where to shove it? :)
 
How handy are you? Guitar wiring looks complicated but it really isn't.
If you can work a multimeter (continuity) and a soldering iron, you should be able to sort it out.

If it wasn't a postage nightmare, I'd fix it for you. :facepalm:


So this guy fitted pickups but now says it should never have worked?
It's safe to assume someone fitting pickups should/would test that they are wired correctly and working correctly.....

Id' politely put that across IF you need to.


If the crunch problem gradually went away on its own, and then it suddenly stopped outputting on it's own, maybe something has been gradually getting worse over time?

If you're confident just strip the electrics out and test everything on the bench; Pots, switches, jacks, pickups, wires....the heap.
 
Just got word back that it's ready and there's no charge. Hopefully all is in order. I'll report my findings
 
Sorry for the delay. Electronics-wise, she's working beautifully, tone knob and all!

I don't know exactly what the issue was, my sister collected it and I didn't get a chance to ask him. But while I was in the shop when I brought it in, it seemed to look like a wire came loose. His wiring was a bit all over the place too.

As for the "setup" he said he'd do, all he did was raise the action a little bit, which hasn't made any change to the problem. The frets are still buzzing, the intonation is still out by a few cents around the 12th fret, and my pinch harmonics are dying out very quickly.

He is, by all accounts, a cowboy :rolleyes:
 
Glad you got it sorted it out.

Don't want to come off as snarky, but there usually is no input jack on a guitar. The input is the strings. That jack is an output - it lets the sound out into the world. ;)
 
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