Borked my Sustainer...

stonevibe

Oops!

Was cleaning the ol' RG / JEM / Bastard and knocked one cable off the 5 way switch. Re-soldered it and now my Fernandes Sustainer doesn't sound as a neck pickup anymore. It still works fine as a sustainer though, so not sure how I managed to f*ck that one up.

I knocked off one green wire (see diagram below) and now it makes the tiniest output ever when its in the neck position with Sustainer tuned off.

Middle and bridge are fine in this mode, just neck (Fernandes Pickup) is borked.

Any ideas?

I'm comfuzzled.

ICBM

If the 5-way switch is actually the type of crappy plastic one shown in the diagram, chances are you've buggered the switch terminal either by pulling the wire off or resoldering it.

If it's a proper open-frame metal 5-way, probably not...

stonevibe

Yup its a plastic fantastic switch.

I was going to order a new switch anyways as this thing is from the 1980s...

Sporky

How good are they as a pickup (when they're working, of course)?

stonevibe

To be honest I rarely use the neck pickup.. But its nice to have it all working either way.

From memory it sounds like a fairly clear pickup both clean and overdriven, definition is good and is fairly rounded. 

viz

What's an rg/jem/bastard? Lol

stonevibe

viz said:

What's an rg/jem/bastard? Lol

mike_l

@stonevibe ; that is lovely. Very muchly Mike approved

stonevibe

mike_l said:

@stonevibe ; that is lovely. Very muchly Mike approved

 Cheers fella. Its a favourite of mine.

Fixed the issue as well (cheers everyone for your suggestions) Switch had a dodgy connection as ICBM deduced, so I pulled it apart and bent it back. '80s Japanese technology fail, but easy fix.

I wouldn't mind but I changed the pots out to CTS when I had the Sustainer fitted, just left the old switch in.

Oak switch on order and will be fitted in the near future.

So neck pickup is back!

And 'Sporks' it sounds pretty good, better than I expected it too.

This is the horrid thing and yes I did fix that terrible dry joint I made earlier. My eyesight is getting worse, had an eye test last Friday and my Specs are on order. As I have to squint to see stuff like this nowadays, never had glasses before so looking forward to being able to do fiddly stuff again like threading needles and soldering!

viz

stonevibe said:

viz said:

What's an rg/jem/bastard? Lol

Ah yes that little beaut.

ICBM

That is cool to a quite ridiculous degree. It's like someone turned the "80s" knob up to 20 .

stonevibe

Yeah. 

That was pretty much the look that I was going for and as I pumped most of my small change into Space Invaders as a kid it seemed appropriate.

I'm finding the width of the JEM neck is perfect for my hands as well, so may have to find another one someday. I had an RG560 which was lovely, just the wizard neck was too thin for my hands. Whereas this JEM 777 neck is a lot deeper.