Gigantic Problem!!!

[GodOfRhythm]

Backstory:

For a while now I was feeling really down because I thought my playing was horrendously sloppy. I had string buzzing and open string noise everywhere, to the point where I quit playing for a week or two just because I was so pissed off.

My tone was godlike though, I really enjoyed it. Then it hit me, the batteries for my EMG's (18v) were probably running low. I checked the cleans, and indeed they were distorted.

So I swapped new batteries and it is as clean and crisp as a summer morning now, no more of that buzzy backdrop BUT


ALL of my tone is gone!! Even on the lead channel of the Quad I can only get a 'distorted clean' tone at best.

I played the Quad this morning with the old batteries in the guitar, so I'm doubtful that a tube went bad in just a timespan of 2 hrs. Could it really be because of the battery change?

Did the old/dying batteries that were in there before give such an extra distortion boost?



MY TONE IS GONE!!! HELP!!! I have no idea what to do.

[GodOfRhythm]

Also I noticed.

My toneknob now seems to function as a sort of volume knob.

When i turn it down to get a warmer sound, the volume is also cut drastically.

[StukaJU87]

I have no technical info for you, sorry. BUT, if it were me, I would have the guitar checked by a tech just to eliminate the possibility that something is wrong with it.

[VitaminG]

I'm sure it's a dumb question, but is the cable plugged into your guitar properly?

[GodOfRhythm]

I'm sure it's a dumb question, but is the cable plugged into your guitar properly?

Yes. :ROTF:

[rjohnstone]

Put a jumper on one of the battery clips and run it with one 9v battery and see if you get your tone back.
As for the tone knob acting like a volume knob, check and make sure the cap didn't break loose from the tone knob. The solder joint could have failed.

[GodOfRhythm]

As u might have guessed, I'm no real tech junkie. All the wires seem to be still connected, AFAIK and can see.

How would I go about putting ' jumper ' on one of them?

This is one of those CS Ltd Chlorines, so the actual metal strips to which the batteries connect are kind of hard to get to.

[yard dawg]

Im sure its just an issue with the wiring. Something is shorting out or broken. You may have moved something when you swapped batteries.

[GodOfRhythm]

I'll take a snapshot of the cavity tonite.

As for moving something when swapping the batts, unlikely, since they are in a seperate little built in battery box.

[rjohnstone]

OK.. battery boxes make it a bit harder to bypass one of them.
The first suggestion would be to see of the cap came off the tone pot.
It's the little black (sometimes green) thing that is in between the volume and tone pot.

[GodOfRhythm]

It's quite a mess in there, but everything still seems to be connected.

The pots are not directly connected to each other. There is a little 'green' thing between the switch and the vol knob.

I will have pics up in about an hour.

[Rupe]

Go passive and you will have great tone and no technical headaches

I recall friends who used EMG's talking about the great tones they were getting with low batteries. I think it's a fairly common issue.

[SlasZ]

It's quite a mess in there, but everything still seems to be connected.

The pots are not directly connected to each other. There is a little 'green' thing between the switch and the vol knob.

I will have pics up in about an hour.

Probably the 'green' thing is a capacitor, and it should be between connecting the tone knob & ground, like this (mine is red):

[Spivonious]

Easy way to test this one.

Put the old batteries back in.

[GodOfRhythm]

Old batteries were already disposed of.

Here is a picture:

http://users.pandora.be/metallipriest/wiring.jpg

And I can understand some of the tone 'changing', but to completely lose any and all saturation and simply have almost no more distortion? This is fucked up!