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My Gibson L5ces has a little issue I've never noticed before. I was playing with the idea of turning the amp up close to full and controlling the volume from the guitar when I realized that turned all the way to "zero" my guitar still sent a pretty significant signal to the amp. I could not zero out the sound. I tried it on another amp, volume on the amp set to 6, and still could not cut the L5 out completely.
My other guitars all zero out the volume completely at 0.
Any suggestions what's going on here?
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12-10-2018 02:51 PM
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Possibly the volume pot sweep area is just slightly dirty near the zero position, leaving a tiny bit of signal that's NOT shunted to ground.
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I'll give it a shot of cleaner and see if that helps. Thanks.
Originally Posted by rpguitar
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See if the same thing happens when just the bridge pickup and its corresponding volume knob are engaged. If it's the same, then it's a little unlikely (but of course not impossible) that both volume pots have the same issue. In that case I'd scratch my head some more.
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I've seen that happen with incorrectly wired tone controls. Actually, the entire system was wired incorrectly, if memory doesn't completely fail.
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For what it's worth, here's a photo I got of the wiring on the pots. Don't know how much you can tell from this.
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Is the jack grounded? I only see one wire going to it. Or maybe the braid is there and the hot wire is wrapping around the back side? I would test everything for continuity. If all is good you might need to replace the pot.
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FWIW one of my WesMos had a missing ground wire. I have no idea if this is common, but it shouldn’t be! Originally Posted by lammie200
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I think the jack is grounded, but I can't tell much from the photo, not how the selector switch is wired (it's not shown) nor which wires go to which legs on the pots, nor how any caps are wired in. There are a number of ways to wire a guitar which work, but not all of them are optimal.
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the guitar suddenly didnt rewire itself from the last time you used it!!! hah..spray some deoxit...pots are old school tech...they get scratchy and odd...a small spritz followed by some knob rolls should take care of it
cheers
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Connect an ohmmeter between the center lug on the volume pot and the ground lug side of the jack (or the sleeve of your instrument cable). The resistance should drop near zero when the pot is set to minimum volume. If not, the pot may have a bad ground.
If the pot is too difficult to access, just connect the ohmeter to the tip and sleeve of your instrument cable. Switch to the pickup pot you are testing. This should give the same result, except slightly higher resistance due to the length of instrument cable. Test both volume pots while you’re at it, since that will give you more clues.Last edited by KirkP; 12-10-2018 at 09:31 PM.
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it looks like there's some staining on the f hole binding...perhaps whatever caused that got into the pots...deoxit!
cheers
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It is wired correctly. The ground is the wire going to the tailpiece. Gibson wiring is almost always stellar. A funky pot most likely. Could be the pic angle but the rear pu braided wire sheath looks very close to the front pu volume pot lugs. When in playing position the weight of the ground wire could cause the braided rear pu wire to touch the volume pot lug.
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Another observation,
By turning the guitar way down and the amp way up you are throwing away signal to ground and amplifying noise for a poor signal/noise ratio. Although some are proponents of this, I can’t see why you would want to, especially with a tone machine like the L5 CES. Just my 2 cents,,,
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I don't think you have yet indicated if this happens for one pickup, or both.
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Pickup interactions can be complicated. I have a guitar on which turning the bridge pickup volume completely off kills the neck pickup. The first time I encountered it, it took me awhile to find out why there was no sound from the amp. I could take everything out and figure out why, but it's more trouble than I'm willing to go to, so I just keep the bridge pickup volume up to ~2 or so and forget about it. And the next time it happens, it takes me a few seconds to remember to turn it back up. Lawson, you may want to investigate whether the volume control settings interaction has any effect. Sometimes a glitch just isn't worth taking the time and trouble to fix.
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Sorry-i've been at work and then had home obligations too. No, it does not happen on the bridge pickup. It goes to zero. Originally Posted by Woody Sound
I haven't had time to try spraying a little pot cleaner in the pot. That will be my next move.
I appreciate so much the contribution of the brain-trust that is this forum!
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It would only be a problem is somehow I needed to turn the volume all the way down, but I can always just switch to the bridge pickup and have it turned down. Originally Posted by sgosnell
I'm curious, though, whether there is some offset and maybe I'm not getting the full level at the top end? I haven't had a complaint, but this has made me curious.
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Hi
I have the same peoblem. Can you tell me what you did to resolve it? My luthier cant find the problem. I also sent you an email.
Thanks
David
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I have had this problem and it was not immediately remedied by contact cleaner. I then saw a video of a guitar tech suggesting to gently tap down on the shaft of thee pot after you have sprayed it with cleaner. Worked for me.
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I replaced the whole wiring harness. Wasn’t necessary, could have just replaced the pot, but decided to replace the whole thing. Originally Posted by David G
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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I have had 2 Gibsons, an LP Custom 57RI with faulty pots, and a L5 CES with pots that had a huge range of values. On both guitars, replacements took place.
One would expect "top of the line" guitars to have wonderful components!
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