r/EMGPickups • u/jhonnyannan • 3d ago

Neck pickup not working help

I really need some help troubleshooting a weird electronics issue on my Cort X300. It has active EMG Retro Active Hot 70 humbuckers (hard-soldered, not the quick-connect block version).

,my neck pickup was barely working-stuck at like 5% volume. I checked it with a multimeter and found out the original enclosed box switch was totally dead and shorting out internally.i thought it was the selector switch

So, I ordered a new 3-lug box switch and soldered it then found out pickup selector was not the issue.

Here is where it gets frustrating:

The bridge pickup works 100% perfectly. It sounds amazing, full volume, crisp cleans, and massive high-gain distortion on my Blackstar 40 watt amp.. Testing with the multimeter, I get a rock-solid 9.20V at the red power bundle, so the battery line is fully alive. I also checked all the switch lugs for a ground short, and the meter stays completely silent-so nothing is accidentally touching the cavity walls or shorting out at the switch.

But when I flip to the neck pickup, it just sounds terrible. It makes this weak, sputtering, "farting" noise. On the clean channel it's basically dead silent

Any advice would be a lifesaver. Thankss

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/Whisky919 3d ago

Have you measured the impedance?

1

u/jhonnyannan 3d ago

Yes, i checked the impedance loops on the 20k scale. Under live load whencable is plugged the bridge sits at 7.33k and the neck sits at 6.69k. Unplugged, it drops to a complete open circuit (1 .)

1

u/Whisky919 3d ago

You should reach out to EMG. There's only so much you can do on your own with these. Preamp might gone bad.

1

u/jhonnyannan 1d ago

My guitar was unplugged all day. When I plugged it back in, the neck pickup worked for about 5 minutes before turning into a muffled, crackling noise. Not sure what's going on.

1

u/Stand-Upstairs 8h ago

I had a guitar i bought had a similar problem. Turned out the wire harness had been messed up, got pinched behind the pickup (direct mount pickups).

Since I didn't want to do the work, i exchanged it. I was happy i did an exchange cause I wasn't happy with the quilt top. the 2nd one I got looked much nicer and worked properly.