Guitar can't get clean tones...bad pickups or wiring?

[Wolfgang Youngblood]

I recently bought a Jazzmaster copy (I hope to post a full review of it soon) and I'm having a peculiar issue with it.

The guitar won't play clean. I'm playing it at quite low levels both into an amp and direct into my audio interface, and I'm using the same settings as I do on my Strat and Gretsch, but this thing breaks up and distorts at insanely low thresholds of attack.

I almost always play clean, but anything louder than a whisper level, volume higher than 2 or 3, and it will start to distort without any gain on the channel. Playing an entire chord clean is impossible. I'm thinking it's just the cheap pickups that need replacing, but I'm wondering if it could be a bad solder or bad pots?

I tried searching on here and on the internet in general, but the only comments I could find about the issue referred to EMG active pickups or high output humbuckers. These are passive single coils I'm talking about. Also, this is my first offset guitar and it has Jazzmaster-style (albeit cheap) pickups. Is there something I'm missing about JM-style single coils or could these pickups be faulty? I e-mailed the seller about it but I have yet to hear back so far.

[jorri]

seems unlikely another passive singlecoil would be so different. And any electronics issue would be some noisy intermittent thing, not distortion. Other than that- very odd and i don't have suggestions other than:

-have you compared the pickup height? maybe they are way to close to strings?

[timtam]

You'll have to separate the pickups from the circuit to be sure. Could be two very poor pickups (obviously both faulty is unlikely), or something faulty in the circuit affecting two good pickups. Unsolder one pickup and connect it direct to cable tip and shield with alligator clip test leads. Also measure its resistance with a multimeter. If pickups turn out OK, it's something in the circuit. Does the JM copy have a standard jazzmaster circuit ? The lead and rhythm circuits are almost entirely separate, save for sharing the neck pickup, ground, lead/rhythm switch, and the output jack. So if the problem is in both circuits, or just one, that narrows things down.

[ChrisDesign]

What jazzmaster copy is it?

[Wolfgang Youngblood]

Thanks everyone for the responses.

I thought it could be the pickup height so I tried to lower them, but the screws would not budge in either direction. I ordered some copper foil so I could shield all my single-coil electrics, so when that arrives in the mail I'm going to take the guitar apart and inspect all the electronics.

ChrisDesign, it's a Harley Benton JA-60LH. Once I take it apart and inspect everything, I'm going to take some pictures and do a review for any other lefties who may want to try the model out.

[Kyon]

The only thing I can think is they're ceramic or p90s

[timtam]

it's a Harley Benton JA-60LH.

They generally get good reports. P90 style pickups. Were Wilkinson now Roswell IIRC. Some vids on youtube. Did you buy it new ?

[ChrisDesign]

From the Harley Benton website:

With its two single coil Roswell Alnico-5 P90 pickups, this guitar from our Vintage series has a warm sound with that typical ‘crunch’. In short: This guitar has all the ingredients you need to make some serious noise!

Alnico V is less powerful than Ceramic, and my ceramic Duncan Distortion pickup loaded Les paul get clean tones. I suspect there your signal chain or amp.

P90s are hotter than Strat single coils or gretch’s Filter'tron pickup, if that's what your Gretch has. P90s will drive an amp to break up quicker than either strat or Filter'tron pickups will.

What amp do you have, and what settings do you use?