HELP my tone pot doesnt work

[prefontainenike]

ok heres the story i bought an ibanez jem a year ago and i swear to god the tone pot does nothing to effect the tone. is this normal? i thought nothing of it till i started to get good now i hate not being able to switch it. What do i need to fix this?? im assuming a strat pot, but what specs. and will it be hard to wire, ive done pickups and pedal mods before

Thanks alot. chris

[SLY]

May be it was dissabled on purpose in your guitar.

Anyway, the tone pot is a potentiometer and a capacitor .. try connecting the circuit again if it's dissabled , or you can buy the components if you did't them inside.

I don't remember the value of te capacitor, but the potentiometer is usualy 500 kohms (like the one in the volume pot).

[Dr_simon]

Have you taken the electrics out and had a look at them ?

It is very easy to switch out and replace pots with new ones if they are not working or crackling.

I recently did this to a strat volume pot (as well as shielding the internal cavity).

Have you checked out stewmac.com ?

They also do a video describing the workings of either a Fender or Gibson type guitar (they are about 10 bucks each). They are very good for people who have never done this type of repair before and a refresher for old hands that think they may be a little rusty.

This thread may also be useful:

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=4727

[prefontainenike]

i hear the 250k ohms have a sweeter sound but how would it sound with a humbucker? i play almost entirely lead use single coil more than anything. ok whats the difference between the pots at stewmac.com? tone blending and stuff like that

[pstring]

Ibanez typically uses a 250k vol pot and a 500k tone pot, a 250k tone pot would probably sound a little better on the single coil, but might take a bit of the treble off the humbuckers. Take a look at it, someone may have clipped the connection, it's pretty unusaul to get nothing when you turn the pot, you should at least hear some scratches or pops..................

[prefontainenike]

thanks man ill have to check it. Yeah i definately get nothing, no change in tone, no crackling, dead silence. im assuming this is not normal on the jem. i dont see steve vai never changing the tone knob. what exactly should i look for? are we talking wires that are unsoldered or capacitors or what.

thanks

[pstring]

The tone pot should have one tab grounded to the back of the pot, sometimes by a short piece of wire, sometimes the cap is used to make the ground, the middle tab should go to the vol pot, same thing, sometimes a short wire or the cap itself is used, the tone pot connection will be on the same tab of the vol pot as the 5 way switch, just look for something missing or disconnected, a Volt/Ohm meter, a couple of small alligator clips and a short piece of wire are handy to have around for troubleshooting these kind of problems, good luck............