My Ernie Ball Music Man Stingray 5 3-way switch is not working properly. Bridge and neck positions SEEM ok, but they may be affected as well. Main issue right now is no output on the middle position at all. Took the pick guard assembly off and couldn't find any broken wires. Any advice out there. Thanks.
Help! 3 way switch issues
- Thread starter 6botts
- Start date
My Ernie Ball Music Man Stingray 5 3-way switch is not working properly. Bridge and neck positions SEEM ok, but they may be affected as well. Main issue right now is no output on the middle position at all. Took the pick guard assembly off and couldn't find any broken wires. Any advice out there. Thanks.
Thanks for playing Music Man! Email me [email protected] and we'll help solve your issues. Please include your serial number and where you are located.
Same thing here. I received my brand new USA made Sterling 2 days ago and the middle position stopped working after 30 minutes! I opened it up, removed the screws holding the switch and inspected all the wiring and solder joints. Everything looked ok, but a couple of wires looked to be a bit pinched and routed awkwardly. I re-routed them and zip tied them and the problem went away. The bass plays wonderfully and sounds fantastic, but for a $1500 instrument, the cavity wiring should be a bit tidier.
mynan
Well-known member
EBMM customer service is the best I've ever experienced. Give them a call on Monday and I'm sure they'll get it fixed for you.
solderjunkie
Active member
Middle position is a pseudo-single-coil tone achieved by the addition of a filtering circuit. Maybe the filtering circuit has a weak solder or other open?
tbonesullivan
Well-known member
the 5 way switches are physical switches, and if dust gets on a contact, it can cause them not to function correctly.
definitely talk to ebmm customer service.
definitely talk to ebmm customer service.
I've been building and repairing electric guitars for over 30 years and have gotten pretty good at troubleshooting. My problem was an intermittent sound problem when the switch was in the middle position. I tracked it down to 2 issues. First, the input jack was loose and the contacts were sloppy. If I bumped or wiggled the cable, I got intermittent sound. This was an easy fix. Once this was repaired, the problem became less frequent but was still there so I pulled the pickup and carefully inspected the pickup wires and found one (black wire, probably a ground from the phantom coil) that appeared to have been melted almost all the way through, possibly by an errant soldering iron. Usually intermittent problems suggest a bad ground so it made sense. I was able to repair the damaged wire and after several hours of play time the problem is hopefully gone for good. The problem would have been covered by the warranty but I would have been out upwards of $50++ shipping back to the factory.
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