Ibanez SRX400 issue

could be dust.... could be a failing pot. Even if it is dust it may be attenuating your highs as the dust clots and blocks the capacitances in the pot. Get hifi-stereo cleaner, yeah. Stuff works wonders but you really have to turn the pot a zillion times to work the dust out of the signal path and a cheap pot ay not survive. You can replace it with something better you know. Also, don't go to GC for tech work. They will hire anyone who can change a set of strings, turn an allen key and remotely solder. Those people aren't REALLY techs and they talk a lot of smack and often make problems worse. Ask Boom about his GC tech experience last year on his Spector bass! Always remember that a chains tore makes little in repairing your old cheapy, the bench time is nothing compared to the profit margin on a new instrument so does the manager of said store want a great tech who fixes everything or a loser who shrug at the problem causing you to shop for a new bass? What's going to get that store manager a bigger Christmas bonus from the GC brass? When the guys who work in the local GC get up in the morning do you think they have your best musical interests at heart or are they thinking about the extra commission they make on enw gear sales that can go towards THEIR next gear purchase or recording time for THEIR band? When you get advice, consider the source. How much do you have to KNOW to work at GC andwhat motivates the GC enterprise? Not much is the answer to the former and NEW GUITAR SALES is the answer to the latter. Weigh that GC employees comments accordingly through your own internal bullshit filter.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/juha.seppanen/musa/evki/ibabass/ib05.jpg

whoa, fugly in there... I say gut it and build a passive circuit or buy a higher grade active board and install that in place of this

no way i'm going to guitar center.

umm... again, it might be the pickup, because it's the volume knob that's damaged and i can't think of anything else.

SO i found the issue.

The fucking magnet on the fucking pickup under the E string is damaged. Bent to high heaven.

Should I replace the magnets or the pickup?

Magnets are not usually out in the open enough to be bent, being glued down or held in place in the centre on most occasions. Magnets tend to shatter before they bend ordinarily. Could be the case bent or maybe the bend in the magnet is an inanez desig for this bass which is manufactured to allow for that heavier thumping bass in the brochures and is tailored to the bass boosting tone control for this model. Google is not showing any shots of the pickups under the hood for this model, so am a bit lost for further advice.

yeah, no, the rest of them are unbent. this one was damaged somewhere.

I am not following? they're polepiece magnets? they're alnico? ferrite? should be hard to damage?

just get a new pickup.... it scares me that you have a damaged MAGNET. I've NEVER seen this in 25 years of guitar playing!

I would straight up GUT this instrument and start over. Get some cool pickups in this format/mounting, get some passive pots and a handful of different value tone caps (I like Mallory 150s in that spot they're cheap but sound better than whats usually stock in guitars.... once you upgrade to something super fancy you spend a ton and while they may perform a bit better than the poly/film caps they're really diminishing returns compared to the price/cap), warm up your soldering iron and make a passive Ibanez to your spec.

from what I have read up on this, they are alnico. and so many people say that the actives in this need to be replaced to make this a workable bass. google Ibanez SRX400 boomy pickup or boomy e string and they all start sounding really samey....

its pretty hard to bend any of the 5 alnico formulations commonly used for guitar, if I recall A3 is softest, but tis also the least common of the big 5.... hard to break them too! hell, guys ruin power tools trying to reshape/cut alnico bars cast to a specific dimension into soemthign to fit into a different pickup. Ferrite tends to shatter rather than bend. This is a weird symptom. I am wondering if there's a ton of carbon mixed into these magents to ring the cost down since cobalt is a very expensive metal and aluminum and nickel aren't exactly cheap anymore.... it would explain the need for active electronics with big, honkin' alnico slugs in these ickups if there was non-ferrous amterial in the alloy weakening the flux density... wait, but carbon would make it MORE brittle.... what the fuck could be in there? some less brittle slag material maybe? most slag that doesn't burn out under foundry conditions tends to make alloys MORE brittle.... hmmm

aww, here I go, getting all science.... gut and start over or smash on stage! Smashing is more fun and less time consuming.

lol i would, but like... i loooooove it. and it used to be my uncle's before it was mine. i got it in my teenage emo-metal phase. also, the magnets are huge, exposed, and yeah cobalt is expensive. i know. i tired to buy some for an experiment.

I'll bet you can just mount MM type bass buckers in there and go passive electronics but you will need to gut EVERYTHING

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/ibanez-phat-ii-eq.848511/

This shows why I was concerned about pots copping a hit. If the circuitboard is mounted to yours like this...

I don't have a dedicated pot to the PHAT boost. It was my volume pot.

its okay, its okay... just remember for the future that friends don't let friends play modern Ibanezes... except the prestige models, those are still sweet. And friends don't let friends shop at GC.... unless its for strings, that's okay. As your new buddy I amt elling you, friend to friend, stay outta the big box stores, especially GC. Look up some of their financial info and how bad they shaft Fender! Their open and unpaid account with Fender is probably solely responsible for the big Fender price hike from 10 years ago AND its probably the reason that Fender is no longer manufacturing all standard and classic models in Ensanada Mexico and is now doing quite a few in China, why you don't see the cool set-neck Korean models, they've been thinned out, production moved to Indonesia and the quality is way down...

so stay out of GC, they are a drain on the guitar world, really.... they weren't always as bad and when the managers ahd more autonomy there were loations run by giuys who knew how to balance commerce and musicianship.... but now? if I have to pick its Sam Ash! They have overly aggressive sales training that's very antiquated, however they have elgit techs, solid customer service, fair used trading and they pay their bills having generally fair business practices and a general desire to see the guitar market continue to thrive for enthusiasts at all ends of the income spectrum... I mean, they're vicious with competition, but that's America baby. Samash over GC. GC's not even owned by musicians anymore.

yep! sam ash is way better, just in terms of stores.

I mean, I can go to the worst samash in my region, play a Memphis 335 that's pretty decent.... its marked way up, but tis there, and if I am clear with the goon at the coutner I'm not shoping he wont bug me, he won't put my name in his lead book and try to get my contact info BUT I still get to play the 4k guitar if I want.

Samash paid me top dollar for my near-mint '60s Fender Bandmaster rig when I needed a large amount of money faster than I could line up with a private buyer. And they paid that 4 figure sum IN CASH out of the fucking registers at my request. Took them forever to sell erh at the mark-up, but she was a discerning player's piece. Super clean outside but all original inside but no leaky caps or anything. A rare find in old tube amps though a less desireable model (for whatever reason, BMs are great). GC totally profiteered off me for my Gibson Les Paul special one time when I really needed tos ell in a hurry (my wife caused a lot of financial problems, a lot)... I tried to sell it to Sam Ash but they ahd tons of Specials at various price points and didn't need more of them, even in TV yellow.... so GC it was where I got thoroughly butt raped. You expect to take a hit from a retailer usually, they need to keep it near market value and still turn a profit... but you don't want to see them factoring in a 50-75% profit margin! more irritating still, the fuckers at GC took my case whichw as non-original to the guitar and spray painted and stuff, a gift from my old bassist.... they WOULD NOT take it without the case even though they usually don't want non-original cases and they always SELL GUITARS without them. I think the manager just liked the case and planned to take it home. Fuckers... just fuckers, super-fuckers.

Someone gave me a GC giftcard for x-mas this eyar. I grudgingly went to get strings... 1st the guy at the counter tried to tell me what strings to buy instead of ernies because 'there's no difference' between them and d'addarios. To me there is, the customer is always right, Next I decided Iw anted to haggle for this beatup old frontman with a thought to modding it and using it as a recording tool.... the eye rolls I got. Like, dude, I have nicer amps than anybody at home, but I want a junker to be creative with. Shut up and tell me who little you can sell it for. I wound up getting it for like 10 bucks (they musta got it for NOTHING with a guitar trade-in) because I think they just wanted rid of me and it worked out how I wanted. Got my 10 bcuks worth in 1 DI guitar track... but I will NEVER set foot in a GC again at this point, for serious. Its a magnet for sharks and morons and everyone who isn't out to bleed or mind-meltingly stupid is overly rude and opinionated, they speak up without being asked questions.... I know what I want, I've been playing 25 years, ASSHOLE! Just sell it to me at a good price and let me get out of this corporate shit hole before I kill someone.

ha the GC guy tried to sell me a 4k guitar when I tried a $100 one.

"hey, why don't you fill out a financing app?"

because my credit will go down even if I'm approved! every time I open a credit line I am fucking myself unless I use all of that immediately.... I made that mistake once at samash, got a 5k line of credit and decided not to buy a Gibson historic.... I figured if I didn't actually open the credit line it wouldn't matter but I was wrong, I learned that day that just seeinghow much I could get from the finance company dropped my credit score! High class problem these days, my wife torched my credit rating. I don't owe any money anymore and managed to dispute some of HER debts tog et them offa me, but I'm still fucked.... its like starting over as a college grad.

TO RESOLVE THIS THREAD:

I fixed the issue, by dissecting my pickup and moving some wires around. To extend the lifespan of my bass buddy, I'm gonna get a new one, probably EMG MM-style.

Good to hear. Well done.