Entwistle Spyder Bridge pickup barely any output- ????

[John Risti]

H all, this just happened.
I'm getting very low, barely any, output from my bridge pickup all of sudden.
Bass is 2 yrs old. never gigged..

Thnx much,
John

[pauldo]

Battery is good?


The gain trim pot wasn’t moved?


Can you post a pick showing inside the control cavity?

[adriaan]

Exercise the pots and switches, usually does the trick.

[mica]

Mono stereo switch in stereo position while using a mono cable?

[John Risti]

Thnx all.
New bat's all around
Same cables, no issues with them.
Pots and switches used within normal tolerance.
Was running the bass in mono when initially noticed it.
Plugged in 2nd amp to attempt stereo output, same result - then boom, pickup came to life 10 seconds later.
Played a few songs, put the bass away, plugged in back in 2 hrs later, stereo mode again, nada...
Opened it up, nothing smells cooked, all looks well.
Contemplating building a Series II Explorer, built one in 1983 for you ready? - $2,350.00 (Standard necks are tooooo thin, not enough growl to them) however can't justify dropping bank on something that doesn't work..
Nothing dropped, kicked, thrown against a wall (I don't even let my wife near it..haha)
Will post a video you tube link in a few..
This is my 3rd Alembic, first in 25 yrs

[pauldo]

Cables are funny.  They may look good but age and being coiled up ina gig bag can make them sketchy.
Might be worth dropping a couple dollars on a new set of them to eliminate that as a source before going further.

I know very little about electricity but someone could probably point you in a direction of doing a continuity/ ohm/ electrical term here on the cables.

With that in mind you may also want to verify that the jack on the bass is solid and the tip contact is engaging firmly.

[John Risti]

Thnx however cables are good.
I will assume nobody else has encountered this issue.
I contacted Alembic Support, let's see if I receive a response.

[tbrannon]

Mica IS Alembic.

[StephenR]

Did you at least try swapping out a different cable, preferably a new one but at least a different one? Agree that you can't assume the cable is okay unless you try a different one and get the same result and the cable is going to be the first step in troubleshooting.

The request for a picture of the control cavity is a good one, there are a number of people here (including Mica) with an "eagle eye" for spotting things that don't look quite right in the control cavity. Basic idea is to help you do whatever you can to isolate the problem and avoid having to send the instrument or electronics to Santa Rosa for evaluation, that should be the last step and only if absolutely necessary.

If you have a pair of stereo headphones with a 1/4" jack listen to the bass through the headphones and see if the problem still manifests itself. This is a good way to check the circuit if you don't have an additional cable available to try. You can troubleshoot the mono/stereo switch this way, too.

The suggestion to exercise the pots and switches may sound weird but in many cases it seemingly works magic. One member here found that it took around 1,000 rotations of the pots to finally clean them out (they are sealed and self-cleaning) so don't give up on that quickly.

[John Risti]

Here ya go..

[FC Bass]

Is that the new double preamp pan? If so; Shouldn't there be stickers over either the pan preamp or filter gain trimpots?

[mica]

No pan controls in Spyders (or with most stereo basses). I think you're seeing the brightness controls for the 2 sets of LEDs, Flip.