NBD MAJOR FAIL!

Seamus OReally

Seamus OReally

Well-Known Member
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First, let me say that Guitar Center sucks. And I will not be so dumb as to trust them twice.

I bought a used Ibanez SR400 bass from GC. I fell in love with the natural finish and the neck… just needs a set of TI flats and a set up, and it’ll rock.

But when I plug it in, I get almost no signal, and what I hear is tinny and distorted. Aha, I think, it has a dead battery.

New battery. Now when I plug it in it makes a rhythmic noise - flub flub flub flub flub - constantly. It has a circuit board inside. I have absolutely no clue what is going on.

Sending it back. I’m sad. Took me a while to find what I was looking for, and it’s busted.
 
Probably why I stick with passive. Less tone options but also less to go wrong and easier to diagnose if something does go wonky.
 
Seamus OReally said:
Yeah. I’ve been told this symptom in an electronic circuit is called “motorboating.” It’s an amplified feedback loop. I can’t believe GC shipped it.
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They either never plugged it in when they bought it, or washed their hands of it when they discovered it. Why I dislike guitar center and dislike buying anything online and wish we could go back to the seventies and eighties with brick and mortar locations to buy stuff.
 
SG John said:
They either never plugged it in when they bought it, or washed their hands of it when they discovered it. Why I dislike guitar center and dislike buying anything online and wish we could go back to the seventies and eighties with brick and mortar locations to buy stuff.
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Yes motor boating, it's low frequency oscillation.
It's hard to believe that they didn't know before they sold it.
 
Seamus OReally said:
“Send it back.” They sent me a prepaid label, so it’s all good.
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Fair enough. Guitar Center/Musicians Friend was known to promote generous customer service following a botched sales deal. I’m guessing it’s too expensive for them to do this anymore. Will you keep looking for another SR400?
 
syscokid said:
Fair enough. Guitar Center/Musicians Friend was known to promote generous customer service following a botched sales deal. I’m guessing it’s too expensive for them to do this anymore. Will you keep looking for another SR400?
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Yeah, I think I will, unless further research shows that ALL those preamps go bad…
 
It’s not so many knobs… volume, pickup blend, and three small boost/cut knobs for highs, mids and lows. There’s also a three way switch that controls the configuration of the pickups… humbuckers, split, and Fat Split (single coil with some extra beef). It’s a lot compared to a passive Precision, true, but I expect to use them all.
 
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