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I have a 2288 R-Bass that I've had for a long time, and one of the pickups is not working. There's a bad buzz that I've discovered is the 1/4" jack, but that's the easy part. The pickups are the hard part. Flip the switch up and I get sound...flip the switch down and I hear crickets. Nothing. Being electronically challanged, I have no idea where to start. All of the wiring seems to be connected. If nothing is loose, where do I start, and what am I looking for?

Thanks for your help.

I would go from easy to hard in attempting to fix this. You may just have corrosion on the switch. Go to Radio Shack or the like and get some electrical contact cleaner. Take off the pickguard and spray the switch. Be careful the cleaner can harm some finishes. I have never had a problem with this though. Work the switch back and forth and see if you get any improvement. If that works great. If it helps but you can not get it to be reliable you will have to replace the switch. It looks like a normal double pole double throw on/on/on switch. If you have the stereo model It could be different.

If contact cleaner does not work then it is time to check for a totally bad switch. Get a piece of wire (22 gauge works well) about 6" long and attach alligator clips to each end. Then use the wire to connect the poles on the switch. If yours does not work in the bottom position, this should indicate it is the bridge pickup that is not giving a signal. this is easy to check. With the switch in the middle position and bass plugged in but not too loud, tap a pole piece on each pickup with a screw driver. You should be able to hear the tap through the amp on the working pickup. If both pickups work in the middle it is a bad switch. Replace it.

Now back to the wire. Now that you know which pickup is not coming through you have to determine which pole it is wired to. This should be fairly easy to see on this model as the one pickup is attached to the pickguard. Take your wire and clip one end to the pole with the pickup wire and the other to the wire directly across from it. Plug her in and check for a signal. If you get a signal its the switch; replace it. If not it is probably best to check the pickup itself. There are two ways to do this. If you have an electrical multi meter (about $20 at a hardware store or Radio Shack), set it to read resistance. this may be indicated by saying ohms or by the ohms sign Ω. If your meter has multiple scales you will want it to read in the range of 5-20 ohms. Find the first place that a lead comes off the pickup; put one probe on that and the other on a ground (such as the bridge). Check the reading. I don’t know the proper reading for your pickup. If both are the same you could check the working pickup and the non-working one. If that does not work if the pickup has either no resistance, less then 4 ohms or greater than 15, you have a bad pickup. If the pickup checks out fine (shout for joy) then you have a bad connection. If you don't have a meter, you can rig up a 1/4" plug to two wires with aligator clips. Attach one to each lead from the pickup and plug her in. if you get sound your pickup is good.

You have a bod connection somewhere. Use your wire with the clips to check each connection. Working your way from the pickup follow the wire and clip it on to duplicate the signal path. Check each connection. When you find the bad one, re-solder it.

If all of that does not work, you may have a bad volume or tone pot. use your wire and clips to bypass it. If none of this works, take it to a pro.

Thanks for the lesson. I've got some digging to do.

resistance on your pups should be right around 7.8 Ohms. if you getto that point....

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Just to make things clear, you should set your multi-meter to the 20K [or 20,000] range if you have a digital meter.

Also, the pickups should be about 7,800 ohms, or 7.8K Ohms, not 7.8 ohms...