Hi,

I have a usa deluxe strat that I have not played for a while, it has been stored in a case, it has 2 humbuckers at the bridge and the middle and neck pickups are noiseless.
The problem I have is that the middle pickup has suddenly devoped an issue where it has very little or no output, If I touch the mounting screws for this pickup there is a loud hum.
Can anyone give me an idea what to try before taking it in to a guitar tech.

I have also noticed that the bottom tone knob acts as a volume control for the middle pickup, is this normal?, but the sound is still low.
Many Thanks,

David.

If it's a SCN pickup, it sounds like the ground for the pickup casing is shorting.

It's not a job to undertake yourself

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No no and no

Manipulate the pickup selector switch 50 or so times back and forwards in case its oxidized.

If you had the skill and it was still a problem:

You would need to remove the pick-guard.
While your exploring if you see a bad solder joint you would redo it.
Normally you would disconnect and multimeter the pickup to see what the resistance is.
Then try it hotwired direct to the output to rule out the rest of the circuit.

hi,
I had the same problem with my 08' american deluxe, I got the guitar new and after about two weeks the middle pickup began to cut out from time to time specially when I hit the screw holding the pickup while playing. So I took the guitar to my dealer and we raised the pickguard looking for a bad solder point, ground wire seemed a little cold so he decided to resolder it. I took it back home and after a couple days the pickup failed again so we ended up sending the guitar to the official tech support here in Spain, after a week or so I got the guitar back all they said was that the pickup was faulty and they installed a new one. Warranty covered all and the guitar is working great to this day.
It seems you may have the exact same problem, so I think you should try talking to your dealer...

Hi,

Many thanks for all your replies, it looks like I will end up taking it to a dealer and hopefully they can sort it out.

Cheers,

David.