First wiring job - buzz - help!

Just finished wiring and stringing first wiring job, Fezz-style, standard 250K pots, crl 3-way, and shielded pickguard and foil in the cavities, then all grounded. Cheap GFS pups, but neck is quiet, and it's the bridge that is noisy, a little hum, even after putting extra ground wire under the plate. Lightly twisted the wires to the regular jack.

Everything works correctly, but there's a funny buzz, not loud but there, and gets louder when I fool with the plug into the jack. So possibly that's where a bad solder joint is?

Also, tone control acts like a shortwave radio when turned up. Probably my poor soldering is to blame, but any tips on how to isolate/troubleshoot while plugged in safely w/o getting shocked?

Thx a bunch. P.S. have a simple analog multimeter, but it works for continuity tests just fine.

Check your solder joints for one... And we'd need detailed closeup pictures for two...

Also, use your meter to double check for continuity between all your ground points. That'll be the black wire from each pickup, the backs of both pots, and the sleeve of your jack.

If you find proper continuity between your grounds, the fastest way to diagnose is to use jumpers to isolate whole sections of your circuitry and test for the problem.

Will do. Just need to take off the control plate and take a look. Maybe just was in a hurry to get it together to play and pushed that jack in to hard. Next time going electrosocket.

Thx for the help, just that it's puzzling that the buzz gets louder when touching the strings, opposite what I'm used to, so something I did was wrong.

just that it's puzzling that the buzz gets louder when touching the strings, opposite what I'm used to, so something I did was wrong.


That's a sign that the output jack is wired in reverse.

Excellent advice, thanks, I'll check that tonight.

There's a Dan Erlewine dvd I followed but I could have easily mixed up on that last stage. He pointed out that one lug is notched and one is not

I had this problem too. what i did was connect a wire from one of the pickup screws in the bridge pickup to the bottom of the the control plate.

Fixed now! Thanks to your good advice. Yes I had the output jack wired backwards. Now my first mod is twanging nicely.

TDPRI rocks, thanks guys.

glad you got 'er SMOKIN' !


happy pickin'