Hum, on new guitar

[Axis29]

Yeah, it's way too loud to be just regular hum. It goes away when I touch the control plate, but not when I touch the bridge or strings. Also, if I turn the tone knob down it goes away as well.

Could it be two ground issues? Maybe needs a new tone pot and a ground to the bridge? Or just a good ground to the bridge?


Thanks, Hope I'm not repeating this one too many times, but couldn't find the tone knob bit in anything I read...

[chickenpicker]

Try shielding the guitar.

[markothefish]

sounds like a similar problam to this too much noise Chickenpicker had some great things to try out . A good thread

[Axis29]

Sounds good and I had been reading that thread as well. I was just wondering about the tone pot symptom. Hadn't found anything referencing the hum going away with tone turned down.

Thanks, I will pull the bridge and check the ground this morning! Then I'm gonna order some of that cool copper tape I've been reading about around here!

[tdowns]

Originally Posted by Axis29

Yeah, it's way too loud to be just regular hum. It goes away when I touch the control plate, but not when I touch the bridge or strings. Also, if I turn the tone knob down it goes away as well.

Could it be two ground issues? Maybe needs a new tone pot and a ground to the bridge? Or just a good ground to the bridge?


Thanks, Hope I'm not repeating this one too many times, but couldn't find the tone knob bit in anything I read...

Touching the stings/bridge should silence the guitar in the exact same way touching the control plate would. In your case, this means your bridge is not grounded. Perhaps the 3 most common methods to grounding the bridge on a Tele are:

1. A jumper wire is connected from the pickup's ground wire to a lug placed against the bridge plate. The lug should be between the spring and the bridge plate.

2. A jumper wire is connected from the pickup's ground wire to the brass baseplate of the pickup. The pickup mounting screws are screwed into the baseplate therefore grounding the bridge plate.

3. A separate ground wire is ran to the pickup cavity and is laid underneath the bridge plate, essentially squished between the bridge plate and the body of the guitar.

The guitar is not practically usable without the strings grounded via the bridge. The human body is a big antenna. I'm sure most everyone has touched the open end of a guitar cable plugged into an amp. It buzzes like crazy. That is your body's reception to the stray power line electromagnetic fields. If the strings are electrically floating, your body signal connected to the strings is picked up by the pickups sensing field. If the strings/bridge are grounded, touching the strings/bridge shunts your body to earth/ground. An antenna (your body) shorted to ground doesn't work very well, so you do not inject power line noise into the pickups.

The human body is not a great antenna for the fundamental frequency of the power line (50 or 60Hz), but has more content of the power line harmonics. Turning the tone control down shunts all but the lowest frequencies to grround. That's why most of the buzz goes away when you turn it down.

[Axis29]

That was perfect for my simpleton brain to understand!

I'm reasonably proficient at many things, but electrical type stuff it ain't. Oh, I can solder and even wire up a 3-way switch in my house correctly, but I never studied the whole theory thing. Your explanation helped me to understand the logic behind what I need to do and why it's doing it, which really helps me feel better about doing it... make sense?

Anyways, thanks everyone for hopping on this one so quick!

[chickenpicker]

Sorry, I didn't read your first post properly - if I had I would have started by suggesting you fix the bridge ground, before going on to shielding!!! Terry's right.

[Joe M]

I don't know what kind of guitar you're talking about but on two of the last MIM 50's Classic's I had, I had the same problem. On both of them the bridge ground wire was not connected correctly. In fact, on the second one, it wasn't fastened at all. I'd double-check that wire first.

[Axis29]

Nashville, Hecho E Mexico!

Should be pulling it apart in about half an hour!


Thanks again guys,

[Axis29]

The follow up...

Pulled the control plate, and found no wire from the bridge to the control plate. I have read somewhere, that there is a spring type piece on the pickup screw which is supposed to ground the bridge... it looked like it was there, but certainly wasn't functioning.

So, I soldered a wire to the bottom of the volume pot with the rest of the ground wires. I stripped about an inch at the other end and fanned out the wires, hooking some around one of the bridge screws. I tightened the bridge back down and all is well.

Thanks agian for the replies to this simple, yet popular question! I appreciate everyone's patience.

[bobthecanadian]

Hi Axis29,

Are you still going to shield it? I think shielding at least the control cavity is a good idea.

Glad to hear that you fixed your problem!

Bob

[Axis29]

I probably will down the road, but right now I'm just enjoying playing it. With my current setup and haivng the damn bridge gorunded, I have zero hum.

I bought a really good surge supressor last year and run everything through it. My amp (Mesa Mark IV) makes zero noise and I only run two or three pedals and they're all quiet...

So, if I get a wild hair and can stand to put my guitar down for any period of time... I might just...

[bobthecanadian]

Good to hear you are enjoying your Tele. Play on!!!

[Axis29]

Thanks Bob!

My fingers are aching I've been playing so much! LOL. I actually wore the damn calous off my ring finger the other day. The messed up part is that the only thing that bothered me about it was that the edge of the torn skin kept catching on the strings! Man, I'm twisted...

Thanks again to everybody,