Pickup (?) hum, please help...

H

hoursonend

Member
Hi,

here I am again with a probably newbie question, but:
when I turn down the volume pot on my electric, there's a hum (the lower the volume of the pot, the louder the hum). If I touch the strings, the hum disappears. This sounds like a grounding problem. Now I'm handy with a soldering iron, and I think this is easily fixable?

Anyway, my guitar is a les paul copy (2 pickups, 4 potis, two vol, two tone), my amp is an AD30VT.

Thank you very very much for your help :)

Stan.
 
Try....

Checking the ground wire to the bridge. And all the connections, grounds first, starting with that volume pot. There may be a cold or broken joint somewhere. It won't take too long to remelt each joint, that's all you should need to do to make sure they are all good. Hopefully that will solve the problem, it's worked for me on things like this.
 
You turn DOWN the volume pot on your electric? Wow... never thought of doing that... :p

If you can't fix it as per easychair's instructions, you'll just have to play chunka chunka palm muted power chords for the rest of your life... ;)

... or buy another guitar... :D
 
same thing happened with my jazz bass, the wire near the bridge had come unsoldered, and now its fine after some soldering.
 
I agree with easychair, but it also might be the Les Paul COPY that is the problem, too... Best bet would be to at least try to fix what you've got, if not, it's not too much money to throw new pickups, pots, etc. in there, and then you save a little money, rather than buying a whole new guitar...
 
i have a similiar problem with one of my guitars...

it hums when i stop playing (volume knob on full) but when i touch the input jack the hum dissapears...

however is someone else touches the input jack ...the hum remains...

the hum is louder on bridge pup

the guitar was recently heavily modified (floyd rose converted to string thru conversion, full respray, and 2 new seymour duncan 59/JB humbuckers)

what should i check ???

cheers guys
 
what kind of guitar is it? I had a fender USA lonestar strat a while back, before it was stolen... (so sad, so sad), and it had the same problem. Turns out that there was a metal sheet on the back of the pickguard that had a ground wire soldered to it. The joint came loose, and it started making a lot of noise. I took it to my local guitar shop before I knew what to do about it, and all they did was heat up all the solder joints, and reconnected the wire to the metal sheet, and the problem was cured.
 
Armistice said:
You turn DOWN the volume pot on your electric? Wow... never thought of doing that... :p
Click to expand...

Yeah, well, how else could I explain? Sorry, english isn't my native language...

Thanks for the tips though, I'll have a look at the grounding wire.
 
stanjanssen said:
Yeah, well, how else could I explain? Sorry, english isn't my native language...

Thanks for the tips though, I'll have a look at the grounding wire.
Click to expand...

Another possibility would be a cold solder joint. Go through all solder points and make sure they are solid connections as well. There are a few sites on the internet that have good wiring diagrams that will give you a bit more insight about different grounding solutions.

I would also invest in some cavity tape. (That's what I and friends call it)

Basically, it is metal shielding tape that you cover the inside of your control cavity with. This make a little metal box which reduces the chances of any outside hum (IE computer, lights, vibrat...yeah) from getting into the guitar.

If this is a LP copy, I would suggest purchasing new wiring. Often, less expensive, more budget priced guitars come with cheaper wiring. This can cause easy breaks in wires, therefore creating an un-even/inconsistent ground. (Where the hum might be coming from)

If none of the above works, buy a new volume pot for the guitar...actually...buy all new pots for the guitar...and all new wires. Might as well replace everything in the cavity and start from scratch...If you do a good job with the solder joints I am almost positive you will have no more problems for a while. (Oh...and if you have the cash...pick up some new pick ups...that will help with a little bit of the buzzing, and definetly enhance your tone)

A few good places to get these wiring things are:

http://www.stewmac.com/
http://www.carvin.com/
http://www.usacustomguitars.com/
http://www.allparts.com/
http://www.warmoth.com/

Hopefully this helps a bit!

~Chalz
 
It was an attempt at humour stanjanssen - nothing wrong with your English - I've seen many people who only ever play with everything on 10 and never explore what happens when you turn things down a bit...
:p
 
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