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Earthing issue?

Posted by Patrick Curley on April 28, 2014 at 6:21am in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

Hi folks

I just bought myself a 3 string on ebay, plugged it in and it's extremely noisy. Until I touch my amp and the noise goes away. I may be imagining things but I reckon I can feel a very slight current when I touch both the strings and the amp, really not sure about that one though.

There's no pot between the pickup and the socket, connections look good, photo attached. Any clues? I need to get on with my new course and the noise is really distracting.

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Replies

  • Patrick Curley April 28, 2014 at 6:05pm
    Yep. All that has helped although there's more than the usual single coil noise, and it crackles when I use a brass slide.

    I'm sorted for now though thank you, when the new electronics arrive I'll put a humbucker in it.
    • Richey Kay > Patrick Curley April 29, 2014 at 12:28am

      If it's still crackling I think that means the strings are still not grounded. How did you go about doing this? Don't give up on single coils Patrick!

      • Patrick Curley > Richey Kay April 29, 2014 at 1:45am

        Cheers Richey

        My soldering iron decided that now would be a good time to pack it in so I've just used electrical tape for now, and a bit of old speaker wire I had laying around so I suspect that you're right there Richey.

        I love single coils and I have a few of them, I also have a nice dual rail seymour duncan that I've been dying to fire up. I'll keep this single for another project.

        Thanks for your input.

        • Richey Kay > Patrick Curley April 29, 2014 at 1:50am

          No worries. I spent most of the 15 years I've been playing using exclusively humbuckers, and the character you get from single coils is like a breath of fresh air to me :)

  • The Capo Kid April 28, 2014 at 4:21pm

     I 'm more concerned by you saying " when I touch my amp " the noise stops ? .

    • Patrick Curley > The Capo Kid April 28, 2014 at 5:25pm

      Thankyou gentlemen, I'll try all of those things and get back to you. I've ordered a couple of pots and a capacitor  too.

  • David McQueen April 28, 2014 at 4:14pm

    Looking at the photo, it appears to be two separate wires from the pickup to the jack. There is probably no shielding. If you can carefully remove the jack, then twist it around so the positive and ground wire wrap around each other an dthen put the jack back in, you will have some twisted pair shielding.

  • Chris Carlson April 28, 2014 at 3:12pm
    Yeah, Scott's right. I run my string grounds right to the jack and if there's a little bit of hum yet I'll even cover the hot wire with braided shielding on single coils.
  • Scott aka Farmer Ted April 28, 2014 at 9:09am

    The wiring looks as it should, with one exception. There should be an extra ground wire that connects strings to earth/ground. This is due to the physical properties of the single coil pickup and its relationship with the strings, which together act as an anntenea.  They attract disruptive signals from florescent light ballasts, radios and phones. Grounding the strings will make most of the noise go away. Single coil pickups are inherently noisy, but grounding strings will make it as good as it gets.

    • Patrick Curley > Scott aka Farmer Ted April 28, 2014 at 9:37am

      Thanks Scott, does that mean I connect the socket sleeve to the bridge? And I don't need to swap them over?

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