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Help! I'm getting buzzed..............

So, I took that new gold humbucker and installed it in my latest build--visions of that lovely silence humbuckers are noted for.

Used a 500k pot and standard mono jack. Soldered the braided wire from the pickup and the negative side of the jack to the back of the pot. Also soldered a short lead from the right-most lug (viewed from the back) of the pot to the back of the pot.

The positive output of the pickup was soldered to the left-most lug of the pot and the positive lead from the jack to the center lug of the pot.

Popped an audio cord into the git and into my Pignose--ready for that sweet sound of a new build. Turned on the amp and.............there is was. The dreaded hum/buzz we all know.

Went back with a digital ohmmeter and checked the continuity from the braided wire to the output jack. Zero ohms, good ground. Checked from the ground lug of the pot to the back of the pot case, same thing, zero ohms. Checked from the metal body of the pickup to the back of pot, again good ground.

I even tried bypassing the pot in case it was rough or crappy internally. No change.

Grounded the strings. No change.

Tried a very short audio cable in case the 15 footer was acting as an antenna. No help.

Went to battery power on the amp and a little hum was lost. Tells me how clean a wal-wart is. Still an ugly hum persisted.

Then, quite by accident, I touched the body of the pickup with my finger. Odd.......the hum all but disappeared (maybe I'm the antenna). Having no personal pride at this point, I took a two-foot test lead and clipped it to the body of the pickup and tucked the other end into my pants (not too far down). I now had a connection from my body to the body of the pickup and there was silence at last.

Strummed, played a tune or two waiting for the hum to sneak back into my speaker. Nothing, just a nice sounding pickup. Then, I pulled the test lead from the pickup. There it was again....hum.

At this point, I'm scratching my scalp (not much hair up there these days) wondering what I missed, what I could do differently. I even pulled out my old electrical circuit tester and made sure my wall outlets were wired correctly and properly grounded.

Oh yea. I tuned out all the lights just to be sure. No help there.

Finally, I pulled out my daily-player (single wound pickup) and plugged it in. There was a slight hum, but not as loud as with the new build. just out of curiosity, I touched the pickup body with a finger.......damn! the buzz disappeared. In the several months I've been playing this one, I never noticed this.

So,what's going on? Am I going to need to wear a grounding strap on my wrist for the rest of my life?

Does anyone have any experience with a hum/buzz when everything appears to be proper wired and grounded?

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Permalink Reply by Scott aka Farmer Ted on March 19, 2015 at 8:10am

The metal pup cover is the antennae...the stick in the wheel spokes...the missing last piece of the jig-saw puzzle...the visiting couch-surfer friend who can't take a hint it's time to go home...the neighbor's dog that won't crap on its own lawn.

Easiest fix is to solder a short slice of wire from back of pup on the metal cover to the braided shield wire...done.

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 19, 2015 at 8:46am

Thanks Scott. I'll give it a try, but when I checked the continuity between the cover and the ground spot on the back of the pot I got zero ohms meaning there was a connection.

Let you know how it works.

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 20, 2015 at 12:38am

I looked at the pickup cover last night and saw that it had been soldered to the pickup base plate, so it is definitely grounded.

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Permalink Reply by TN Twang on March 19, 2015 at 8:17am

Aw, hell! You're making guitars...

I saw the heading and thought you were doing some serious drinking.

Later,

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 19, 2015 at 8:46am

Almost there Twang..............

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Permalink Reply by jawbone on March 19, 2015 at 10:03am

Is there a bee trapped in the box ??? I only ask because I'm terrible with electronics !!! ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 19, 2015 at 11:26am

Didn't think of that Jaw.....

I'll have a look see..............

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on March 19, 2015 at 9:14am

I am having trouble getting past the part about the wire down the pants.

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 19, 2015 at 11:25am

OMG...........It worked Dan..........

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Permalink Reply by Greg Thompson on March 19, 2015 at 1:19pm

I've got to try this on my guitar. I had the same experience...
Thanks for this post!

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 19, 2015 at 1:57pm

I have refined the system in the past hour. I tool a small length of solid copper wire (speaker wire) and wrapped it around the 1/4" audio cable I plug into the guitar. It sits on the negative section of the plug. I then took another length of wire and made a little two-loop ring for a finger. I then used an alligator clipped jumper wire to connect the two together.

I can play without interference from the wire and it does cut the hum. Just don't understand why.

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 19, 2015 at 2:12pm

Thanks Wayfinder. I have already checked the ground on the cover and it is good. I grounded the strings as usual to the negative side. I'm going to go stand on a rubber mat to make myself ungrounded and try again.