Haven't built anything in a while, but I got a hair to build a "nice" guitar, a four-string electric. Looking for a mellow "hollowbody electric sound.
Got a nice big Las Cabrillas box...
Got everything done over the weekend and started to wire the thing up. I'd decided to use the P-Bass pickups from Gitty and followed this wiring diagram, pretty simple:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=std_pbass
Got it done, did the "tap test" on the pickups and all seemed fine. Both volume and tone worked, good signal.
I put the strings on and.... Not so good.
I'm getting a strong buzz whenever I touch the strings or the grounded tailpiece. Buzz decreases greatly when I take my hand off.
Buzz almost goes away when I hold the output jack.
Very low signal...It's there, but not loud at all. I ran it through both my amps, my little Honeytone and my Behringer practice amp.
My gut feeling is that it's a ground problem, but I followed the diagram and can't find any visible fault.
Also, the strings are quite far away from the pickups; I might have to re-do the way the PUs are mounted.
Any clues as to what to look for?
Replies
Success! I just soldered a wire across the two pots and she works fine. No hum, no buzz. I raised the PUs up a bit to be closer to the strings, and the output seems fine.
all I have to do now is get a new set of strings... I'd installed and re-installed these so many times one snapped when I went to tune it up.
Here's a pic of the mostly-finished instrument:
Glad you got it sorted , great use of a Strat trem cover , pickguard and sound holes all in one
Because I still think you've wired the bridge/strings to hot, so flipping the phase of the output will correct this....
I would think adding the ground connection that is missing in the linked schematic would have more affect on the problem described...simple enough to sort out if he'll post a pic of the actual wiring.
But agreed - post a pick of the actual build.
Photo of wiring shows that most likely Mark didn't zoom in either since lack of the amazing suddenly appearing ground connection is the problem with his wiring...crazy way to display a wiring schematic.
Someone else (on another forum...I floated this to several) pointed out the lack of connection between the two pots.
Of course, most guitars have conductive shielding... I didn't think of that.
So, just a Jumper wire, or should I pull them out and glue in a section of tinfoil or some-such?
Try a jumper , 2 crocs clips and a short length of wire is very handy to test it , start using foil and you'll have to ground that as well .
You could foil the back of the pickguard if the jumper wire doesn't work
1. Run a ground from the back of your volume pot to the ground lug on the jack and give it a try. That should give instant improvement.
2. If you are still getting odd things, try foiling the wires to give them a shield of sorts. On the next build, if you are not using shielded cable, twist the hot and ground wires together and the ground will give some shielding to the hot wire.
Good point on twisted wire... If you want to get lazy, cut up an old Ethernet cable... You'll find 4 twisted pairs in there...
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