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Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

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  • Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

    Hi guys

    I've just installed a Strat pickup in an old acoustic guitar I have. I will install vol and tone pots later, but for now, I just run it straight to the jack. But the hum!

    What am I doing wrong? Is it the strings I need to ground somehow?

    Tips will be much appreciated.

  • #2
    Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

    Everything.

    1 - single coils hum period
    2 - need to ground it
    Originally posted by Bad City
    He's got the crowd on his side and the blue jean lights in his eyes...

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

      Originally posted by Aceman View Post
      Everything.

      1 - single coils hum period
      2 - need to ground it
      1 - Thanks. This is no news
      2 - Ground it how? Could I create a grounding point on the guitar, such as fix a screw to the wood and connect the ground wires from the pickup and the output jack respectively to this screw?

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

        Originally posted by Thomas_Desch View Post
        1 - Thanks. This is no news
        2 - Ground it how? Could I create a grounding point on the guitar, such as fix a screw to the wood and connect the ground wires from the pickup and the output jack respectively to this screw?
        Wood doesn't usually conduct electricity.
        Originally Posted by IanBallard
        Rule of thumb... the more pot you have, the better your tone.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

          Unless you have a metal bridge, you'd need a ground wire directly to each individual string, which just isn't practical. The most shielding you'll get on a guitar with that little metal on it would be replacing the leads on the single coil with something shielded. You could also shield the pickup itself. Add some copper tape to the inside of the pickup cover, but do not completely close to loop. If you close the loop you'll lose some high end. Then use some sort of wire to connect the new copper to either the ground wire of the pickup or the output jack. Here's a picture of how the cover should look:

          Click image for larger version

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          Clearly have a few choices, but the easiest would be to just buy either a Lace Sensor, active pickup, or single coil sized humbucker. These pickups are designed to have less hum, and you'll get especially quiet results from the Lace Sensors or active pickups.
          You will never understand How it feels to live your life With no meaning or control And with nowhere left to go You are amazed that they exist And they burn so bright
          Whilst you can only wonder why

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          • #6
            Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

            Originally posted by Chistopher View Post
            Unless you have a metal bridge, you'd need a ground wire directly to each individual string, which just isn't practical. The most shielding you'll get on a guitar with that little metal on it would be replacing the leads on the single coil with something shielded. You could also shield the pickup itself. Add some copper tape to the inside of the pickup cover, but do not completely close to loop. If you close the loop you'll lose some high end. Then use some sort of wire to connect the new copper to either the ground wire of the pickup or the output jack. Here's a picture of how the cover should look:

            [ATTACH=CONFIG]102833[/ATTACH]

            Clearly have a few choices, but the easiest would be to just buy either a Lace Sensor, active pickup, or single coil sized humbucker. These pickups are designed to have less hum, and you'll get especially quiet results from the Lace Sensors or active pickups.
            Thank you for the constructive response.

            I found a solution. Not very elegant, but effective. I pulled some copper wire between the saddle and bridge pins and made a loop so the wire goes around and touches all the strings. I connected this to the ground wires on the guitar, so at least when I touch the strings the ground hum goes away. Of course the ordinary single coil hum remains, but that's just the nature of the beast.

            At the moment I have no volume or tone control installed, so the tone is pretty harsh, and the full sonic spectrum goes into the amp. I believe with the controls in place the tone will soften and some of the higher frequency buzz will be taken care of.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

              What amp is it going into?
              Originally posted by Bad City
              He's got the crowd on his side and the blue jean lights in his eyes...

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

                At the moment just into a Line 6 Toneport audio interface.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

                  Stacked humbucker maybe
                  Some sort of cheap rail pickup

                  Awesome inventive idea

                  Pictures please

                  I have seen them attached with brackets across the sound hole
                  You can hot glue the flat wheel pots to the backside of the bracket

                  I hate those end pin jacks
                  But a small box Jack mounted below the end pin would give you some clean lines

                  I thought about putting one of those floating humbuckers on my Epiphone Hummingbird

                  But I'd put a preamp and all on it

                  Hog out the upper bout
                  Put a dual preamp with a microphone inside
                  And then just blend the two together
                  The preamp will tend to the grounding thing too
                  Last edited by ehdwuld; 01-16-2020, 07:02 PM.
                  EHD
                  Just here surfing Guitar Pron
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                  Carvin Belair / Laney GC80A Acoustic Amp (a gift from Guitar Player Mag)
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                  • #10
                    Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

                    This acoustic guitar needs a floyd.
                    Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

                    Originally posted by Douglas Adams
                    This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Installed strat pickup in acoustic guitar - hum issues

                      Originally posted by ehdwuld View Post
                      Stacked humbucker maybe
                      Some sort of cheap rail pickup

                      Awesome inventive idea

                      Pictures please

                      I have seen them attached with brackets across the sound hole
                      You can hot glue the flat wheel pots to the backside of the bracket

                      I hate those end pin jacks
                      But a small box Jack mounted below the end pin would give you some clean lines

                      I thought about putting one of those floating humbuckers on my Epiphone Hummingbird

                      But I'd put a preamp and all on it

                      Hog out the upper bout
                      Put a dual preamp with a microphone inside
                      And then just blend the two together
                      The preamp will tend to the grounding thing too
                      I'll post some pictures when it's done. It's an old beater guitar that had mic and preamp system in it - junk - which I tore out a few years ago and threw in the trash.

                      The pickup I mounted on a piece of wood that I put in the soundhole and screwed to the soundboard. Looks ugly, but this was supposed to be a "ghettocaster" anyway. The controls I'll put on a piece of wood on the upper bout - there's already space for it because of the previous preamp.

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