Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

[mdmoto]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

Try it in another room. I recently read about someone who had a buzzing sound that was caused by the lights in the room.

I will experiment with this soon and report back. Bit of a hassle lugging the gear around but work the trouble if I find an answer.

Unsolder one of the pickups and try the other one. If that pickup doesn't buzz, try the other one by itself. If one pickup buzzes, solder it to the output jack as described below. If it still buzzes it would seem to be either the pickup or something external to the guitar.

Unsolder the current connections to the output jack and connect the pickups directly to the output jack. If they don't buzz it would seem to indicate something in the wiring or the switches, potentiometers, capacitors, resistors, etc...

By this do you mean unsolder the hot and ground wires coming from the output jack to the volume (removing them from the volume pot, leaving them on the output jack), and unsolder the signal wire for one pickup from the switch and the pickup ground wire from the volume pot case, then attach the pickup signal wire (black) directly to the hot output jack wire, and the pickup ground (green, and shield wire) directly to the output jack ground wire), by passing the volume pot, tone, pot, and switch all together? What about the bridge ground wire? Would that need to be grounded also so the strings are grounded? Sorry i've never heard of this test method before.

[mdmoto]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

You can get rid of the ground wires on the back of the pots because the shielding already acts as the ground.

The only ground wires on the back of the pots are on the volume pot, ans they are from the pickups, the output jack, and the bridge. Those need to be there as I understand. There are no ground jumper wires between the volume pot, tone pot, and switch.

[mdmoto]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

Can somebody closely examine the entirety of my wiring diagnosis that I made in my first post, and give me some insight as to whether or not all of it appears correct in theory or if there could be a potential issue? Are the pots wired correctly? I wired it based on the Seymour Duncan diagram in my first post, but i've seen different ways to wire pots together, not sure if there could be a better way to do it, also not sure if that could affect my noise issue. Everything seems to function as it should, so I believe its right.

[dzdandcunfsd]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

As was already stated, its possibly a stray strand just touching something else, or a break in wire coating somewhere inside body, but if it never goes away...shake it around does it ever get better or worse?, it's probably your current..if you've ruled out the amp itself....if other guitar buzzes too just not as loudly, probably hotter pickups in your buzz machine .....I'll never claim to be an expert, but in pictures and diagram everything looks tip top.

[mdmoto]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

Damn you guys, I guess this is just "normal" and i'll have to live with it forever. I have a Horizon Devices Precision Drive pedal on the way, so i'll finally have a noise gate to play with, but I was really hoping to go have to resort to that to fix the issue. I really want to minimize as much of the noise floor as I could before I had to filter the rest out. That really bums me out. Especially since I'm gonna try to start recording soon so I want a good clean signal. If anyone else has any input, I'm still open to hear any ideas. I'll report back here if I ever find a fix for this noise. Thanks for all of the help so far.

[mdmoto]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

Now, wait a second... Now I'm notcing that there DOESN'T appear to be any change in noise if I'm touching the strings/bridge or not. I swore there was before just a little bit. That doesnt make any sense. The bridge is grounded!

[mdmoto]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

I take that back. If I'm in the right spot in my room, where the noise is quietest, then I can hear a slight reduction in the base hum when I touch the strings, but as soon as I turn the guitar and the loud piercing buzzing fades back in, I can no longer here the change in hum when I touch the strings. So it's like my original statement was right. There seems to be TWO hums, the normal one that is present in all electric guitar setups on the gain channel, and then my really loud hum that seems to be cause by EMI to an extreme degree, that my sheilding attempts did absolutely nothing for. Ugh.

[nexion218]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

Any sort of wireless devices, cellphones, lights facing your pickups in that spot of the room? Also, if there is a certain spot in the room that makes it go worse, I wouldn't blame the guitar...

[StoRMiE]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

You could try using a power conditioner and plugging your amp into that, if you have incredibly noisy power in your area a humbucker is nearly completely ignored by it.

[bhr]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

I will experiment with this soon and report back. Bit of a hassle lugging the gear around but work the trouble if I find an answer.



By this do you mean unsolder the hot and ground wires coming from the output jack to the volume (removing them from the volume pot, leaving them on the output jack), and unsolder the signal wire for one pickup from the switch and the pickup ground wire from the volume pot case, then attach the pickup signal wire (black) directly to the hot output jack wire, and the pickup ground (green, and shield wire) directly to the output jack ground wire), by passing the volume pot, tone, pot, and switch all together? What about the bridge ground wire? Would that need to be grounded also so the strings are grounded? Sorry i've never heard of this test method before.

My general answer to your questions is "yes".

The idea is to run one pickup at a time. Imagine removing one of the pickups from the guitar entirely, but in this case just disconnecting all of its wires from the guitar. Then, run the pickup that is still attached and see if it buzzes. If it does, then eliminate everything else in the guitar and run it directly to the output jack, with nothing else connected to the output jack. You are correct that normally you need to ground other components, but the purpose of this test is to eliminate all other components from the circuit.

If a pickup buzzed when connected to the circuitry, and also buzzed when connected only to the output jack, it could still be bridge, so add that to the output jack ground and see if it corrects the problem. If if doesn't correct the problem, then it has to be the pickup or something outside the guitar.

If a pickup buzzed when connected to the circuitry, but did not buzz when connected only to the output jack, then it's in the circuitry. You can add components back one at a time until the buzzing starts.

By the way, I wasn't sure about how your grounded the bridge. Did you run a wire from the output jack to the bridge, or did you connect the output jack to the copper shielding, and then ran a wire from the copper shielding to the bridge? If it's the latter, you could pretty easily just run a temporary wire from the output jack to the bridge to see if it helps.

[bhr]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

Damn you guys, I guess this is just "normal" and i'll have to live with it forever. I have a Horizon Devices Precision Drive pedal on the way, so i'll finally have a noise gate to play with, but I was really hoping to go have to resort to that to fix the issue. I really want to minimize as much of the noise floor as I could before I had to filter the rest out. That really bums me out. Especially since I'm gonna try to start recording soon so I want a good clean signal. If anyone else has any input, I'm still open to hear any ideas. I'll report back here if I ever find a fix for this noise. Thanks for all of the help so far.

No, this is not normal, and it is fixable, the question is just how much time and effort it takes. Unfortunately I have over 30 guitars and basses - single coils, humbuckers, mini humbuckers, solid body, semi hollow, hollow, flat top, and arch top, and none of them make a hum or buzz. A few did when I bought them because of broken ground connections and stupid noisy single coil pickups, but I fixed all of them. Worse case scenario, take the pickups and electronics out of the guitar and add them back one at a time until you get a buzz, then fix that connection or replace that component. I would think that might take a few hours, but will be worth it.

[allbutromeo]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

The problem seems to be in the Tone control, so try wiring the Volume output directly to the jack to confirm it. If the hum goes away the issue is either the pot or the capacitor.

[Dave Locher]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

The problem seems to be in the Tone control, so try wiring the Volume output directly to the jack to confirm it. If the hum goes away the issue is either the pot or the capacitor.

This! A bad volume or tone pot can make a lot of noise

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

The problem seems to be in the Tone control, so try wiring the Volume output directly to the jack to confirm it. If the hum goes away the issue is either the pot or the capacitor.

No, not necessarily. It is quite normal for a buzz to be more apparent when the treble it up than when it is down. Disconnecting the tone pot won't help but could potentially make the buzz worse by allowing full treble to go through. The cap will have nothing to do with buzz.

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Tone Gurus Please Advise! Buzz issue. All info/pictures/diagram included.

I take that back. If I'm in the right spot in my room, where the noise is quietest, then I can hear a slight reduction in the base hum when I touch the strings, but as soon as I turn the guitar and the loud piercing buzzing fades back in, I can no longer here the change in hum when I touch the strings. So it's like my original statement was right. There seems to be TWO hums, the normal one that is present in all electric guitar setups on the gain channel, and then my really loud hum that seems to be cause by EMI to an extreme degree, that my sheilding attempts did absolutely nothing for. Ugh.

Yes, correct.
If the loud buzz happens just from turning your guitar or moving to a different spot in your room, the buzz is NOT coming from anything in your guitar. Everything you said and from all I can see in your pics you've done all that can be done in your guitar to eliminate noise. Unfortunately, your guitar cannot correct any faults with your house current/wiring or your lights.

The suggestion to take your guitar to a music store and play it was good. Chances are (if it's a reputable store) they will have done everything to eliminate any electrical interferences.

If that doesn't help at all, I go for the alien theory.