...But Am I Grounded?

rrockwell777

rrockwell777

New member
I was playing yesterday, and I noticed that there was a very small amount of buzzing that went away when I touched my guitar's volume knob or bridge. I never noticed it before, but I'm not privy to these sorts of things, so I might have ignored it before.I thought for sure there must be some grounding issues.

I thought the reason might be because I had no electrical sheilding in my cavity. I heard I could use aluminum foil for this, so I tried it all the way around the cavity, going all the way up to the screws. I plugged it in and the guitar didn't make ANY NOISE AT ALL, so I panicked and took out the shielding around the sides and top and just had the shielding on the bottom. I plugged it in again, and although the guitar worked again, the buzz was still there Maybe I did it wrong? Maybe I need it around my pickups, too? maybe it's something else entirely?

I put in a Duncan Distortion and a Duncan Jazz about a month ago. I have a V/V/T configuration w 2 push/pulls, both volume knobs. I had to make a hybrid of a few wiring diagrams from the site to make the coil splitting that I wanted..

Here's a picture of what I did:

DSCF0619.jpg
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-Rocky James
 
Re: ...But Am I Grounded?

First of all, the buzz you are hearing probably has nothing to do with shielding...It appears that the black cavity paint is your shielding already.

Secondly....When you said..."the guitar didn't make ANY NOISE AT ALL", I assume you meant that it didn't make any "SOUND" since you were trying to get rid of the "noise" (buzz). This probably either didn't have anything at all to do with the foil shielding, (you may have bumped a wire and loosened the contact, probably at the jack), or the foil touched a wire (again, probably at the jack) and shorted it out.

I would check all of the solder connections first to make sure they are electrically good, not just mechanically good. Make sure all of the components are grounded to each other, (including bridge, jack, tone and vol pots). It's hard to tell from your pic, but it doesn't look like there is a wire connecting the ground of the vol pots to the back of the tone pot.
 
Re: ...But Am I Grounded?

I think it's worth noting that I'm at a different house right now (my mom's), too. That's when I first noticed it. I also noticed the same thing happened with my other guitar. I've tried it in two different outlets in the house. You think it could be an issue with the house's power?
 
Re: ...But Am I Grounded?

That is very possible, esp if it's old wiring that isn't grounded very well or has lots of interference. Or if there are old appliances or florescent lights in the circuit.
 
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