Disagreement with my tech : very simple question : is HB ground wiring needed?

Does your tech play with distortion? Or does he deal mostly with single coil?

What he is doing might be ok for clean tones. A humbucker doesn't have any 60 cycle hum, but that is different than grounding to bridge.

I researched this a bit years ago to solve noise issues in my home studio. Its all fun and games until you start recording tracks, then that buzz you've been living with becomes a real problem.

It turns out that your body is a source of radiation (or maybe like an antenna picking up radiation). When you are playing high gain, often if your hand is near the strings, you will hear a buzzing, but when you touch the bridge or the strings, the noise goes away. I always thought it was weird that your body close proximity to strings would cause noise.

Grounding to the bridge is necessary so that this noise goes away when you touch the metal on the guitar. It is grounding your body to the guitar and eliminates the potential between your hand and the guitar pickups, which is what causes the noise.

I realize this is a pseudo tech explanation, but your body is actually the source of the kinds of noises (radiation) that is solved by grounding the pickups to the bridge. There are many other kinds of noises.
 
As for wire picking up noise, remember the "old" days, when your car antenna was just a wire embedded in the windshield, or a stick of stainless jutting up off the fender? Wire picks up RF just fine.

BTW, you don't see those anymore. I wonder where car antennas are these days?
 
ArtieToo said:
As for wire picking up noise, remember the "old" days, when your car antenna was just a wire embedded in the windshield, or a stick of stainless jutting up off the fender? Wire picks up RF just fine.

BTW, you don't see those anymore. I wonder where car antennas are these days?
Click to expand...

I do remember them in the windshield. My 2011 Escape has a tall one on the right fender. My wife's newer Sonata and our oldest's Elantra GT has it in a shark fin on the roof. They are Sirius/XM equipped.
 
ArtieToo said:
As for wire picking up noise, remember the "old" days, when your car antenna was just a wire embedded in the windshield, or a stick of stainless jutting up off the fender? Wire picks up RF just fine.

BTW, you don't see those anymore. I wonder where car antennas are these days?
Click to expand...

nowadays they look like :
79f81198c34849f5f67db8d422a7ba9b.jpg
 
ArtieToo said:
As for wire picking up noise, remember the "old" days, when your car antenna was just a wire embedded in the windshield, or a stick of stainless jutting up off the fender? Wire picks up RF just fine.

BTW, you don't see those anymore. I wonder where car antennas are these days?
Click to expand...

What about insulated wiring in a properly assembled guitar wiring harness?
 
ArtieToo said:
I thought the "shark-fin" was just for satellite. :dunno:
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure you're correct; my car has both a shark fin (for satellite) and an FM antenna embedded in the rear window. While it's true that wire picks up RF, the length of the "antenna" will determine which frequencies it picks up best. FM and satellite use very different frequencies, so you need a separate antenna for each.
 
dystrust said:
I'm pretty sure you're correct; my car has both a shark fin (for satellite) and an FM antenna embedded in the rear window.
Click to expand...

That would be clever. I hadn't thought of that. Letting the rear window defroster do double duty as an FM antenna.
 
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