Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

[Derpottsie]

I recently just bought another SG with stock 498t and 490r pickups. The 498t hums like something crazy if Im not palm muting or touching some piece of metal on the guitar. I checked the grounds and pots and everything appears to be snug and soldered correctly. Very clean job. I usually dont give these pickups a chance and just swap them out for Duncan's the day I get them. But I wanted to leave these in there simply because Im tired of changing pickups and want an original Gibson choice pickup in this guitar. Im sure this isnt normal and might be a loose ground or bad ground but everything looks ok. The neck pickup is fine and doesnt hum at all. Any solutions? Should I resolder or go ahead and swap the pup?

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[Nagisa]

Re: Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

It is likely not the pickup itself. Your bridge sounds properly grounded since it makes the hum go away.

You may be getting noise from external sources.

I would recheck the grounding on the 498 first then consider shielding, unless none of your other guitars get hum.

 

[Derpottsie]

Re: Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

The others hum just a little but I drive my amp hard with a decent amount of gain and a boost too so its going to hum no matter what. This guitar though has a crazy amount of hum only on the bridge pickup when I dont have both hands on the strings. I might just have to do some shielding. Or maybe that pickup doesnt like my tube screamer

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[Gearjoneser]

Re: Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

Use a wire to connect the neck pickup ground to the bridge pickup ground, without touching it.

If that doesn't make it go away, replace the volume pot with a 500K Gibson pot with the correct shaft length.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

It's buzzing, not humming. That high pitched buzz is electrical field noise. Shielding can help with that, but most pickups are not shielded. This is not the same hum (magnetic field noise) that humbuckers buck.

Some sources of interference are hard to eliminate. The reason it stops when you touch the strings is because it's grounding your body and you are acting as a shield.


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[Derpottsie]

Re: Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

It's buzzing, not humming. That high pitched buzz is electrical field noise. Shielding can help with that, but most pickups are not shielded. This is not the same hum (magnetic field noise) that humbuckers buck.

Some sources of interference are hard to eliminate. The reason it stops when you touch the strings is because it's grounding your body and you are acting as a shield.


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Makes sense.. its a new problem for me which Ive always avoided with high quality Seymour Duncans. At least I think they help because none of my other SG's do it other than an Ibanez sg style guitar with stock pickups. I'll just swap the pickups out anyways since the Gibsons seem to be mid spiked to my ears which I already dont like

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[DavidRavenMoon]

Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

Makes sense.. its a new problem for me which Ive always avoided with high quality Seymour Duncans. At least I think they help because none of my other SG's do it other than an Ibanez sg style guitar with stock pickups. I'll just swap the pickups out anyways since the Gibsons seem to be mid spiked to my ears which I already dont like

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Any pickup can pick up interference. It happens to humbuckers I wind too, but not the Strat sized ones. Probably because the two coils are closer together.

You might want to check the ground wires. I stopped one of my guitars from doing this by running a second ground wire from the pots to the jack. Why they worked exactly, I'm not sure. But it would reduce the resistance to ground.


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[gregory]

Re: Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

I'll just swap the pickups out anyways since the Gibsons seem to be mid spiked to my ears which I already dont like

...which may be the exact reason why the buzzing is more prevalent.

I'm betting you'll get the same result with a high quality Seymour Duncan JB.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Re: Humbucker has hum when Im not touching all strings

FWIW, my passive-equipped guitars buzzed pretty badly unless I was touching the strings or the bridge when I was living in another city. In my current home, they're dead quiet. How clean the power is wherever you're playing also has a saying.