Lil'59 and tele original single coil = BUZZZ!?

Matt Phelps

New member
Help!

Just bit the bullet and installed a new Little 59 humbucker into my '73 telecaster but I've found a nasty side effect.

The humbucker is pretty quiet but when I switch to the original single coil pickup at the neck then I get an awful buzzing noise - much louder than before I installed the 'bucker.

I followed the wiring instructions carefully (red and white together and green to earth, black to the switch) although there was no mention of what to do with the screen wire so I snipped it off. I didn't touch the neck pickup wiring at all.

Surely the new pickup shouldn't effect the old one like this?

Can anyone suggest a solution? I've got a gig on saturday and I'm a bit desperate to solve it before then!
 
Re: Lil'59 and tele original single coil = BUZZZ!?

Matt Phelps said:
Help!

Just bit the bullet and installed a new Little 59 humbucker into my '73 telecaster but I've found a nasty side effect.

The humbucker is pretty quiet but when I switch to the original single coil pickup at the neck then I get an awful buzzing noise - much louder than before I installed the 'bucker.

I followed the wiring instructions carefully (red and white together and green to earth, black to the switch) although there was no mention of what to do with the screen wire so I snipped it off. I didn't touch the neck pickup wiring at all.

Surely the new pickup shouldn't effect the old one like this?

Can anyone suggest a solution? I've got a gig on saturday and I'm a bit desperate to solve it before then!


Sounds like a grounding problem. Maybe you disconnected something?

Matt Phelps said:
although there was no mention of what to do with the screen wire so I snipped it off.

Screen wire? Do you mean the blank wire beside the other 4 wires?
That's needed to ground the pickup, together with the greeen wire!
But that should not have an effect of your problem with the other pickup.
 
Re: Lil'59 and tele original single coil = BUZZZ!?

Didn't think I'd disturbed anything else on there but I guess just check the solder on all the other connections for the single neck pickup?
 
Re: Lil'59 and tele original single coil = BUZZZ!?

Could an badly grounded pickup on the bridge affect the grounding on the neck?
 
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