static humbukcer hum/buzz

G

greekdude

New member
Hello
this is about the Carvin dc135, in which the tech installed a push/pull pot for series/parallel to neck (dimarzio air norton S) and also bridge (dimarzio super distortion (full size)).
Well, the guitar makes noise, which stops when I touch the strings. Ok you will tell me, so it should be, except the Blazes does not.
The same problem has my Aria Strar with dimarzio fast track 2 (b), fast track I (m), the Chopper (n).

Also, when I approach the right hand on the bridge pup (super dist) the buzz / hum increases ..... When that happens, pressing all the strings with the left hand then the buzz disappears.

The mods on the strat push/pull neck for series/parallel, push/pull bridge for series/parallel, + add bridge to all positiond switch + bridge tone control, I did it myself. The wiring on the Carvin was made by the tech, while Ibanez with his blazes is stock.

Are some magnets affected more than others by static electricity?

Checked for the shielding of the pups and indeed the chassis is connected to the ground in all the aforementioned guitars (strat / Carvin) ....

If I did not have the blazes to function super quiet, I wouldn't investigate further.


As a side note, the blazes are new, the guitar was bought in 2014, while the super distortion, air norton S, fast tracks, chopper were bought and played for over 20 years... maybe something happened to them? Also I have to say this is only under high gain.
 
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Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

I have an interest in what we learn about this as well.
I have a LP that is silent. But I recently rewired my Kramer and was getting a faint buzz. The wiring looked good and I couldn’t find an issue with it.
So I took it to my local tech and he had a look and told me the wiring was done right.
Funny thing is, once I got the guitar all set up properly and plugged it back in, the noise was gone.
So I really have no idea what happened. My best guess is that maybe some fluorescent lighting or something was introducing some noise....but really I have no idea.
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

Gtrjunior said:
I have an interest in what we learn about this as well.
I have a LP that is silent. But I recently rewired my Kramer and was getting a faint buzz. The wiring looked good and I couldn’t find an issue with it.
So I took it to my local tech and he had a look and told me the wiring was done right.
Funny thing is, once I got the guitar all set up properly and plugged it back in, the noise was gone.
So I really have no idea what happened. My best guess is that maybe some fluorescent lighting or something was introducing some noise....but really I have no idea.
Click to expand...

Yes, during the day, away from laptops or any other source of mid/high frequency fields , and while touching the strings, the noise is suppressed. The question is what special have those blazes (and other pups like my EMGs) and they dont buzz at all under rthe very same conditions?
IMHO there is a problem with those dimarzios, I wish it was the bare wire, but it seems this is connected to the ground.
 
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Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

At the time, I had Dimarzio’s in the LP and they were silent.
I wonder if your issues is just with the Blaze? Possible an issue with that particular pickup (faulty, possibly)?
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

The blazes are absolutely silent . Its the rest (Super dist, fast tracks, chopper, air norton S which have the issue)
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

So? any ideas? could an electrically checked circuit to still have problems?
Could the problem lie in the bare wire grounding ? or inadequate pots grounding ?

Or should I just replace those push/pulls with normal pots and re-do the wiring from scratch (doing/testing one thing at a time)?
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

I wish I knew the answer to this!
Pots are cheap enough to go ahead and swap out the components and see if that helps, I would think.
I’m not entirely convinced it’s the problem though.
I don’t recall if you said you had tried all of the offending pickups in that guitar? If all of the pickups have the issue in that guitar then yes, the problem is the guitar and not the pickups.
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

Both pups do this. the middle is SC so it groans and moans either way. But I cannot think that the Super Distortion is noisy while the Blazes absolutely silent.
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

I've had a bunch of pickups in a Les Paul ... Gibson Dirty Fingers and 57 Classics, Dimarzio, Manlius, Rio Grande, Seymour Duncan ... covered and uncovered. Every single one of them hum/buzzed. It originally had the circuit board and I pulled it and wired it the traditional way. It didn't make a difference, hum/buzzed either way. Typical situation ... touch the strings and the buzz went away or was greatly diminished. I finally gutted it, shielded with copper tape and it's silent with every pickup I've tried.
I have a Godin that hum/buzzed the same way. I shielded it with conductive graphite paint and it worked just as well. I have another Les Paul that I haven't touched, came from factory with Burstbuckers and it's quiet. Doesn't need shielding. Same with a Godin semi-hollow body that isn't shielded. It's quiet as well. I've never been able to figure out why some humbucker equipped guitars buzz/hum and others don't. I've had a few over the years that I shielded with the paint and others that didn't need it. An interesting thing is that I think every Asian import guitar that I currently own has black painted control cavities which I assume is shielding paint from the factory. They are all quiet as well (the ones with humbuckers).

There are members on the forum who will say that shielding doesn't work (on humbucker equipped guitars). That's not my experience at all but to each his/her own.
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

^^^ Thanks, did some tests with aluminum foil yesterday and there is definitely an impact, the system reacts as I approach the foil. What's worse its my right hand that causes much of the noise. As it approaches (or even touches) the Super Dist the buzz goes more intense. I admit sometime, from a pro-shielding advocate I turned into "shielding does not matter", but now I believe that although shielding does not help in the coil-induced low-freq hum (60/50Hz), it greatly helps with mid/high frequencies.
So I will consider re-checking all bare metal grounding first, and second maybe re-do it from scratch in which case I'll definitely shield the cavity. (and the cavity cover).
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

btw my like button does not work with firefox 62?? I meant to hit like to the ppl above!
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

Like button seemed to have gone awry after whatever maintenance they did yesterday or day before.
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

greekdude said:
^^^ Thanks, did some tests with aluminum foil yesterday and there is definitely an impact, the system reacts as I approach the foil. What's worse its my right hand that causes much of the noise. As it approaches (or even touches) the Super Dist the buzz goes more intense. I admit sometime, from a pro-shielding advocate I turned into "shielding does not matter", but now I believe that although shielding does not help in the coil-induced low-freq hum (60/50Hz), it greatly helps with mid/high frequencies.
So I will consider re-checking all bare metal grounding first, and second maybe re-do it from scratch in which case I'll definitely shield the cavity. (and the cavity cover).
Click to expand...


I always used shielding paint until I did the Les Paul. I used copper tape for the LP in case I ever wanted to remove it. The paint always worked. So did the copper tape on the LP. But apparently aluminum works for a different source of noise than copper or paint (conductive graphite). At least according to Bill Lawrence. Here was his take on it ...

http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/Pickupology/External%20Interference.htm
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

Check your Bridge grounding to the jack, if it's soldered to a pot, remove it and homerun it to the jack -makes a difference. Second check your wiring on your humbuckers and pot grounding -when you split humbuckers for paralleling or phasing it's easy to create a noise problem if you make a mistake or short something cramming it back together.. Lastly, shield your cavities with copper tape or Faraday paint and bring one ground to the jack from the shielding (once again NOT to one of the pot casings). These guitar techs busing grounds to a pot casing instead of homerunning them to the jack need to stop -or go back to basic electronics school. Homerun grounds ALWAYS to the jack -it improves the routing of external EMF to ground and reduces the overall signal to noise in the system.
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

NegativeEase said:
Check your Bridge grounding to the jack, if it's soldered to a pot, remove it and homerun it to the jack -makes a difference. Second check your wiring on your humbuckers and pot grounding -when you split humbuckers for paralleling or phasing it's easy to create a noise problem if you make a mistake or short something cramming it back together.. Lastly, shield your cavities with copper tape or Faraday paint and bring one ground to the jack from the shielding (once again NOT to one of the pot casings). These guitar techs busing grounds to a pot casing instead of homerunning them to the jack need to stop -or go back to basic electronics school. Homerun grounds ALWAYS to the jack -it improves the routing of external EMF to ground and reduces the overall signal to noise in the system.
Click to expand...

Will keep it in mind. Makes perfect sense!
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

Hello, just a follow up, I have already odrered new push/pull pots, wires, to try the components on the buzzing strat first before re-doing the wiring on the Carvin. But today I saw that neither of the guitars had any buzz at all, no matter the orientation, position, AC or lightts.
 
Re: static humbukcer hum/buzz

greekdude said:
Hello, just a follow up, I have already odrered new push/pull pots, wires, to try the components on the buzzing strat first before re-doing the wiring on the Carvin. But today I saw that neither of the guitars had any buzz at all, no matter the orientation, position, AC or lightts.
Click to expand...

Maybe a neighbor has a ham radio with a big a$$ linear ... :D
 
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