Kay Dallben
New member
Hi all,
I'm looking for some advice and guidance in troubleshooting some hum in my guitar.
I've come across 3 distinct hums so far, but they've all been only significantly noticeable out of my neck pickup, and I was hoping for some assistance / suggestions of ways to potentially isolate the hums.
1) What I assume is a ground loop hum: I am testing through a Line6 Guitarport into a laptop. When the laptop is plugged into the power bar, I get an extra hum that is moderate in the Neck pickup and barely noticeable in the Middle & Bridge pups. I don't think this is really avoidable when playing through a computer, and the software "hum reducer" takes care of most of it.
2) Interactions between Player and grounded bridge/shielding/pots. I assume this is Me introducing into ( / compensating for) environmental noise the circuit: touching the shielding, ground lugs, backs of pots, inner ring of the jack, etc. I see this in two incarnations:
a) when I have the Neck pickup completely uninstalled from the guitar:
i) I introduce a new buzz when I touch any of the grounded points. I also notice this is the same/similar buzz as when I type on the laptop at the same time the guitar is plugged in.
ii) I seem also to introduce/balance a buzz depending on where my hand is overtop of the electronics. (I had the pickguard upturned on my desk, and holding my hand above the electronics a few inches away the guitar got completely quiet, but when I moved my hand away, a buzz returned. Buzz got louder when I moved my hand closer to the electronics, so I figure that's Me interacting with a hot lead. (I'm sure you've accidentally touched the hot lead and gotten that screech in your ears, too.)
b) with the neck pickup installed, I notice a slight buzz when I do NOT touch a ground, and no apparent effect when I hand-wave.
3) Neck position hum: So this third 'distinct' hum is by far the loudest. It only happens with the neck pup in use. When the neck pup is in use (positions 1, 2 and when I flick the n-pup ON switch), there is a loud buzzing hum. I've tested both with the pickguard installed in the guitar and out of the guitar, and here are a couple observations concerning orientation and location of the pickguard:
a) When the pickguard assembly is out of the guitar, if I have the pickguard oriented electronics-down, the hum is louder. I turn it face up, the hum lessens noticeably (sounds kind of like I'm taking the bass out of the hum?), but not all that significantly. Orienting it perpendicular to the earth and rotating causes some effect to the hum, some softening occurs in some angles.
b) When I put the pickguard assembly into the guitar (which is ostensibly shielded, and is 'grounded' directly from the bridge (tailpiece) and copper shielding tape to the inner ring of the output jack) the neck-only hum increases - it increases both with flipping the pickguard to electronics-side-down and when actually putting it into the shielded cavity.
Regarding Position isolation: It really only seems to be coming from the Neck pickup. In position 1, it is loudest, quieting slightly when I switch the Neck pickup from Series to Parallel with the push/pull. It also quiets slightly when I switch to position 2 (Neck+Mid), and further if I do that and put the neck pup in parallel. Position 3 and 4 has no hum at all. Position 5 (bridge-only) has the teeniest of whispers of what could be that same hum (I didn't notice it at all until I focused hard to see any difference in the positions).
I'm wondering if the neck pup, which is a Vintage Rails Neck - they have an odd half-half coiling and are "made to be wired in parallel" - is humming loudly in just one of the coils. So I tried some things:
- Hooking up the Vintage Rails Neck pup with Black to lead out, white and red spliced and tied off together, green and bare to ground. No difference - the hum is still loud.
- Hooking up the single-coil pup that came with the guitar produces the exact same hum!
The weird thing is before I did the rewire to swap the pots for push/pulls and do the parallel/series switching, I don't remember the neck pup humming - it was just the #1 expected hum from a computer and #2 my body making or stopping some noise when I touch grounded strings/bridge.
Extra information:
"Amp" setup:
I don't have an amp. I'm plugging in via a Line6 Guitarport into my laptop.
Guitar Wiring Setup:
A) H H H. each is a single-coil sized seymour duncan pup.
- specifically they are Vintage Rails Neck, JB Jr., and Hot Rails. They are all probably in the 8 year old range. It's hard to remember exactly when I got them, and they were all 2nd hand off craigslist at that point anyway.
B) I use a 5-Way Strat Switch in normal config. From 1 being closest to the Neck to 5 being closest to the bridge: (1,2,3,4,5)->(N,N+M,M,M+B,B)
C) Pups are each wired into dpdt switches to change between parallel and series wiring. These are push-pull pots, with the DPDT wired up like this Hot lead in each case goes from the DPDT to the 5-way switch per Seymour Duncan Website SCH SCH SCH 1 vol 2 tone wiring
D) I have a DPDT switch which I'm using as a SPST switch to add in my Neck pup to any position. This looks like this with more leads obviously on the 2nd pole of the switch.
E) Pots are configured as Master Volume, Neck Tone, Middle Tone. Middle Tone has no cap on it. Neck tone has a 0.047 uF cap that previously existed on the stock tone pot.
F) The guitar itself is an Ibanez Blazer Series from 1980 (Maybe Korean?), with its whole cavity shielded with what looks like copper tape. Continuity across all the tape and the bridge is fine using a multimeter.
I appreciate any help you could provide!
I'm looking for some advice and guidance in troubleshooting some hum in my guitar.
I've come across 3 distinct hums so far, but they've all been only significantly noticeable out of my neck pickup, and I was hoping for some assistance / suggestions of ways to potentially isolate the hums.
1) What I assume is a ground loop hum: I am testing through a Line6 Guitarport into a laptop. When the laptop is plugged into the power bar, I get an extra hum that is moderate in the Neck pickup and barely noticeable in the Middle & Bridge pups. I don't think this is really avoidable when playing through a computer, and the software "hum reducer" takes care of most of it.
2) Interactions between Player and grounded bridge/shielding/pots. I assume this is Me introducing into ( / compensating for) environmental noise the circuit: touching the shielding, ground lugs, backs of pots, inner ring of the jack, etc. I see this in two incarnations:
a) when I have the Neck pickup completely uninstalled from the guitar:
i) I introduce a new buzz when I touch any of the grounded points. I also notice this is the same/similar buzz as when I type on the laptop at the same time the guitar is plugged in.
ii) I seem also to introduce/balance a buzz depending on where my hand is overtop of the electronics. (I had the pickguard upturned on my desk, and holding my hand above the electronics a few inches away the guitar got completely quiet, but when I moved my hand away, a buzz returned. Buzz got louder when I moved my hand closer to the electronics, so I figure that's Me interacting with a hot lead. (I'm sure you've accidentally touched the hot lead and gotten that screech in your ears, too.)
b) with the neck pickup installed, I notice a slight buzz when I do NOT touch a ground, and no apparent effect when I hand-wave.
3) Neck position hum: So this third 'distinct' hum is by far the loudest. It only happens with the neck pup in use. When the neck pup is in use (positions 1, 2 and when I flick the n-pup ON switch), there is a loud buzzing hum. I've tested both with the pickguard installed in the guitar and out of the guitar, and here are a couple observations concerning orientation and location of the pickguard:
a) When the pickguard assembly is out of the guitar, if I have the pickguard oriented electronics-down, the hum is louder. I turn it face up, the hum lessens noticeably (sounds kind of like I'm taking the bass out of the hum?), but not all that significantly. Orienting it perpendicular to the earth and rotating causes some effect to the hum, some softening occurs in some angles.
b) When I put the pickguard assembly into the guitar (which is ostensibly shielded, and is 'grounded' directly from the bridge (tailpiece) and copper shielding tape to the inner ring of the output jack) the neck-only hum increases - it increases both with flipping the pickguard to electronics-side-down and when actually putting it into the shielded cavity.
Regarding Position isolation: It really only seems to be coming from the Neck pickup. In position 1, it is loudest, quieting slightly when I switch the Neck pickup from Series to Parallel with the push/pull. It also quiets slightly when I switch to position 2 (Neck+Mid), and further if I do that and put the neck pup in parallel. Position 3 and 4 has no hum at all. Position 5 (bridge-only) has the teeniest of whispers of what could be that same hum (I didn't notice it at all until I focused hard to see any difference in the positions).
I'm wondering if the neck pup, which is a Vintage Rails Neck - they have an odd half-half coiling and are "made to be wired in parallel" - is humming loudly in just one of the coils. So I tried some things:
- Hooking up the Vintage Rails Neck pup with Black to lead out, white and red spliced and tied off together, green and bare to ground. No difference - the hum is still loud.
- Hooking up the single-coil pup that came with the guitar produces the exact same hum!
The weird thing is before I did the rewire to swap the pots for push/pulls and do the parallel/series switching, I don't remember the neck pup humming - it was just the #1 expected hum from a computer and #2 my body making or stopping some noise when I touch grounded strings/bridge.
Extra information:
"Amp" setup:
I don't have an amp. I'm plugging in via a Line6 Guitarport into my laptop.
Guitar Wiring Setup:
A) H H H. each is a single-coil sized seymour duncan pup.
- specifically they are Vintage Rails Neck, JB Jr., and Hot Rails. They are all probably in the 8 year old range. It's hard to remember exactly when I got them, and they were all 2nd hand off craigslist at that point anyway.
B) I use a 5-Way Strat Switch in normal config. From 1 being closest to the Neck to 5 being closest to the bridge: (1,2,3,4,5)->(N,N+M,M,M+B,B)
C) Pups are each wired into dpdt switches to change between parallel and series wiring. These are push-pull pots, with the DPDT wired up like this Hot lead in each case goes from the DPDT to the 5-way switch per Seymour Duncan Website SCH SCH SCH 1 vol 2 tone wiring
D) I have a DPDT switch which I'm using as a SPST switch to add in my Neck pup to any position. This looks like this with more leads obviously on the 2nd pole of the switch.
E) Pots are configured as Master Volume, Neck Tone, Middle Tone. Middle Tone has no cap on it. Neck tone has a 0.047 uF cap that previously existed on the stock tone pot.
F) The guitar itself is an Ibanez Blazer Series from 1980 (Maybe Korean?), with its whole cavity shielded with what looks like copper tape. Continuity across all the tape and the bridge is fine using a multimeter.
I appreciate any help you could provide!
