What can cause ALL the pickups to suddenly go microphonic

St_Genesius

St_Genesius

New member
So, normally I'd attribute microphonics to a loose cover or insufficient potting, but yesterday I was changing up the wiring on a 3-pickup guitar and when I put everything back together, I've suddenly got a lot of excess handing noise.

In any position, I can tap (with my finger) on the bridge and get a loud thunk. I can get similar thunks from whichever pickup(s) are active on that setting. It seems unlikely to me that all three pickups would have developed the same issue at exactly the same moment, so I assume it must be a byproduct of something I've done at the overall instrument level. But I have no idea what.
 
I'd bet for a faultly contact, behaving like a capacitor and accidentally forming a condenser microphone. Such things happen with a damaged guitar cable, a damaged or misplaced female jack plug etc.

Good luck in your debugging...
 
Interesting. Since it's the same on all settings, I would think I should start with the hot output of the switch and go from there? Or maybe the common lugs on the switch?

Or could it be in the grounding, since everything ultimately shares one path/connection there?

freefrog said:
I'd bet for a faultly contact, behaving like a capacitor and accidentally forming a condenser microphone. Such things happen with a damaged guitar cable, a damaged or misplaced female jack plug etc.

Good luck in your debugging...
Click to expand...
 
Yes, it can be anywhere on the hot or ground side. I'd reflow all solder joints from (and including) the selector and I'd check the female jack plug.

Let us know how it turns. Good luck again!
 
Yeah, it's a novel notion to me as well and I haven't yet quite tracked it down. These joints are getting pretty overworked too, which just makes everything more suspect.

I'm about half a step away from replacing all the components, trimming the leads and starting fresh.
 
I would focus on the jack, switch and all the ground connections,.. bridge & shielding especially.
 
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