Wiring problems - ho hum

Grindspine

Grindspine

New member
For some reason, I always seem to get hum when wiring/rewiring a guitar. Whether I ground every pot/switch chassis through the shielding or ground each component to one point, I always seem to get some ground hum, even with using humbuckers with no coil splits.

Any general advice/suggestions for something I am missing? This particular time it is with a Duncan JB and Distortion neck, both four conductor. Originally, I was going to wire each one with a coil split, but aborted that idea due to hum even in humbucker mode. Even when just running two humbuckers, one three-way toggle, and one volume, all grounded and shielded, I still get noise from this guitar. This is not an issue with my other guitars, which have either factory wiring or were wired professionally. Advice?
 
Re: Wiring problems - ho hum

Are you creating a loop of grounds???
Typically this will add to noise as you get an antenna effect I'm told.

The best way is to have the grounds as a star......thats how its done in an amp.
 
Re: Wiring problems - ho hum

Bad solders (dull instead of shinny), massive solders (a flood instead of a drop) and, wires soldered to extend the lenght of pickup's wires are often source of hum.
There are no ground loops in a guitar but, a star grounding could be more effective to reject hum.
 
Re: Wiring problems - ho hum

I found that if you are just using straight humbuckers with no taps that removing the 4 conductor wire and using the shielded braided type makes a difference. In most my guitars they are all shielded anyway so the metal base plate of the pickup touches the shielding and so all you need to do is put the output wire onto the switch.

You may also find that your ground wire is broken on your pickup or the above issues.
 
Re: Wiring problems - ho hum

Either a missed or forgotten ground connection/wire or bad solder joint are the most common causes. Make sure you use a hot enough iron to cause the solder to flow like water, no need for big gobs of solder if done correctly. Also make sure your bridge and your jack are grounded.
 
Re: Wiring problems - ho hum

A bad solder joint is not something that I had considered. I am using an old soldering iron, not a high wattage gun, so that might be an area to explore. I won't have time/space available to make another attempt on that guitar this week, but I may get new potentiometers and switches wired in while I am messing with it.
 
Re: Wiring problems - ho hum

Yup, bridge is properly grounded. I just need to scrap the current pots/switches and rewire from scratch. Everything appeared to have a proper ground after my third follow through on the electronics. I am pretty sure it is either bad solder joints or a bad component at this point.
 
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