pick up noise

[FRANK]

a fussy customer wants a supper quiet guitar i have rewired it following Seymour Duncan s site and still i get noise when i release the strings? it has gold covers i was told maby to ground the covers ?it seams fine with no distortion the second we have distortion it makes background noise when rolling up and down the tone pot

[Michael P. Lemieux]

Hey
Sounds like a bridge grounding problem. Just a guess.
Mike

[FRANK]

a bridge ground is direct to the volume pot connected to the out put jack I just wired grounds to the covers as well same problem ? hasn't gotten any better but I notice its the same on this small practice amp even using my nice fender or my nice hand carved electrics ?If some body can help me under stand why the noise comes only when the tone is in use of course using full gain since the customer wants this done at full gain the minute its rolled off I am good the tone pot is grounded to the volume which is connected to the bridge/ body/pots / 3 way /out put jack.somebody might make a song out of this (the bridge connected to the volume pot the volume pot connected to the pick up the pickup connected to the tone pot the tone pot connected to the volume pot and the volume pot connected to the out put jack hey i even grounded the covers ) so this is the path of my ground ..haha lol this is a serious question OK i was making fun seriously .I need enlightening someone please if you can help .so i have followed the Seymour Duncan sight for all or most of my wiring problems and so I have always used it thinking this is good as it cab be . And so all my tone pots do this with high gain small practice amp rolling the tone pot on from off I hear a back ground noise cup the strings or play it goes away dose it come from the amp where is the sound coming from ? its not the wiring if i am correct using the Seymour Duncan sight ?HELP me under stand this I have never asked this ?

[Russell Vance]

Yep, if the noise is intense, it's a bridge wire grounding problem. But, with enough gain, anything except noiseless pups (Scn/Kinman etc) including humbuckers, especially the humbuckers with deliberately mismatched coil windings, will arc up a bit. "It seems fine without distortion" means it is fine - when you crank in the high gain channel you get whatever system noise (including the amplifiers inherit noise) being amplified a lot. Using analogue effects will also pump noise into the system (Boss Stereo Chorus is a good example - more hiss and shake than a bagful of snakes)

Duncans with covers are earthed via the silver plated 'drain wire' - stick a multimeter across the cover and the drain wire to check for zero ohms (short circuit) and then do the same thing between the bridge/stoptail and the output jack earth (the threaded barrel) ...if all good proceed to the next paragraph.

Realistically, the player should learn to play with noise reduction techniques (palm muting/earthing, fingers on strings that you don't want to hear and using the volume control in an adept and judicious way) or buy a high quality noise gate. Quiet guitars only happen at bedroom gain levels and when they are unplugged.

Rusty.

[FRANK]

wow thanks Russel

[Ron Frazier]

The old Fender guitars cavity that the wiring is in was encased in a copper shield and the back of the pick guard was shield to. Some one sales a metal paint that can be painted in the cavity. I have used glue and tinfoil at times. Fender amps have a switch for reversing the ground or newer amps have a 2 prong plug , reverse that. Some times the noise comes from fluorescent lights. We have a open sign in the store that has to be unplugged to stop noise. C B radios going by the store come through the amps. I more than likely is in the air and needs a good grounding of the whole body cavity

Ron

[FRANK]

thanks Ron yes i did copper tape out the cavity I like Russ,es ansewr better but your 100% right Ron about 60cycleHrtz in American and 120 hertz acrossed the Atlantic this can interfere with a guitar for sure

[Len Biglin]

Hi Paul , the noise with the tone pot is most likely due to a metal knob , your body is being grounded thru the pot shaft , by way of a metal knob , but the shaft is not well grounded due to grease etc. so u get noise , Try with a plastic knob . Len

[Kenneth Elkington]

It sounds like you've done up the guitar pretty well, and if you follow the advice from everyone else in the thread, you should be able to eliminate the guitar itself as a potential introduction point for noise. If none of those solutions make a difference just head into a basement, or someplace pretty thoroughly enclosed, crank up the amp, and see if there's much noise there. I remember living quite close to some power lines, and even in spite of having each of my guitars thoroughly shielded, there was no way that I could get rid of baseline noise, even when using humbucking pickups and a hefty noise gate. Long story short, in my experience environmental factors are a much bigger factor in the introduction of noise than anything on the equipment side of things.

If you're customer doesn't believe you when he tells you it's impossible, just give him some trumped up technobabble about how his particular pickups are always going to make noise, but you really do think it's worth it for the sound. :p

[Rob Mercure]

Mayber I'm just not readling this was thoroughly as I should - have to get to other chores but distortion the second we have distortion it makes background noise when rolling up and down the tone pot suggests that there the tone pot might be dirty. But mabbe someone might have already noted this.

Rob

[FRANK]

no rob its brand new

[Russell Vance]

In addition, Len Biglin scores high - often you will get a guitar with metal knobs which shows a noise reduction when you touch the knobs: If you replace the metal knobs with plastic knobs the noise remains but does not change when the knobs are touched and the guitarist is happy (the noise isn't reduced but there is no change so it is not perceptible). I keep a handful of pots with plastic shafts (used in Amps generally) which I have used to isolate the metal knobs from the pot shafts and achieve the same results without having to change the knobs and their appearance.

Noisy mains power and having fridges/banks of flouro lights/switching light shows and underfloor heating hooked up to a common circuit will cause havoc in the noise department. Big bands etc use power conditioners (a filtering and regulating system) to isolate their power and 'clean' it up. These are relatively expensive but probably essential for larger shops doing electronics install and repairs. Sorry, it's not much good news but it's just the way it is.

[FRANK]

yea i am understanding more and more thanks Russell