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this is a weird one i've had trouble with for a while.... last year i had enough spare parts around to put a tele style guitar together.. Peavey body, Fender Neck, Gotoh tele bridge.... I wanted humbuckers in it and always wanted a set of Duncan 59's... so i bought a pair... a neck and bridge model.. after installing them i noticed that the pickups had a lot hum... the were picking up more noise... at times these 59's sound like P90's as they have that much hum thru a high distorted amp...

I took the guitar to a local tech who is a friend of mine and asked him to double check the wireing and everything checked out.... he said they must just be noisey pickups.... Contacted Duncan about the trouble and they said that it is unlikely that both the neck and bridge model would have trouble so they thought it should be something else in the guitar causeing the trouble.... so i bought new expensive Gibson pots, a new Fender 3 way switch, and another Switchcraft jack and sheilded everything i could... Still the pickups are noisey...

It almost sounds like there is a ground off somewhere... But it can't be both pickups...... I tripled checked the ground to the bridge and it is working! I soldered a little screw eye on the end of the ground wire and one of the bridge screws goes thru it.... with a meter to test the ground to the jack it is working. I even tried running a second ground wire to the bridge to see if there was trouble with it. Oddly when i take my hands off the strings all together the ground noise does not get much worse... and when i put them back on the guitar it is not much better.

When i compair my tele with 59's to a strat with a full sized JB in the bridge the tele with 59's is twice as noisy... odd since the 59 is a much weaker pickup.

where should i go from here? I was thinking of pulling the 59's out of that guitar and putting them in a strat with differnet pots and switchs to see how they react...

If 59's are noisier then JB's i will be staying away from 59's from now on...

WhoFan


Originally Posted by WhoFanthis is a weird one i've had trouble with for a while.... last year i had enough spare parts around to put a tele style guitar together.. Peavey body, Fender Neck, Gotoh tele bridge.... I wanted humbuckers in it and always wanted a set of Duncan 59's... so i bought a pair... a neck and bridge model.. after installing them i noticed that the pickups had a lot hum... the were picking up more noise... at times these 59's sound like P90's as they have that much hum thru a high distorted amp...

I took the guitar to a local tech who is a friend of mine and asked him to double check the wireing and everything checked out.... he said they must just be noisey pickups.... Contacted Duncan about the trouble and they said that it is unlikely that both the neck and bridge model would have trouble so they thought it should be something else in the guitar causeing the trouble.... so i bought new expensive Gibson pots, a new Fender 3 way switch, and another Switchcraft jack and sheilded everything i could... Still the pickups are noisey...

It almost sounds like there is a ground off somewhere... But it can't be both pickups...... I tripled checked the ground to the bridge and it is working! I soldered a little screw eye on the end of the ground wire and one of the bridge screws goes thru it.... with a meter to test the ground to the jack it is working. I even tried running a second ground wire to the bridge to see if there was trouble with it. Oddly when i take my hands off the strings all together the ground noise does not get much worse... and when i put them back on the guitar it is not much better.

When i compair my tele with 59's to a strat with a full sized JB in the bridge the tele with 59's is twice as noisy... odd since the 59 is a much weaker pickup.

where should i go from here? I was thinking of pulling the 59's out of that guitar and putting them in a strat with differnet pots and switchs to see how they react...

If 59's are noisier then JB's i will be staying away from 59's from now on...

WhoFan

Must be atmosperic conditions cause I'm having the exact same scenario with a Jazz/59N hybrid and I've never had a problem building a hybrid until now?

It sounds like a screening issue to me. There's been a lot posted on screening.

Have you installed any cavity screening on the guitar?


Originally Posted by octavedoctorIt sounds like a screening issue to me. There's been a lot posted on screening.

Have you installed any cavity screening on the guitar?

Screening? you mean sheilding? i have lined the electronics cavity with foil tape.... I did not foil line the pickup rout under the Tele bridge.... I figured since you have that huge metal plate and solid wood under the PU i thought why bother.. Guess i could try and line the pickup cavity as well....

But i also have a Duncan Custom that has the same type of extra noise.... I have 2 Customs and one is extra noisy and the other is dead quiet... I've tried the noisey Custom one in many different guitars with different pickguards, pots and jacks. so on.... so far i have about 10 Duncan pickups and 3 seem to be noisey... i've been racking my brain trying to figure out why these 3 are noisier...

WhoFan

so besides maybe a need for more sheilding, there is no other answers as to why these 59's are noisey? Stratdeluxer had noise when he was modding his 59's and corrected it be removing a bobbin and reattacting the ground wire to the base plate.... If this is the trouble with my 59's and my Custom it must be coming out of the factory this way...


Originally Posted by WhoFanso besides maybe a need for more sheilding, there is no other answers as to why these 59's are noisey? Stratdeluxer had noise when he was modding his 59's and corrected it be removing a bobbin and reattacting the ground wire to the base plate.... If this is the trouble with my 59's and my Custom it must be coming out of the factory this way...

If you haven't taken your pickups apart,your noise is more than likely from within your guitar wiring and not the pickups....I've used a ton of Duncan's pickups and I've made several Hybrids and so far I've only had problems with this last one...It's not the norm for the plate ground wire to lose connection and I'd have not known anything about it,if it weren't for guys here on the forums telling me about it...

Have you tryed unsoldering and cleaning up your pot grounds? Do you have the pots and switch grounded all together? Can you move wires in and around the pots and switch etc and change the noise or lessen it? What about resoldering the connections to the jack?

These types of wiring problems are a real PITA,but most of us will help you through it...

My hamer has all top notch wiring/shielding/components, etc linky...and I've noticed the 59s are a little noisy too..moreso than either of my Gibsons with quot;crappyquot; pots, BBs/49xs, etc...


Originally Posted by STRATDELUXER97If you haven't taken your pickups apart,your noise is more than likely from within your guitar wiring and not the pickups....I've used a ton of Duncan's pickups and I've made several Hybrids and so far I've only had problems with this last one...It's not the norm for the plate ground wire to lose connection and I'd have not known anything about it,if it weren't for guys here on the forums telling me about it...

Have you tryed unsoldering and cleaning up your pot grounds? Do you have the pots and switch grounded all together? Can you move wires in and around the pots and switch etc and change the noise or lessen it? What about resoldering the connections to the jack?

These types of wiring problems are a real PITA,but most of us will help you through it...

What i ended up doing was disconnecting everything and just wired the bridge pickup straight to a new Gibson pot and from there to the jack.... i had a cheaper imported pot in there before.... still the 59 is noisey.... My 2 Epiphones had all sorts of noise just like these 59's and when i changed the pot to a real Gibson and wired the single bridge humbucker up the noise went away.... so the noise had to be the wires.. but it didn't go away for this tele with the 59's.. I'm going to pull the 59's out tomorrow and try them in a strat with all new wire and pots and switches and see if that helps....

PS- The bridge to pot ground wired i used for this tele was a copper strained wire... fairly thick.... I've seen a lot of guitars with thin strained wire and even solid core wires.... do you think the ground wire may be a source of the trouble?


Originally Posted by WhoFanPS- The bridge to pot ground wired i used for this tele was a copper strained wire... fairly thick.... I've seen a lot of guitars with thin strained wire and even solid core wires.... do you think the ground wire may be a source of the trouble?

Sorry to say brother,but it ends up purely being process of elimination with these kinds of problems!

Try anything and everything until you solve the problem...


Originally Posted by STRATDELUXER97Sorry to say brother,but it ends up purely being process of elimination with these kinds of problems!

Try anything and everything until you solve the problem...

Thanks for trying... i'll keep ya in touch if i figure it out..... Tomorrow i may not get too much of a chance to work on the problem as there is a party here tomorrow... but i'll try to sneak away to work on it somehow!


Originally Posted by WhoFanThanks for trying... i'll keep ya in touch if i figure it out..... Tomorrow i may not get too much of a chance to work on the problem as there is a party here tomorrow... but i'll try to sneak away to work on it somehow!

I walked away from the problem I had with my guitar for a day,came beck the next day after pondering on some things,and fixed it..

Sometime today i'll try to change all the wires and try a different pot again.... I found a new 250K pot in a bag the other day.... the other pots i tried were 500k's which is normally what you would think a humucker would like.... I have a feeling a 250k may increase the buzz but we'll see...


Originally Posted by WhoFanSometime today i'll try to change all the wires and try a different pot again.... I found a new 250K pot in a bag the other day.... the other pots i tried were 500k's which is normally what you would think a humucker would like.... I have a feeling a 250k may increase the buzz but we'll see...

The pot value won't make the noise louder...You have either a wiring problem or a shielding problem that I Know you'll get figured out soon.

Hopefully you already have ruled out a bad cable or your amp(s) and the location of where you're playing?

OK after working most of the day trying different things i came close to smashing this MF into a million pieces..... Stupid 59's i'll never buy again... First thing i did today was take the guitar apart and completely rebuilt it... new pots, new wires, new ground wire to the bridge.... I just wired the bridge pickup to a new 250K pot and to the jack. Plugged it back into my amp and it was noisey as hell..... I grabbed some other guitars with Duncans and plugged them in so i can A/B them with the problem guitar and the bridge 59 is by far the noiseiest pickup i have owned.....

I ended up cutting the bridge 59 out of the guitar altogether and took the neck postion 59 into the bridge and wired it to a single pot and out to the jack.. It is much better and has about the same amount of noise as my Duncan Custom in my MIM strat....

I rebuilt the guitar a few times today.... i even tried to see if removing all the foil sheilding i used in the cavities to see if there was a grounding problem with that..... It was a long shot but i tried it...

So now i'm pretty certian the noise is something to do with the PU itself and since it has been about 1 year since i bought these PU's i'm stuck with some noisy cr*p.....

Kind of sad in a way as i really wanted the 59's as i really liked the vintage look and the paper tape, the wooden spacer..

WHOFAN


Originally Posted by WhoFanOK after working most of the day trying different things i came close to smashing this MF into a million pieces..... Stupid 59's i'll never buy again... First thing i did today was take the guitar apart and completely rebuilt it... new pots, new wires, new ground wire to the bridge.... I just wired the bridge pickup to a new 250K pot and to the jack. Plugged it back into my amp and it was noisey as hell..... I grabbed some other guitars with Duncans and plugged them in so i can A/B them with the problem guitar and the bridge 59 is by far the noiseiest pickup i have owned.....

I ended up cutting the bridge 59 out of the guitar altogether and took the neck postion 59 into the bridge and wired it to a single pot and out to the jack.. It is much better and has about the same amount of noise as my Duncan Custom in my MIM strat....

I rebuilt the guitar a few times today.... i even tried to see if removing all the foil sheilding i used in the cavities to see if there was a grounding problem with that..... It was a long shot but i tried it...

So now i'm pretty certian the noise is something to do with the PU itself and since it has been about 1 year since i bought these PU's i'm stuck with some noisy cr*p.....

Kind of sad in a way as i really wanted the 59's as i really liked the vintage look and the paper tape, the wooden spacer..

WHOFAN

I have another 59 you can try if you want? You know it's just a noisey 59 pickup for sure though huh?

Hey John... I'm sure it's the PU..... i have changed everything you can in that guitar and the bridge postion 59 i have is noisey as hell..... Close to a P90... The Neck postion 59 pickup i have installed in the bridge now and it is a lot better as far as cutting the noise..... I know the neck postion 59 has a few less turns of wire but it is much quieter....

Now what do i do with a one year old 59 that is noisey.... should of returned them a long time ago!

Thinking i'll pull the whole guitar apart again and install some different pickups altogether into this tele... I have a few Yamaha humbuckers that are quiet but they are not the greatest for tone.... kind of sucks that the 59's are not working for me... I figured since they are low output humbuckers they would of been more quiet then my other guitars with high output humbuckers.... The neck 59 is OK in the bridge for now but it's coming out of there too...

Chris...I Pmd you back....Send me that 59 and I'll resolder the wires and repot it for you....Maybe we can get it fixed up for you so you can use it without problems....No charge...


Originally Posted by STRATDELUXER97Chris...I Pmd you back....Send me that 59 and I'll resolder the wires and repot it for you....Maybe we can get it fixed up for you so you can use it without problems....No charge...

Wow! What can i say but thank you thank you thank you!!!!