software

Occurs on all my guitars. Take your fingers off the strings and it starts buzzing. I'm pretty sure the guitar is grounded right, all grounds goto the same point (incl. the wire from bridge), then to the output jack.

What am i doing wrong? is it avoidable at all?
Thanks if you can help!

I was under the impression that grounding to the strings was somewhat the point?

So your saying that theres no way to get the grounding noise to go away when youre not touching the guitar?

You could get EMG's, or another active pickup...they don't need to be grounded to your strings. Other than that...a noise gate could help...

You are part of the ground system.... EMG's like the guy said is the only other system that would stop the hum.... But why would this hum bother you? When you are playing you have your hands on the strings anyways.

yeah its totally fine, i was just curious! Thanks for your help

Yes, basically YOU are the ground, and thats why it stop buzzing when you touch the strings as your connecting it to the ground.

I was under the impression that is a sign of a bad ground. None of my humbucker-equipped guitars do that. There is a small amount of noise if I crank the gain, but the buzz does not change if I take my hand off the strings.

This is a common misconception, that the quot;hands off' buzz is a symptom of a faulty earth (ground). The fact that the buzz goes when you touch the strings means that the earth connection to the strings is OK.

The buzz is inductive and is caused by the unscreened wiring inside the guitar picking up radiant noise from surrounding equipment such as fluorescents and neons.

This is different from the 60hz hum that humbuckers and rw/rp pairs eliminate. it's coming from the aerial farm inside the guitar's cavity.

The solution is to screen the guitar's insides with conductive paint around the cavity and foil on the scratchplate.

This must be done to professional standards; a sloppy job will cause more problems than it cures.

The screen must be connected to the earth circuit of the controls for it to work, if it isn't, then it will intensify the buzz by creating a quot;floating potentialquot; (don't ask me to explain this in detail, this is here-be-dragons territory for me!). Ironically, Seymour is using this discontinuous screen effect to enhance noise reduction in the new stacked humbucker designs!


Originally Posted by big_blackNone of my humbucker-equipped guitars do that.

uh ...


Originally Posted by Curlyuh ...

He said quot;all of his guitarsquot;. He didn't specify whether they were single coil or humbucking pickups. I figure if anyone has more than more than two guitars, there's at least one with a humbucker in there...maybe not.

It's got nothing to do with the pickups or whether they are humbuckers or single coils...

sorry for being a wise a$$ earlier ...

I can't remember if my HB guitars have a ground noise or not ... I try not to let it bother me with strats ... I tried shielding one of my strats, but I thought it reduced highs, so I took it out

with my ash strat, I got a full under-pickguard shield with my Callaham parts, and I think if you look in the Fender Stratocaster book, Fender actually used those full shields at one point early on, then sometime later went to just the foil at the control cavity area


Originally Posted by octavedoctor
The screen must be connected to the earth circuit of the controls for it to work, if it isn't, then it will intensify the buzz by creating a quot;floating potentialquot;

AHHHH....knew i had forgot something! i didnt earth the shielding on my guitar. Just did it then and yes it makes quite a difference (still a tiny bit of noise when i take my hand off) but nothing like before. thanks doctor!


Originally Posted by larry_emderAHHHH....knew i had forgot something! i didnt earth the shielding on my guitar. Just did it then and yes it makes quite a difference (still a tiny bit of noise when i take my hand off) but nothing like before. thanks doctor!

Always glad to be of help!