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I am having issues with, dare I say it, HUM. I originally had a CC in the bridge, nothing is placed in the neck position. With the CC, there was obsolutely no HUM, but for some odd reason, the 59/CC combo is causing a considerate amount of hum. Enough hum to pull my ass from the couch. I'm sure others could tolerate it, but I can't stand hum, except the small dose from amplifers. I'll admit that I like a LITTLE hum coming out from my speakers. It adds to the characteristics of analog. Anyways, what's the deal? How do I get this hum down to a minimal level? My guitar is shielded with some type of texture, but I can see it is beginning to come up along the outer edges. Deal is, if I'm touching the strings, a portion of the hum is knocked out. But when I touch the volume pot, a large portion of this hum disapears. What should I do? I have re-solder all leads and grounds. Would switching from 4 conductor wiring to 2 conductor help any? I don't use the split option. Deal is, the 4 conductor wiring being used, is from the original CC that I had in the bridge previously. It didn't hum then. I don't know, and honestly, I'm getting tired of soldering. I've already taken one trip to ER because I bumped my arm into the soldering iron while it was still on. Should I go to 250k pots? Tone or Volume? New pots maybe? The ones currently in are not scratchy, but they have had there fair share of heat. To the point where it is difficult to solder. It doesn't want to stick sometimes. Yeah, I've sanded it down a couple of times. I'm using a .047 capacitor (ceramic, as well as poly). Sorry for the length, but I try to be specific. Thanks in advance, I appreciate the help.

Sounds like you got some troubleshooting to do. Chances are there's a ground loop. Go to and read up on it, perhaps look at the quot;Quieting the Beastquot; mod.

Does the 59 hum when by itself?
Does the CC hum by itself?
And how about in the middle position?

Gracias

Hey, what's the deal with the solder not sticking to the pots? It's getting really annoying. Would it be the pots or the solder. I have a feeling that this might be the reason. A wire or 2 may not be on their good enough. I mean where it comes up ever so slighty, but you don't notice cause the solder covers it up. Anyways, thanks for the link, it's much appreciated.

Try scratching up the back of the pot with some fine sandpaper. There may be some oxidation on it that needs to be removed.

Also, your iron could be the culprit. Make sure the tip is tinned.

The back of the pot takes more heat to get hot enough for the solder to melt and adhere to it.

Would that be the culprit. Again, with the Custom Custom in, I recieved absolutely no noise from my guitar. NONE. It was amazing. But I had to go and **** with it. I wanted just a little more PAF, but was disapointed with the 59, which was too much. I am happy with the 59/CC Hybrid, but the hum is annoying. I think I will try this wiring mod he suggested. My guitar already has paint shielding, that's why I suspect this is a pickup to ground issue, not the actual guitar itself.

Why can't I say, you know, the four letter word with an F. It's just a word, I wasn't using in a hateful manner. COM'N. Well, I guess I'll stop swearing.

Auto censored, my friend. Gotta keep it clean around here for the younger members, and their parents..lol.

Oh, so you are using a hybrid pickup. Gotcha. I thought you went from a single humbucker to dual humbucker setup. I misunderstood. Now that that's clear, it's either the wiring, and if the wiring checks out, it may be the pickup itself.

Has your 59 got a cover on it? if it has, check the solder joint between the cover and the baseplate. See my post here:
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Originally Posted by remingtonbo2001Hey, what's the deal with the solder not sticking to the pots? It's getting really annoying. Would it be the pots or the solder. I have a feeling that this might be the reason. A wire or 2 may not be on their good enough. I mean where it comes up ever so slighty, but you don't notice cause the solder covers it up. Anyways, thanks for the link, it's much appreciated.

Change your pots, Use 500k.ohm. Hum you describe can be caused if the pot has been heat damaged.

Briefly, keep soldering iron tip clean and tinned.

before installing the pots, clean them with a wire or fibreglass brush and tin the surface you will be soldering to. Use a resin cored flux and the minimum amount of heat. As soon as the solder flows, take the iron off the workpiece.

Do the same with the wire connections. Twist stranded wires so you don't get ragged bits. When you come to solder them to the pot casing put a little blob of solder on the iron and just touch it to the joint. The liquid solder will conduct heat to the joint and cause the two tinned surfaces to meld together. As soon as the solder flows, remove the heat.

Cooking the joint will cause the copper in the wire to embrittle causing joint failure later on.

That's it; it's easy!

It's probably the hybrid. A humbucker relies on (hopefully) perfectly matched coils to cancel electromagnetic interference. The coils also cancel some of the sound too, due to the fact that they are picking up different areas of the string. Switching to a highly unbalanced configuration like the hybrid lends a cleaner, glassier less cancelled sound. It also cancels less hum. Maybe should be called an 'un'bucker...

A cover would help a bit, but would do the Tele neck pickup cover thing to your sound, which might be good or bad.

No, actually their differences aren't too far apart. Well, acording to BachToRock. I love the sound from the 59/CC Hybrid. Perfect combination of OLD SCHOOL/NEW SCHOOL. I thought the CC lacked the slight PAF edge, but was incredibly smooth. I would even claim the CC to be the smoothest sounding pickup on the current market. Maybe not the best, but this thing is pure butter. Anyways.... The 59 itself, was too much, too open. So I spent I few days researching, trying to procrastinate the return of the 59. I stumbled upon an article by Bach and was hooked on the idea. The 59/CC Hybrid is a smooth pickup with a touch of glass. I just can't stand the hum that is coming out. My cavity is shielded. This is the only pickup in my guitar. The neck cavity is currently empty. I like it that way. It allows the strings to vibrate. This wouldn't cause more hum, would it? Anyways, I am going to try the Star wiring and see how much that helps out. Before I start, I was wondering how I take the pot's off. Just screw them off. Or do I need a special type of wrench? Anyways, I appreciate the help guys.

Hmmm... about 4k from the '59 paired with about 7k from the CC seems to me to be wildly different. Mucho cool sound though.

An empty neck pocket should have no effect on anything. I'm still thinking the hum is coming from the hybrid. Your best bet IMHO, is to treat it like a single coil guitar. Shielding around the pickup, wrapped around the coils, a cover, star grounding, all the classic Strat tricks to kill noise without changing pickups.

I'm not a big fan of grounded strings-- on a bad(good?) night, I act as an antenna for EMI and touching the strings makes a loud click followed by buzzing. That, and I keep getting shocked by touching improperly grounded things whilst holding my strings. It's a cop out that makes your body the ground for the guitar, thus(hopefully) absorbing hum.(and anything else floating around...)

Just pull the knobs off and loosen the nut with a socket. Or a needle-nosed pliers if you're very, very careful...


Originally Posted by ParameterManAn empty neck pocket should have no effect on anything. I'm still thinking the hum is coming from the hybrid.

Actually, by removing the neck pickup, the magnetic pull is reduced, which causes the strings to vibrate more freely. I was wondering though, to what extent. Removing the pickup will also quot;darkenquot; the sound and make the tone slightly warmer. I didn't think that this would be the culprit, but I also tend to overlook things. So I thought I would ask. I have a coat of shielding, as well, I put foil tape throughout the cavity, including the pickup cavity. I wish I could have used copper tape, but no one had any. I guess I could have order it online, but I figured this would do. Thanks for the help too, I forgot all about Guitar Nuts. I was going to use the quot;Tame the Beastquot; mod, but decided to go with a new pickup (Duncan CC) at the time. I later realized that my guitar was already shielded with paint. I thought this was amusing, considering it is an Ibanez GIO ($150). Best guitar under $400, although I have heard it is a hit or miss type of deal with low end Ibanez guitars. Well, my turned out fantastic, but every now and then the perfectionist comes out. Anyways, the help is much appreciated! Thanks!