Noise from guitar pick ups - could this be normal?

[Keregioz]

Hey guys,

I seem to have a problem with my guitar, I get a lot of noise from the pickups, here's a small clip demonstrating the problem:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/316805/noise.mp3

You can hear it each time I mute the strings in the start of the clip and as the palm mute fades in the middle part. In the end where I leave the guitar idle without touching anything you can hear some kind of interference which stops each time I touch the volume pot or the bridge or the strings. I recently changed the stock pickups (carvin) with a dimarzio crunch lab and a seymour duncan 59, I had the problem with both sets, it was worst with the carvin ones though.

The guitar tech I gave the guitar to warned me that it's common to have noisy pick ups when you have a 5-way coil splitting switch instead of a simple 3-way one. And it could cause even bigger problem that the 2 pick ups are a different brand.

Now, I may not know absolutely anything about electronics but to me all that sounds like bullshit, I can't imagine something like this being normal. Before I installed EMGs in my other guitar (schecter C7) I had SD JB and 59 with a 5-way switch with no noise problems whatsoever.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Any idea what could cause this? Maybe it's common with high output passive pickups?

 

[Scott Horner]

Sounds like a grounding issue.

 

[Wolfeman]

^ yep.

 

[Keregioz]

Any idea how to solve it?

 

[Scott Horner]

Check that the wiring configuration is correct and make sure all of the connections are well soldered. If you have a tremolo cavity, there should be a ground wire in there as well. Otherwise, you can try and shield the electronics cavity with some foil to see if that helps.

 

[Terminus]

Otherwise, you can try and shield the electronics cavity with some foil to see if that helps.

To be specific... I use this stuff in all my guitars. It's tape so you can just tack in all in the cavity. There's also a spray paint type of shielding you can buy.

http://www.intertexelectronics.com/images/MG-841-340G.jpg

 

[Keregioz]

It seems the guitar already came with aluminum foil shielding from the manufacturer.
Thanks all for the replies, if you guys are sure it's only a grounding issue I guess I'll take it again to the guitar tech and have a talk with him. Better not try to mess with the electronics myself cause I'm a total newb with this.

 

[Wolfeman]

There is an easy way to solve this. If it has shielding, then there should be a wire coming from the bridge and ground that touches the shield some where. If it's there, disconnect it. See if the noise goes away. If it's not there, add it, see if the noise goes away.

 

[Keregioz]

There is an easy way to solve this. If it has shielding, then there should be a wire coming from the bridge and ground that touches the shield some where. If it's there, disconnect it. See if the noise goes away. If it's not there, add it, see if the noise goes away.

That's interesting, I might try it.
Btw, I just came from the guitar tech and he is absolutely sure it's no grounding problem and the noise is normal behavior from certain pickups or pickup combinations. If that's true then probably it's the dimarzio that causes it. Still, I find it strange.

 

[Mutant]

In the end where I leave the guitar idle without touching anything you can hear some kind of interference which stops each time I touch the volume pot or the bridge or the strings.

Bad ground.

PERIOD

But it doesn't have to be caused by anything inside the guitar.

It can be also from dirty ground in your house AC wiring.

Take a tester and check the ground connection in the outlet.

 

[hsinn3r]

Yes, definitely a grounding problem. If the shielding (metal foil) is in place, then it's probably some loose cable, or a cold connection (ψυχρή κόλλησ&#951. IF everything is ok, you could try star-shielding, to remove any possible ground loops http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php

 

[Keregioz]

It did the exact same thing in the guitar tech's workshop, so I assume if there's a problem it's in the guitar. Plus, I've never had this problem with a guitar in my house...well except when I had a CRT monitor.

I can live with the buzz when the guitar is idle but the hum on the palm mutes troubles me because there's no way you can edit it out when recording.

 

[Wolfeman]

Yeah there is no reason to live with that noise. If it's doing that it's not wired correctly. You can't really blame it on the amp if there is no noise present when the input cable is unplugged. If it was the amps input grounding, it would do it unplugged too.

 

[Keregioz]

So...the good news: I tried to play with my other guitar yesterday (schecter with emgs707) and there's still hum (no buzz when idle though), so it seems my guitar wasn't the problem. At least not for the hum which was my biggest concern.
Bad news: I still don't know what is causing it. I've been using the same setup for years, guitar>podxt>m-audio 2496 and I'm pretty sure I didn't have this problem before. The only thing that I changed recently is getting a better guitar cable but I tried the old one and the hum is still there so that wasn't the problem.

Any ideas?

 

[Wolfeman]

Ground loop somewhere in the chain. Always a pain in the ass to track down.

 

[colonel kurtz]

The only thing that I changed recently is getting a better guitar cable but I tried the old one and the hum is still there so that wasn't the problem.

i recently jumped from using standard braided guitar cables to gold-plated monster cables, and noticed that the amount of noise increased significantly with the "better" cables...my best guess is that there's always been some sort of grounding issue going on with my setup, but that it took the improved conductivity of the gold connectors to really make it stand out uke:

 

[Keregioz]

I got an elixir cable, but the amount of noise is just the same with my old cheap one.

Btw, I removed my PC completely from the chain, and went guitar>pod>headphones and there's still noise...so either there's something wrong with the pod or there's some kind of interference inside my room? I remember the exact same noise when I had a CRT monitor. Maybe I'll try moving pod in another place.