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Hello friends--I'm a bit puzzled by the hum I'm getting from the stock ('57 Classic) humbuckers on my new (to me) 2006 ES-175, and was wondering if any of you have had similar issues with your jazz boxes.
The hum is most noticeable at full volume in the bridge or treble positions, and largely goes away in the middle position. It's not quite as loud as a single coil hum, but definitely louder than you would expect from a humbucker. I have plugged into different amps, and can confirm the hum is from the guitar, not my amp or the wiring in my home.
The fact that a) I'm getting hum from both pickups and b) the noise cancels out in the middle position makes me suspect a grounding problem somewhere other than the individual pickup + volume + tone circuits. I pulled out the old multimeter and checked the grounding at the pickup selector switch, the tailpiece, and the output jack, and everything seems OK (less than 1 ohm between the different grounded components).
My question--has anyone dealt with this issue before? And any suggestions of what to try next?Last edited by norpron; 02-24-2015 at 01:20 PM.
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02-24-2015 01:14 PM
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Bad ground wire connection, bad solder joints, bad guitar cord, bad lighting, bad power, you guitar has been possessed.
You have to go and start eliminating things to isolate that its the guitar and nothing else. Then can get like a dentist's mirror and a small flashlight and start checking the wiring and solder joints.
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I would run through docbops' list above to troubleshoot the problem. Rule out the guitar chord first. A bad ground connection in a guitar lead emits terrible hum, so substitute a known good lead first to see if that is your problem. After that I would be checking the ground connections in your guitar itself, starting with the input jack and then the back of the pots. Bad power and lighting is another issue.
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Thanks to both of you for the helpful thoughts!
The cable and the amp were the first things I checked. I also removed the tailpiece last night and made sure that the ground wire was making a good connection to the tailpiece. I have fished out the output jack and pickup selector switch, and the soldering looks correct on both of those components.
Next step is to look at the grounding/solder joints on the pots, but I kind of doubt those are my problem, as it would take a bad solder joint on both pickup circuits to cause my set of symptoms (buzzing from both pickups individually). Certainly possible, but the odds are low. For that reason, I think my issue is likely at a grounding point common to both circuits (i.e. the pickup switch, the output jack, or the tailpiece/bridge grounding wire). Unfortunately, I can't find a problem at any of those points.
If I can't find any problems with the soldering at the pots, maybe the next step would be to plug the amp into an isolated ground to see if the issue is with the wiring in my home.
Any and all other thoughts or suggestions are welcome!
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Are both pickups the same amount of hum? Just on that guitar? Some humbuckers are better at rejecting hum than others. I have some that pick up hum depending on how the guitar is oriented.
Try a different guitar in the same room and try all over your space / house / apartment, especially if you have a basement, or an area that won't have electrical running below it (ie. not the ground or 2nd floor).
The surefire way to troubleshoot it is freshly solder each pickup to an output jack and plug it into an amp. Then slowly add in parts until you get hum. If you get hum with just the pickup then you know it's the pickup, and so forth. As docbop said, it could be a bad joint or bad pot, but it may just be the pickups.
The only way to fix a possessed guitar is to send it to me. I have a 10 year exorcism program that works wonders.
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I have tried plugging in all over the house, including the basement, and still get noise. Both pickups do give about the same amount of hum. My only other electric is a Strat with single coils, which are of course noisy, but I haven't been able to compare the noise with another guitar with humbuckers.
Great suggestion to solder each pickup directly to an output jack and work my way back. I'll have to see how that goes. I'll be pretty disappointed if it's the pickups themselves--I've always considered the Gibson '57 classics to be high-quality pickups, and would hate to find out that I have two bad ones.Last edited by norpron; 02-26-2015 at 02:57 PM.
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Definitely post back with your findings. I ask about other humbuckers because there is wiring under my floor (old house) that made most humbuckers hum, and it took me forever to figure out. Just moving 5 feet solved it. So it is possible for even good ones to hum, but the condition causing it would likely be extreme. Fingers crossed it is just a bad solder job along the way.
Last edited by spiral; 02-26-2015 at 07:02 PM.
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Originally Posted by norpron
Do you have a local music store or someplace that you know has clean power and tried the guitar there.
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does the hum change as you point the guitar in different directions around the room?
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I'd have to say it doesn't. At least not noticeably like my guitar with single coils. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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Maybe I should dig myself out of this Colorado snow and head down to my local music store! Originally Posted by docbop
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So just a quick update for those who care. I tore the guitar apart and soldered the pickups directly to an output jack and plugged it in. The same hum is definitely there. So I either have a faulty set of pickups, bad power, or above-average noise in my house. I'm leaning toward the latter. It's not a power issue, or at least not one that is easily fixed, as isolating the ground on my amps did not yield any improvement. I think I need to accept that I live in a noisier house than most.
I get that no humbucker will have perfectly balanced coils, and therefore won't perfectly cancel out the hum, but I wonder if there's a better balanced humbucker I can throw into my guitar given the seemingly extreme noise issues at my house. Any suggestions for an aftermarket pickup to look at?
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Seems really odd they are so noisy. Have you played at a friends house or from some other power source? One more thing worth trying before you shell out for pickups is a new input jack. I have come across the odd faulty one on occasion. However usually they short out, so a fault or bad connection on the ground side alone would be rare and highly improbable--if not impossible--but it's cheap and worth a try anyway.
Last edited by wildschwein; 03-05-2015 at 09:30 AM.
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Does the hum have the right "thunk" to it? :^)
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Definitely a good thought--when I pulled the pickup out I actually soldered it to a brand new input jack I had lying around the house. I then connected that input jack to a cable that I know is good, which went straight into my amp. I experimented with pointing the pickup in different directions and moving it to different positions in the room, and found that all were noisy, but some were noisier than others. I have two amps, and got the same results from both. I tried floating the ground where the amp plugs into the wall, and got the same results. Originally Posted by wildschwein
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Oh, how I wish it did Originally Posted by Hammertone
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For anyone still following this thread, I just wanted to post a quick update that I found the problem. There was a noisy light dimmer switch on the other side of the house that was wreaking all kinds of interference havoc. Once I took care of the dimmer switch and touched up the solder joints in my guitar for good measure, my baby is as quiet as a church mouse.
Thanks again to everyone for your suggestions and help!
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Great news!
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Ryan, are you certain it's the pickups, and not the amp or some other issue? The magnet type should not affect the noise, other than changing the output a little. Single-coil pickups are inherently noisy, but humbuckers should be quiet. Amp noise and electromagnetic interference are always a possibility.
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Are these actually two-coil humbuckers? I've never heard of Anvil, Railhammers, or any of the others you mention, so I don't know how they're made. Just because the vendor names it Humcutter, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a humbucker. Single-coil pickups often are noisy, because of the way they're made. That's why humbucking pickups with two coils were invented.
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P90s are not humbuckers, they're single-coil. And they can be noisy like any other single-coil pickup. But if you found a solution that works for you, use it and get on with life.
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The OP for this thread said the problem was solved be replacing a dimmer switch in 2015. Seems like the last few posts belong in a new thread instead of waking up a zombie.
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Guys please help me. I have a strat, I changed the bridge pickup to a humbucker. The humbucker is very noisy. Position 1 is humbucker and its very noisy, position two is coil split and middle pickup and its not noisy. Why is my humbucker so noisy? But when splitted and paired with the middle pickup the noise goes away? All of my solder joints are solid, all of the wirings are correct. The value of my pots is 250k. I have followed the autosplit wiring of seymour duncan. Guys please help me. I dont know what to do.
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Double check the wiring. Then check all connections with an ohmmeter, set to its lowest range. My wild guess is a ground connection is miswired or poorly soldered. Originally Posted by edward44_4
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