Electrical buzzing advice sought please

[Ob Com]

Hi

I wonder if you can help me please.

i bought a new amp today, a fender 57 deluxe reissue.

I am getting that thing where there is an electrical buzzing until you touch the strings or a metal part of the guitar. Its loud enough to be intrusive and not “background”

So normally that would be a grounding issue in the guitar I think right?

But here is the thing, this amp does it with ALL of my guitars, not just one or two guitars, so I don’t think it can be the usual thing that a guitar needs re-grounding.

Does anybody know what this might be please, given that the noise is continual until I touch the strings/metal part BUT it does it on all my guitars (and I have never noticed it before on any of them on my previous amps).

I’m going into the “instrument 1” input, volume between 2-3, humbucker guitars.

Does this sound like a fault with the new amp or is it just par for the course with the tweed deluxe circuit?

thank you

[Gladders]

My amp did something similar and I sat for ages tapping different bits of pickup and string to make it stop. I even attached a wire from the bridge to the jack socket as an extra earth. I eventually realised the hum was dependant on how the dimmer switch on the ceiling light was set. It drove me mad until I turned off the main light and used a desk lamp.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

[rpjazzguitar]

There is a product that was reviewed in GP. Company called Aero Instruments.

It looks like a penny at the end of a piece of wire. You attach the wire to ground and you put the penny against your skin. It grounds you, not the guitar.

If I understood the physics, which maybe I don't, the issue is that your body acts as an antenna and, if you're close enough to the pickups, they sense it.

So, I guess, as an experiment, get the buzz happening and then walk away from the guitar. If it goes away, that might indicate that the antenna idea is right.

As far as grounding yourself, you're probably doing that every time you touch the strings. I'd suggest making sure that the chassis of the amp isn't hot (meaning carrying some voltage (or even potentially lethal voltage) because of an amp defect).

I can't explain why only one amp would do it. Particularly sensitive input? Doesn't make much sense. Might be interesting to try it with the amp way across the room in case the amp is generating an electrical field that your body/antenna is picking up. It may be obvious that I don't know what I'm talking about. But, I'd fiddle with the distances between body/guitar, guitar/amp, body/amp.

[starjasmine]

From your description, it could be an issue with the amp itself.

Does the amp buzz appreciably when no guitar cord is plugged in? If not, the problem could be the guitar cord itself. Try to identify an amp+cord+guitar combo that does NOT have the problem; if this known-good guitar + cord combo buzzes in the new amp, that points to the amp.

If you bought the amp new from a dealer, just take it back and demo the problem to them. No need to fix a new purchase yourself. If you can't repro the problem at the store, that points to electrical issues in your home wiring.

If taking the amp back to the dealer is not an option, try a different venue: a friend's house, or even different rooms/sockets in your own house.

Does the amp have a three-prong plug? If so, try a properly grounded AC outlet. If the amp does not have a ground-polarity switch, try using a three-prong-to-two-prong adaptor without grounding aka a "ground lift."

Until you're sure that lethal voltage is not present (an easy test if you have a voltmeter), wear gloves and sneakers while testing, so you are isolated from ground. And maybe get a friend to be present in case something untoward happens.

If all of the above is not feasible, take the amp to a good tech. None of the above is going to magically fix a bad filter capacitor...

HTH

SJ