Your humbucking pickup hums?

Harry Harris · From: Wisconsin, USA

A number of players are using various humbucking pickups to help reduce the noise and hum from a single coil. But what if your humbucker pup still produces noise/hum etc? This is what happened to me. I received a Fessenden SD10 supplied with a Lawrence L-705 (blade type) humbucker pickup sometime ago. I recently moved it to a different room that I turned into a small studio with various type of gear but also housed our wifi router etc. When I tried the steel out I noticed a strong hum that pulsated slowing in and out. It also had a weird ticking noise ever so often. Upon investigation I found that just touching the cable that ran from the pickup to the jack the noise increased. With this in mind I removed the jack and found that the basic wiring was connected correctly with two wires tied together and the hot and ground wire soldered to the jack points (humbucking mode). However upon further inspection saw that the pickup cable was shielded with braid but not connected to anything. At that point I rewired the cable as before but connected the braided shield along with the ground wire to the jack ground. Hooked everything up as before and presto no hum/noise (almost silent). I write this post as a possible solution to others who may experience the same issue. Depending on your environment and the type of pickup cable, if shielded and the shield is not connected to the jack ground you could very well experience the same issue. The shield protects the cables inside against interference and static. This interference and static needs to be drained somehow, else it will build up on the shield. Grounding the shield gives the captured interference and static a place to go. Otherwise you got all that interference surrounding you signal wire(s). I am a little bit baffled why the pickup shield was not connected to the jack ground in the first place along with the ground wire. Maybe some thoughts on this?

Forum Index > Electronics		Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic

All times are GMT - 8 Hours	Jump to: