wiring question for Tom (and everyone else)

[kingtone]

Hi,
Tom I have been the guy pestering you about the redo of my cobra s wiring (yellow top bought on this forum)I have gotten it wired up and things are good except one thing. I suspect there is a bit of a grounding issue. There is a bit of hum when not touching the strings/metal parts and it goes away when you touch the bridge. I have seen this on other guitars and know it is some sort of grounding thing.

I was wondering if it could be this...on the 5 way there is the very first pin which has a wire curving around and soldered to the switch. On the pin should there be a wire that goes to a pot or somewhere else? Of course any other ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

[Dave K]

This question comes up frequently on the forum. Read this thread:
http://andersonforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=4084&highlight=noise+touching

[kingtone]

I have read much on the subject at this point without a lot of solutions...I want a solution. I am pretty sure it did not do this before.

Here is the story...I bought this from a fellow on this forum. In the sale there were two extra pickups included as well as the two already in the guitar. I figured I would try them all and when I had settled on my favorite I would do pretty much a full rewire using my faves of the bunch. The full rewire part is maybe me obsessing but the wiring that the other person(or someone else for him) did was way too sloppy for me to be happy. Now the guitar has new wiring and sounds good but there is the hum/grounding/shielding issue. I am positive it was not there before. I have three other nice electrics that are not doing this. My les paul used to do it but after the sheilding(with paint, etc) it is totally quiet. I know I should not have to sheild an anderson and my wiring seems pretty clean and precise so I figure I must have something just wrong or missing. I guess if I have to I can send it to Tom and have them officially redo it...maybe I should have done that to start with. At least then I know it is as good as it can be.

[kingtone]

follow up:

I just tried all guitars and everything hums a bit. I guess I just had not been hearing the hum at high volumes. Two of the four do not change much with the touching of the bridge, etc, maybe they do not have string grounds..? I also think my apartment is a bit noisy compared to some places I play. If anyone has any info for an improvement I am all ears but I guess until then I just have to roll with it. I suppose I just want everything to sound like a noise gate is on really strong but I refuse to use one!

[pipedwho]

To get the quietest operation out of an electric you need covered humbuckers that have closely matched coils. Uncovered can be good too, but the coils need to be even more closely matched. The Q-tuner humbuckers are apparently very quiet due to the very precisely matched coil winding, but they don't sound like a typical humbucker.

The problem with just getting a perfectly quiet/matched humbucker is that a slight coil mismatch adds to the character of the pickup, so matching the coils perfectly produces a different tone.

Either way, the noise/hum is nowhere near as bad as a single coil in the same environment.

(edit: The wiring in the guitar, and the cable also need to be well balanced to keep the problem to a minimum. I have a super quiet Schecter with two covered Duncan Alnico II Pros, but I also have a Graphtech Acoustisonic preamp inside that guitar. The preamp connects to both the magnetic and piezo pickups and eliminates the problem of connecting high impedance pickups to a long length of unbalanced guitar cable. This arrangement is incredibly quiet, and I'm tempted to see what happens if I try something similar in one of my TAGs.)

[tom]

something i learned as a young boy is to use the built in noise gate in all guitars, the volume control. when not playing it gets rolled off. it's like riding a bike. when you come to a stop you put your foot down so you don't fall. i don't mean this to be a smarty, it's just the way it works. some situations will be no trouble at all and some will be horrible. if you get used to rolling the volume off it will become a non issue. watch some vids of pros, or the bogner alchemist demo. they all roll the volume off when they're not playing.

[kingtone]

something i learned as a young boy is to use the built in noise gate in all guitars, the volume control. when not playing it gets rolled off. it's like riding a bike. when you come to a stop you put your foot down so you don't fall. i don't mean this to be a smarty, it's just the way it works. some situations will be no trouble at all and some will be horrible. if you get used to rolling the volume off it will become a non issue. watch some vids of pros, or the bogner alchemist demo. they all roll the volume off when they're not playing.

There you go being a smarty again Tom! I like to think I play at a pro level at least on proficiency, maybe not money/gig-wise...I definitely do work the volume control like you are speaking of, I am used to playing high volume and turning the knob off all the time that playing is not occurring. I also use a volume pedal which helps as well. I think I was just rattled at how noisy it is in my apartment. When I tried my other stuff, it was all noisier too so I guess it is just the location. I am always more worried by the noise in between your phrases, when the knob has to be up, but it will all be fine. Some of my friends think it does not sound right if there is no noise.

By the way, the cobra s rules.

as always thanks for your patience and help!

[Dave K]

It could be location or it could be a light or appliance,too.
The worst offender for me is a halogen torch lamp with a dimmer.
When dimmed down it creates terrible noise thru all my amps.

[ConnemaraGuitar]

Hello, Kingtone. I don't know if this helps, but the pickups on your Cobra should be rotated so the neck pickup is installed "backwards" (NOT upside down!). I have a drawing that shows this but the file is too large to attach and Photobucket doesn't seem to like .pdf files.

If you send me a PM with your email I'll forward it to you.

The other thing is to make sure your bridge is grounded; sometimes the ground wire doesn't make good contact with the shiny metal of the bridge.

The pickup cover idea is cool...I've been trying to come up with a way to make a pickup cover out of copper wire mesh that will grab any ambient electronic noise...but that's a project for later this year.

Then again, you can just turn the volume knob down. Or keep your pinky finger in touch with a string at all times.

[dannopelli]

Then again, you can just turn the volume knob down. Or keep your pinky finger in touch with a string at all times.

Really that is the easiest thing to do.

[kingtone]

Thanks for the replies folks.

I call the problem solved. When not in my apartment everything is fine.

I actually do have the pickup turned around (like the diagram said that Tom sent me) so no problem there.

I use the guitar volume control and a volume pedal as well and that works about as well as I think is possible.