pickup hum

[michaell]

Put a set of Lace Sensors on a tele. Worked fine...no noise...nice tones......

 

Now unless I am touch the strings the guitar makes noise....a sort of hum.

It seems like the human touch is some sort of grounding.

 

Any ideas what is causing this?

 

thanks

[WRGKMC]

Thats normal on most guitars but you may want to try a another cord.

 

Whats likely happened, lace sensors have a lower output and to compensate the amps running a littel louder. You can check all your grounds inside and make sure there arent any long unshielded wires inside.

 

If thats all OK, you can reduce a whole lot more shielding the guitar cavity and pickguard with grounded copper foil. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Supplies:_Shielding.html

 

You see the human body is mostly water and a good conductor. When you touch the grounded strings your body absorbs any AC radio frequencies in the air before they get to the guitar and they get grounded before they can generate noise in the guitar. Dimmers, Flourecent lighting, CRT screens all generate high levels of AC noise too.

 

If you give the cavity better shielding than your body is, then the difference when the strings is much less. In simple terms, you want to make your guitar noiseless by building a metal box inside around your components to shield it from stray magnetic waves, AC being the strongest.

 

Unshielded wires act like an antenna and pick up everything. I even have a strat that will pick up radio stations. Pretty spookey stuff when it happens. You can also buy metal plates you can install under the pickguard that help. Some guitars use conductive metalic paint inside for grounding too.

[michaell]

Thanks. Consider :

 

The guitar worked fine for a couple years....then the noise / human ground condition appeared.

 

Seems to me like maybe a wire is loose?

 

I have Lace Sensors on 3 other guitars and never had this problem. Those guitars are dead quiet through various amps amd cables.

 

Any other ideas ?

[Belva]

Bridge ground? Has it come loose?

[michaell]

 

Bridge ground? Has it come loose?

 

 

Thank you.

 

I guess I need to get up courage to grab a scew driver, take it apart and look under the hood. I prefeer to leave this job to the experts!

 

Is it possible the pickups are faulty?

[Belva]

 

Is it possible the pickups are faulty?

 

Yes. With a tele I don't know if the bridge ground did come loose. That's what is sounds like, but bridge ground concerns usually crop up on strats more often than on teles.

[Johnny Two Tone]

If the hum goes away when you touch the strings but you definitely have no loose solder points then I wonder if you're getting a coil or ground loop somewhere.

 

For instance, I have a long 8 channel snake that will add hum to the signal if I have it coiled up and near other equipment.

 

None the less if the guitar is dead quite when you touch the strings for most cases that's just the way it is.

 

In fact, now that I think about it I built a guitar for a buddy once, with Lace Drop 'N Gain pups and it had a slight hum when I didn't touch the strings and it drove me nuts trying to figure out why. Of course there was no reason; that's just the way it was.

[michaell]

thanks to all

 

hope to get this resolved soon

 

I was absolutely thrilled with the sound of this tele...Fender FSR from 2006........not many like it........chambered mahogany body.....Lace Sensors installed a month after purchase........has unique acoustic properties in the tone..........but this noise is killing me......

 

thanks again for takin the time to help