Humbucker humming?

[ACR4V3N]

I've got a simple problem/question. After rewiring a guitar, I noticed it had a slight hum, which increased when I strummed the strings (or the pickups were picking up noise for that matter). It was a slight hum and after completely wiring it again, the hum was back again.

 

I decided to isolate the problem and go to the source; the humbucker itself. Its a four conductor seymour duncan (I've used this pickup only months ago in a guitar before and it worked flawlessly), so I took the bare and green, and grounded them directly to an output jack. I twisted and soldered the red and white together. Then I took the black and connected it directly to the hot output on the output jack. It still hums. I tried attaching it to a perfectly working volume pot. Just as you might of guessed, it still hums. Everything is grounded and I even went so far to take it out of the guitar and have the pickup completely on its own. This didnt help.

 

When I touch the bottom metal plate of the humbucker, or the metal poles that "pickup" the sound, it reduces the sound but still not as quiet as it should be. I have a perfectly fine working fender highway one with a humbucker and it makes a little sound when its picking up sound, but nothing to noticable.

 

I understand my amp makes noise and some hum is inevitable. Im pretty sure my amp has a noise gate and when the sound is being picked up some of the hum leaks through when the distortion is high. The amp is functioning properly. I've tried different cables also. The humbucker it just hums on its own when there is no reason for the noise gate not to suppress everything. I took an old epiphone humbucker with no problems too and attatched it to an output jack and it also hums. But like I said, I have a perfectly good working fender as a control. I DONT KNOW ANY OTHER FACTORS TO CONSIDER.

[golias]

 

I've got a simple problem/question. After rewiring a guitar, I noticed it had a slight hum, which increased when I strummed the strings (or the pickups were picking up noise for that matter). It was a slight hum and after completely wiring it again, the hum was back again. I decided to isolate the problem and go to the source; the humbucker itself. Its a four conductor seymour duncan (I've used this pickup only months ago in a guitar before and it worked flawlessly), so I took the bare and green, and grounded them directly to an output jack. I twisted and soldered the red and white together. Then I took the black and connected it directly to the hot output on the output jack. It still hums. I tried attaching it to a perfectly working volume pot. Just as you might of guessed, it still hums. Everything is grounded and I even went so far to take it out of the guitar and have the pickup completely on its own. This didnt help. When I touch the bottom metal plate of the humbucker, or the metal poles that "pickup" the sound, it reduces the sound but still not as quiet as it should be. I have a perfectly fine working fender highway one with a humbucker and it makes a little sound when its picking up sound, but nothing to noticable. I understand my amp makes noise and some hum is inevitable. Im pretty sure my amp has a noise gate and when the sound is being picked up some of the hum leaks through when the distortion is high. The amp is functioning properly. I've tried different cables also. The humbucker it just hums on its own when there is no reason for the noise gate not to suppress everything. I took an old epiphone humbucker with no problems too and attatched it to an output jack and it also hums. But like I said, I have a perfectly good working fender as a control. I DONT KNOW ANY OTHER FACTORS TO CONSIDER.

 

 

At first it sounded to me like your pickup has a break in a wire, my guess would have been the green or bare.

 

But now you say that you tried another HB pup in the same guitar and you still have the problem, which makes me think it's not the pickup at all. Is there another high-gain amp you can try?

[ACR4V3N]

I dont have another highgain amp available, but I trust its not the amp. Like I said in my original post, I've used this pickup on this amp before with no problem. Also, I have a perfectly functional humbucking guitar available and the amp has no trouble. Its been the same since the day I've been using it for 2 years.

 

Let me describe this noise some more. Its not a normal ungrounded sound, in that it isnt nearly as loud or as interfering. It only hums a little, until the pickup acutally gets some input, then the hums volume increases with the volume of whatever its picking up. If I so much as touch the metal plate, it reduces it alot but its still not up to par of what it should be. I tried attaching a wire directly from the bottom of the pickup to the ground which didnt help. This goes for the epiphone humbucker and the seymour duncan.

 

I've replaced half a dozen pickups before and even wired a standard les paul set up, which worked perfectly fine. I just dont get it and feel like I'm going crazy thinking about it.

[ACR4V3N]

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