JB Jr. Buzz

HNB

I finished swapping the JB Jr. from my Mustang (Which is getting a full JB) to my Strat. I got it all wired as per SD's instructions. Black hot, Green and bare ground, and Red and White together and taped. I noticed when I touch the poles of the JB Jr. I get a buzz sound. I read some places that is normal, but I wanted to confirm before sealing it back up. It is silent if I don't touch the poles which I think is good. No 60 cycle hum or anything. Just makes a buzz when I touch any of the poles. Let me know your thoughts. The only humbuckers I have had were covered with the plates, so I don't know if touching the poles should make a buzz like that. The advice I heard "don't touch them when you play" works, but I wanted to confirm this is normal. Thanks in advance!

DSC09005 by Hentai No Baka, on Flickr

HNB

By the way, I contacted SD and left them a message. I will let you all know what I hear.

I haven't heard back from SD yet, but after going through eight pages of google I came to two possible answers:

A: The noise is normal because my body is acting like an antenna and amplifying noise around me like if you touch the end of a guitar cable when it is plugged in. (Same noise.)

B. I need to reverse the positive and negative cables. (I think this is less likely because the green and bare would then both need to be hot and the single black would become ground.)

Anyone else with ideas? I touched the poles of my PAF Joe and X2N and heard a little noise like what I was dealing with. I also wired those so that could be an issue. 😀 I tried some guitars here at work and they did not make noise when I touched the poles. They could be lower output too. No definate answer yet.

HNB

So after talking to SD's tech support I am no better than before. They seemed to think that it is abnormal and shouldn't happen. The guy (who was nice to talk to) suggested maybe switching the green and black to phase it in case an internal wire is touching the poles. If I did that, he said I would need to reverse all my wiring on my other pickups to get them all phased the right way. I haven't tried that yet. Instead, I checked my soldering to make sure nothing was loose. I touched up some points I thought could be weak and now it buzzes all the time. I seemed to have made the problem worse. I guess tonight I will try reversing the pickup and see if that fixes it. Otherwise I will have to take it in and have someone look at it. Not to thrilled about that because I am almost certain they will overcharge me for the fix. Best price I have seen so far is $30 an hour. I think it could be fixed in under an hour, but I am unsure how honest these places will be about the labor. (Not to mention I would like to know what was wrong so I can do my own wiring more confidently.)

Still working on it. Wouldn't it suck if the pickup was just bad and no matter what I do to "fix" it, nothing would work? LOLOL

HNB

/sigh I just read on SD's wiring diagrams that if your neck and middle are Fender pickups, the black and green have to be reversed. Updates still to come once I get home and fire up the soldering iron.

HNB

Reversed the black and green wires and sounds the same. I have a nasty ground issue now. A hum (not the 60 cycle) that quiets when I touch metal. Pretty sure it isn't JUST the pickup. I disconnected that and the buzz was still there. I am at a loss. No idea what is going on. The grounds are all in the right place. I even reconnected them to the pots to make sure my solder was good. If I hear what the issue is when I pay to get it fixed, I will let you all know.

(From the zero responses other than myself, I am sure there are loads of people interested in the solution... LOL)

HNB

Odd thing today. I brought my strat to work so I could borrow a multimeter from the sound engineer teacher. Checked my connections which all seemed good. Only thing is my bridge instead of reading as 0 was reading around 4 or 5k. I disconnected the bridge ground to see if that helped (yeah I know it is needed) and it didn't get rid of the noise so I soldered it back on. There is still a slight hum with volume at max that quiets when I touch metal, but the JB isn't buzzing on the poles now. Not sure how what I did helped, but now I just need to solve the ground puzzle. If my grounds are all in the right place, why do I still have hum that stops when I touch the bridge or any metal grounded piece....

HNB

After searching it sounds like my guitar is now fine. A small amount of hum or buzz that goes away if you touch the metal usually would only improve with shielding. (Which I don't really feel the need to do.) The only time I hear it is when the amp is full blast and the guitar is full blast with the tbx treble at full. I think it is good enough. I will do some sound testing when I get home. (And put all the screws back in before any problems pop up again. LOL)

SOUNDS GREAT! I love the JB mixed with the strat pickup. Cool sound.

DSC09009 by Hentai No Baka, on Flickr

DSC09010 by Hentai No Baka, on Flickr