Buzzing & Squeeking

[prekabreki]

Hi there
If someone could help me with this problem I'd greatly appreciate it, I've just been playing for about seven months so I really don't know the technical side of things at all.
It's an Epi Thunderbird, I realize it's no jewel but it has always done what I wanted. At last band practice out of nowhere squeeking and whitenoise came out of the amp and I tried rattling the jack about a bit and stuff and the squeeking stopped when I tightened the input on the bass. But since then there has been a very loud buzzing from the bass.
I tried multiple cords so it wasn't that. I opened it up from the back and saw nothing...like twisted or snapped or something.
Then I tried holding my hand around the cord and the buzzing stopped. I just don't know what to do with that information.
If

I hold a couple of fingers around the base of the cord the buzzing stops. So any ideas?
(This is my first post but I've been reading these forums for months! )

[JustDavid]

My guess is the output jack of the bass wants replacement, or if it's an 'open' jack you can bend the part that contacts the plug's tip inward a bit.

[prekabreki]

Thanks, bending the connecting thingy inwards fixed the buzzing significantly, there's still more buzz then there was at first but at least it isn't unbearable anymore. It's a fairly new bass can it really be that it needs some parts replaced already?...