strange question about body chemistry and pickups/noise

[John Yeh]

I was looking at the quieting electronics thread and I'm going to try that on my 62 reissue Jazz. Weirdly enough I touch the strings and it seems to ground the bass. However, when other people touch the strings nothing happens. Is there a body chemical grounding reaction that can occur and different people with different ph or whatever does a slightly different thing?

Also I find when I play jazz basses in general they tend to be noisier. Is it just me or did I just notice this after twenty years.

[line6man]

Touching the strings should ground the bass for anyone, though I suppose the presence of sweat and the saltiness of said sweat would change the resistance through your body to the ground potential to a very slight degree.

Jazz basses are noisy creatures because of the single coil pickups, btw.