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Buzz when I touch the strings? Huh?

Tylenol Jones

Tylenol Jones

Guest
Apr 22, 2014
20
3
#1
It's a Hofner CT Beatles bass which I bought new.

I never had that problem before. Played it often for months and months. Couldn't play it for a year because of some renovations we were doing so I put it in its case and took it out a couple of days ago only to discover this weird problem.

I know very little on the technical side, but the research I did indicates that one of the problems could be related to a string ground. I have no idea what that is but would have assumed that the folks at Hofner would have ran one so that this problem wouldn't occur.

Another possibility is that the output jack is faulty.

Are there any other possibilities? Anything that a novice like myself can do to attempt to fix this?

Lastly, I know it's the bass itself because my passive Jazz works perfectly silent in the same amp (Fender Bassman TV 15, if that matters).
 
#4
Your ground wire is probably off, the fact the buzz gets louder when you touch the strings indicates a ground issue. I am not familiar with a Hofner's guts but I am sure somebody here can assist you if you can post photos of the wiring.

A repair will most likely involve soldering. I do not know if this is within your pay grade but it is not a hard repair. It might just be loose under the bridge so you only need to re-seat the wire.
 
#5
i don't suppose you're using those black tapewound strings?

either way yeah, they should be grounded; it'll happen through the tailpiece, not the floating wood bridge.
 
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#6
The buzzing does get as pronounced as when I touch the strings when I make contact with the tailpiece, so that makes sense to me.

I'm definitely not great with a soldering iron as I don't have surgeon's hands so I think this will most likely be handed off to a tech, unless this is something that won't involve any soldering.

Some of the renovations were indeed electrical, but bear in mind that my tester indicates the power is clean and none of my guitars or my Jazz show any issue through any of my amps.
 
#7
Tylenol Jones said:
The buzzing does get as pronounced as when I touch the strings when I make contact with the tailpiece, so that makes sense to me.
Click to expand...
aha!

your tailpiece isn't grounded, then; it might be as simple as taking it off and looking for the bare wire which should be stuffed under it to make ground contact when it's tightened down.

check that touching any of the other metal stuff on the bass (pickups, switches, the pot shafts under the knobs) is quiet like it should be; if so, then it's likely just a bridge ground wire issue.

if not, if all the metal bits are noisy when touched, you might have a backwards-wired output jack making all the metal parts "hot" instead of grounded.
 
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#10
I don't think the bridge/string ground is simply disconnected. If it was then touching the strings would not cause a change either way.

If touching the strings causes an increase in buzz and hum then the problem is that the signal from the wire from the bridge is leaking into hot/signal somewhere.

A candidate is a broken volume pot, as is a loose wire touching something, but you are into soldering territory here since you need to disconnect the electronics to see which connection is inserting the noise.
 
#11
uOpt said:
I don't think the bridge/string ground is simply disconnected. If it was then touching the strings would not cause a change either way.

If touching the strings causes an increase in buzz and hum then the problem is that the signal from the wire from the bridge is leaking into hot/signal somewhere.

A candidate is a broken volume pot, as is a loose wire touching something, but you are into soldering territory here since you need to disconnect the electronics to see which connection is inserting the noise.
Click to expand...
I have to disagree with that. If you loose the ground to the bridge/strings then touching it will cause a hum, just like touching the end of a guitar cable that is plugged into an amp but not to the guitar.
 
#12
LoveThatBass said:
I have to disagree with that. If you loose the ground to the bridge/strings then touching it will cause a hum, just like touching the end of a guitar cable that is plugged into an amp but not to the guitar.
Click to expand...

It doesn't for me. Unshielded bass and not grounded strings make hum and buzz change as you change how the bass is oriented in the room but not when you touch or not touch the strings.
 
#13
uOpt said:
It doesn't for me. Unshielded bass and not grounded strings make hum and buzz change as you change how the bass is oriented in the room but not when you touch or not touch the strings.
Click to expand...

Your correct under those scenarios, however I believe his problem is buzzing gets louder when he touches strings. That would suggest an ungrounded bridge
 
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#19
UPDATE!!!

Before bringing my Hofner to the tech, I found some new cables right after completing our renovations. Guess what? It was the *cable* that was causing the issue.

Lesson learned. And money saved, too.

Thanks to everybody who posted their suggestions. I really appreciated it. :)
 
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