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Do all tapewound strings cause hum?

#44
MultiScaleMale said:
Grounding and shielding are related. A Faraday cage, which is what shielding is, needs to be grounded in order to work.
Click to expand...

You are technically correct however if the shielding isn't grounded then it's not shielded properly.

OP has a shielding issue confirmed by the fact that touching the bridge reduces the hum. The tapewound strings prevent him from touching the strings as happens on metal strings.

I have a similar issue on my fretless with tapewounds. It is well shielded, but when the air conditioner in my studio is on heating I get a little hum which goes away when I touch the bridge or control pots.

As JewzyMcNuggles says....

JeezyMcNuggles said:
Sheilding only helps so much too. A properly shielded instrument with single coils, will hum no matter what. A properly shielded instrument with buckers, will only hum when you're wearing it.
Click to expand...

OPs bass might be shielded properly, but if there's a lot of rf interference when using tapewound strings you can still get some noise.
 
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#48
BAG said:
You are technically correct however if the shielding isn't grounded then it's not shielded properly.

OP has a shielding issue confirmed by the fact that touching the bridge reduces the hum. The tapewound strings prevent him from touching the strings as happens on metal strings.

I have a similar issue on my fretless with tapewounds. It is well shielded, but when the air conditioner in my studio is on heating I get a little hum which goes away when I touch the bridge or control pots.

As JewzyMcNuggles says....



OPs bass might be shielded properly, but if there's a lot of rf interference when using tapewound strings you can still get some noise.
Click to expand...

If the noise goes away when you touch the bridge, your shielding isn’t grounded properly, either in the instrument or the path along the cable / amp / outlet. You’re showing that the shielding works by essentially giving it a ground when you touch the bridge.
 
#49
If you enjoy this topic, here is some reading that will answer a few questions. coated string and grounding!?
There is one point from a knowledgeable bass builder that weighs in on one specific issue;
Grounding / shielding will help, but it won’t achieve zero noise in all environments. He goes on to say that if your bass is totally quiet when you aren’t touching a grounded metal part on the bass, you just haven’t been in one of those noise inducing environments.
This makes sense if you think about where the “no touch noise” is coming from, which is induced from fields created by AC power and/or AC powered devices (ie: neon lights, welders, etc) To 100% totally shield an electric bass using magnetic pickups, it would require the shield fully encase all electrical components, including the pickups. Shielding around the pickups, including the side facing the strings might work against that special tone they were designed to produce;)
The ability to fully shield the electrical components of a bass was one of the marketing points for optical pickups. Lightwave Bass Guitars - LightWave Basses Optical Pickups
 
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#50
/\/\3phist0 said:
They don't "cause hum' they are unable to complete the circuit to ground that is normally provided by your body, through fingers contacting the string.
Coated strings suffer from the same side effect.
Click to expand...
A common misconception. You don't complete the circuit to ground that is provided by your body, you ground yourself to the instrument by touching the strings which are grounded. You don't provide the ground, the instrument does.

The reason there may be noise with tapewound strings is that your body is insulated from ground by the tape.
 
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#51
PyschRockLover said:
Half the people here are saying its not the strings, the other half are saying its the strings?
why is there no consensus on this issue? what's is going on? lol
Click to expand...
This is because half the people think the strings somehow generate hum or they don't understand how the strings are a part of larger, more complex electronic circuit.

"I put on flats or wounds, touch the strings, no hum. I put on tapes... touch, still hums. Therefore I conclude that tape wound strings must cause hum."

This is very much the same as when we used to think the Sun revolved around the Earth.
Eventually we understood why visual observation alone did not explain what was really happening.

Correlation is not necessarily causation.

Had tapes on my Squier VM Jag, stock pickups... no hum issues related to strings.
 
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#54
Turnaround said:
A common misconception. You don't complete the circuit to ground that is provided by your body, you ground yourself to the instrument by touching the strings which are grounded. You don't provide the ground, the instrument does.

The reason there may be noise with tapewound strings is that your body is insulated from ground by the tape.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
 
#55
I have used D'Addario, LaBella, and RotoSound tape wound strings over the past 25 years on a variety of fretted and fretless basses and never experienced hum or ambient noise of any kind.

I'm no expert on electronics, but I'm thinking it might be worth having a seasoned technician or Luther do some further checking for you, especially if you like the strings.

I, personally, love tapes, especially on my two remaining fretless basses. D'Addarios are my current name of choice.

Koog
 
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#57
If you have humbucking pickups and shield the cavities and use shielded wire inside the guitar then you get the hum down to the point where you don't have to abuse your belly as a shield anymore. You can even disconnect the bridge ground. If you do a complete enough shielding job.
 
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#59
PyschRockLover said:
Ok guys.. lot of good information in this thread!
Im going to open up my bass and check the shielding. Someone mentioned to check the bridge ground.. does anyone know how to check that? I have a Gibson EB-13..
Click to expand...
The bridge ground wire on some Gibson basses may be connected to the bridge mounting screw bushing IN THE BUSHING HOLE. If you have a multimeter - check continuity from the bridge to the ground lug on the jack (or the barrel part of the jack). If you don’t have continuity then your bridge ground is not happening. Again - take it to a tech if you’re unsure about about any of this.
 
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