Hum/Noise with DiMarzio Area J jazz bridge pickup

[soundog]

I have a new Squier Medium Scale Jaguar bass. Its a PJ bass, and uses concentric (stacked) volume/tone controls; so a volume pot stacked on top of a tone control for the P neck pickup, and the same for the J bridge pickup.

I just replaced the J bridge pickup with a DiMarzio Area J bridge pickup. I wired it “standard”, so essentially just redoing the two wires from the original Fender pickup according to DiMarzio's instructions. I also lined the cavities with grounded copper foil. I kept the stock .03 uF cap on the P pickup, and the .01 uF on the J pickup. After buttoning everything back up, everything works as expected BUT:

- If I turn the tone pot clockwise all the way up on the J pickup, I get a faint noisy hum, which gets loud and unusable when using any sort of overdrive or compressor with gain.

- If I turn the J pickup tone pot down, the hum diminishes; when all the way down, there is no hum. The J volume control does not impact the hum (other than expected volume change). The P pickup has no hum issues.

- When the J pickup is humming, If I touch grounded items (bridge, strings) the hum goes away.

- If I touch the pole pieces on the J pickup I get a very loud ugly hum.

Any ideas for what I could try to fix this issue?

(FYI, I used the following wiring diagram for the bridge pickup. Things were initially out of phase, so I reversed the gray+green and red wires.)

 

[rojo412]

If it were me, I'd see what happens if the bare wire was disconnected from the green and grounded to a separate ground point.
OR... switch the J leads back to where you started and reverse the leads on the P pickup.

I could only guess that keeping bare with what is now the hot lead, it may be messing something up. And these are easy enough things to do to experiment with.

 

[soundog]

Woo hoo! I did your first suggestion, and that fixed everything. The bass sounds a lot better, too. After reading your suggestions and studying the diagram it makes sense that my amateur wiring was, indeed, messing something up!

 

[rojo412]

Nice! Glad it worked!

 

[Thegreatzambini]

I actually love these kinds of threads !!
A person has a problem which he explains thoroughly and with diagrams, another person gives him some solid, practical suggestions, and it ends up fixing the problem and the other person replies and lets them know that their idea worked and is happy. In my opinion, this is the whole reason why this forum was created, not all these “ If you were on a desert island ,which three basses would you take” hypothetical, nonsensical time wasting subjects.

 

[rojo412]

A person has a problem which he explains thoroughly and with diagrams, another person gives him some solid, practical suggestions, and it ends up fixing the problem and the other person replies and lets them know that their idea worked and is happy. In my opinion, this is the whole reason why this forum was created

The reason I started coming here ages ago was to ask those kinds of questions to folks who knew better than me. And what I learned FROM TALKBASS allowed me to not only help myself, but I can now pass it along to others, in hopes that we can all gain more skills and knowledge to get us through life a little easier (and with less hum and/or buzz, too!).

 

[soundog]

Very cool! FYI, I joined the forum today to ask this specific question, and this was my first post here. Some forums seem to get a lot of people arguing and disagreeing. The ones I like to frequent (like this one) are full of folks offering helpful advice and sharing information. Makes the world a better place.

 

[rutabaga bob]

Welcome!

 

[darwin-bass]

Yes, reversing the gray+green was the issue. The gray needed to stay grounded regardless of whether red or green was used for hot.

Good spot there, @rojo412!

 

[matante]

I have a new Squier Medium Scale Jaguar bass. Its a PJ bass, and uses concentric (stacked) volume/tone controls; so a volume pot stacked on top of a tone control for the P neck pickup, and the same for the J bridge pickup.

I just replaced the J bridge pickup with a DiMarzio Area J bridge pickup. I wired it “standard”, so essentially just redoing the two wires from the original Fender pickup according to DiMarzio's instructions. I also lined the cavities with grounded copper foil. I kept the stock .03 uF cap on the P pickup, and the .01 uF on the J pickup. After buttoning everything back up, everything works as expected BUT:

- If I turn the tone pot clockwise all the way up on the J pickup, I get a faint noisy hum, which gets loud and unusable when using any sort of overdrive or compressor with gain.

- If I turn the J pickup tone pot down, the hum diminishes; when all the way down, there is no hum. The J volume control does not impact the hum (other than expected volume change). The P pickup has no hum issues.

- When the J pickup is humming, If I touch grounded items (bridge, strings) the hum goes away.

- If I touch the pole pieces on the J pickup I get a very loud ugly hum.

Any ideas for what I could try to fix this issue?

(FYI, I used the following wiring diagram for the bridge pickup. Things were initially out of phase, so I reversed the gray+green and red wires.)

View attachment 4977670

If you don't mind me asking a couple of questions because I'm interested in those pickups:

Is the standard wiring you did series wiring?

Is the pickup noticeably louder than the stock pickup?

Does it blend better with the P pickup in terms of output?

 

[Five or Six]

Ever visit a motorcycle forum Soundog? Can be a very intimidating place if one has thin skin. I love them, guys tell it like it is tight wrong, or indifferent. But, I come here for little conflict and civil conversation. Great place!

 

[Shoreline Gold]

I agree completely. I also play guitar, and I stay away from the cesspool of guitar player forums. Bass players are just more...civilized. Yes, Lemmy notwithstanding.

But, boy, if you really want to hear about my desert island basses, lemme tell you!....

 

[soundog]

If you don't mind me asking a couple of questions because I'm interested in those pickups:

Is the standard wiring you did series wiring?
> I wired as shown in the diagram. (Except the Jaguar is a 2 volume, 2 tone configuration.)

Is the pickup noticeably louder than the stock pickup?
> I recorded before and after, and it is perhaps 5% louder. But about 100% quieter.

Does it blend better with the P pickup in terms of output?
> Yes it does. I also changed the capacitor from stock to a 0.022.

All told, it was worth it for me. Also affordable, since I only had to buy a single jazz pickup. The biggest improvement was in how quiet the Area-J was compared to the stock pup. Only slight improvements in volume and tone.

 

[soundog]

Ever visit a motorcycle forum Soundog? Can be a very intimidating place if one has thin skin. I love them, guys tell it like it is tight wrong, or indifferent. But, I come here for little conflict and civil conversation. Great place!

I stay out of those motorcycle forums because I have never ridden a motorcycle, and ride a bicycle. Ever see "Pee Wee's Big Adventure? The biker bar scene? That's what it would be like for me.

 

[soundog]

If you don't mind me asking a couple of questions because I'm interested in those pickups:

Is the standard wiring you did series wiring?

Is the pickup noticeably louder than the stock pickup?

Does it blend better with the P pickup in terms of output?

>I wired as shown in the diagram. The Squier had VTVT (2 concentric knobs), but I rewired it as VVT as I like that better.

> Not really, but it's a heck of a lot quieter!

> After adjusting the pickup height, I believe that it does. It has a slightly richer tone than the stock pickup...