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Music Man Stingray Classic - grounding issue?

P

Pablo770

Aug 22, 2011
21
2
Poland
#1
I’d like to say hello to everybody as this is my first thread/post on talkbass :)

I’ve just got a new Classic Stingray 4, and in my band’s rehearsal room I noticed some issue, which I didn’t previously notice on my tiny practise combo in my home. Whenever I totally remove my hands from the strings the bass produces fairly strong buzz/noise from the amp. When I touch the pole pieces of the pickup itself the buzzing actually gets louder. The noise disappears when I touch any metal part ot the guitar (strings, bridge, knobs) or completely cut the treble on the eq.

Does it look like a grounding issue? Are you Stingray owners familiar with that problem? Is it commnon issue with 2-band Stingrays? Any support or solution tips would be highly appreciated. I only hope that it’s not faulty elecronics, as I'm going to use the bass in live gigs and in recording studio...

Thank you in advance for your replies!

PS. I’ve got 2 other active basses, one of them being Stingray copy with passive MEC pickup with exposed pole pieces. None of them produces additional hum when untouching the strings or any other metal part of guitar. The MEC pickup doesn’t produce any hum when I touch the pole pieces itself. That’s why I’m a little worried about my new Stingray electronics...
 
#2
The humbucker should be fairly quiet unless there are fluorescent lights, dimmers, etc in the room.

Polepieces issue is easy to fix. You need to ground them. Simplest is to put a strip of copper shielding under each row of poles, and ground the strips by connecting them to the ground wire that goes to the bridge. Make sure this cable has good contact with bridge and its wired onto the preamp too.
 
#5
I would open the electronics cavity and look for obvious causes: loose wires. I once had a bass that had the same humming problem, and it turned out tot be the bridge ground wire being misaligned with the contact point under the bridge.

Try those first. Usually the pole pieces issue is separate unless it is a loose wire or short of some kind.

-Ryan
 
#7
I looked under the hood of my bass. The wires don't seem to be loose or damaged. But I found that the jack is not grounded, is it a problem?
Also, I noticed that the noise is present even when the pickup knobs are turned down. It seems to be related exclusively to the tone knob.
Here is a picture of the wiring.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
#8
As I’m total amateur regarding electronics in general, if it turns out to be not a common stingray feature, I will incline towards taking the bass to a guitar tech. But at the moment I want to get as many suggestions and opinions as possible.

MusicDad said:
I once had a bass that had the same humming problem, and it turned out tot be the bridge ground wire being misaligned with the contact point under the bridge.
Click to expand...

How to check whether the ground wire is properly attached to the bridge? I guess opening the electronics cavity is not sufficient? Is it necessary to remove the bridge? Correct me if I’m wrong.
 
#9
this sounds completely normal to me.

you can reduce the excess buzz when you take your hands off the bass with shielding, and you can eliminate the extra noise when you touch the magnet poles with grounded copper tape applied to the bottom of the pickup, but as it stands i think there's nothing wrong with the bass.
 
#10
walterw said:
this sounds completely normal to me.

you can reduce the excess buzz when you take your hands off the bass with shielding, and you can eliminate the extra noise when you touch the magnet poles with grounded copper tape applied to the bottom of the pickup, but as it stands i think there's nothing wrong with the bass.
Click to expand...


Agreed. Walter, you should move to Nashville. Every luthier / tech in town INSISTS that shielding will have absolutely NO effect on buzz.
 
#11
also, doesn't the classic have the old-style two-band boost-only EQ?

if so, anything past 1 or 2 on the treble knob is a big treble boost, which also boosts the "buzz" frequencies.
 
#14
walterw said:
also, doesn't the classic have the old-style two-band boost-only EQ?

if so, anything past 1 or 2 on the treble knob is a big treble boost, which also boosts the "buzz" frequencies.
Click to expand...

As far as I know 2 band preamp is cut/boost regarding treble control and boost only regarding bass control.

But it seems to me that one issue is when highs become noisy when fully open on the treble control, and different issue when guitar starts buzzing while not touching the strings.
 
#15
i've only messed with one of these new stingrays, but the EQ was definitely boost-only; there was no center notch in the travel of either EQ knob, and they very obviously boosted when turned up from zero (especially the treble). i couldn't get a nice normal stingray sound unless that treble knob was almost all the way down.
 
#16
morcmarc said:
I looked under the hood of my bass. The wires don't seem to be loose or damaged. But I found that the jack is not grounded, is it a problem?
Also, I noticed that the noise is present even when the pickup knobs are turned down. It seems to be related exclusively to the tone knob.
Here is a picture of the wiring.
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Click to expand...
the jack is grounded through the metal plate.

as for the noise, you're wired just like a jazz bass; that necessarily reverses the leads on the volume pots so killing one coil still leaves the other on.

the trade-off is that the signal never gets shorted to ground when the volumes are down, so you get some leftover noise.

that noise just happens to be in the frequency range of the tone knob, so turning that down makes it go away.
 
#17
walterw said:
i've only messed with one of these new stingrays, but the EQ was definitely boost-only; there was no center notch in the travel of either EQ knob, and they very obviously boosted when turned up from zero (especially the treble). i couldn't get a nice normal stingray sound unless that treble knob was almost all the way down.
Click to expand...

I recall Ed Friedland saying in a review that it was not boost-only, and was simply a boost/cut pot that lacked a center detent ( :eyebrow: ), thus making it harder to find the flat position. But that sounds a bit counter-intuitive on MM's part...
 
#19
From my Web searching and from what already has been written in this thread I conclude, that excess pickup buzz while touching the magnets seems to be nothing uncommon with oem pickups, so this issue doesn’t bother me that much.

But there’s still an issue of excess noise while not touching any metal part of my bass. Can I get any opinions from you, who have owned 2-band rays (as I see there are many stingray players on talkbass)?
 

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