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New Fender American Standard...Should I Return It?

#61
walterw said:
...aanyway, the problem is simple, the OP's bass doesn't have the bridge ground connected. whether the house is wired right or not is a secondary issue, as uOpt pointed out.

(also, i've seen plenty of those '70s gibson guitars where they thought they could just shield the crap out of everything including the jack and the 3-way switch and get away with leaving off the bridge ground; they were mistaken :spit:

i have to routinely add the bridge ground back in to get them to behave.

EMG seems to be the only stuff that can really get away with no bridge ground.)
Click to expand...

The trick with the EMGs is that they have shielded cable even between the pots, as they are typically delivered. There is only a small amount of hit wire exposed right at the lugs for the pots. They also come with shielded wire to the output plug.

That is almost complete shielding and that is (in combination with EMGs being humbuckers) why you don't need to abuse the player as a shield. It helps a bit due to the pot connections.

It really is dead simple. You need a grounded conductor around the hot wires, no exceptions. Guitar makers weasel out and use the player as a grounded shield. It's not needed if you really cover all exposed hot wires in other shields. And a shield doesn't care whether it is shielded wire or cavity shielding with foil. As long as one of the two is around all or almost all of the hot lead. (and you need humbuckers of course)

Dead simple.
 
#63
Allright, hopefully this is more constructive.

I just remembered that I made a full catalog of shield and grounds over at seymourduncan forums. That's very useful when you want to go over your guitar and bass and make sure things are shielded in a useful way.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

You can still pick whether you want the shielding at the end (the bass) to be yourself (via strings connected to mass) or doing a shield with foil or conductive paint. It's not without choices, but the concepts are really simple.
 
#64
Oh and one more thing. A lot of confusion here comes from terms that have made themselves common in American English.

The problem being is that people call what is the shield around the amp, the cable and is (usually) connected to the strings "ground".

That is not a useful term. "Ground" really should be what your house (hopefully) has in the A/C outlets. In languages in countries that are more technical, namely German, the term "mass" is used. "Mass" is the casing of the amplifier, serving as a shield, going all the way through the cable shield to the guitar where it's usually connected to the strings.

However, there is no guarantee that this "mass" is actually connected to the "ground" in your house. In fact early amplifiers only had a two-prog plug - no ground. Still they don't buzz or hum? Why? Because the ground has nothing to do with your shielding against electrostatic interference. That is the same reason why you can buy one of those 50 cent adapters in home depot that connect the 3-prong power cable to just the 2 hot connectors (no ground) and it still doesn't hum or hum more.

Because the shield doesn't have to do with ground. The shielding works whether it is connected to house ground or not.

Hope this helps.

If there is interest I can clarify on how the grounded strings (actually grounded) can kill you with an amp that has a 3 prong cable, a question that came up earlier.
 
#66
dmusic148 said:
I'd still like to know why the guitar is connected to house ground if, as you say, it isn't necessary.
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It is necessary to connect the guitar's mass to the amp chassis. The metal around the amp, the shield in the cable and whatever shield you use in your bass (yourself or foil) are all around the hot wire delivering the pickup signal. The hot wire, while on low signal level (before the poweramp) is never fully exposed out of the shield. That is what kills electrostatic (but not electromagnetic) interference.

Whether this shield is connected to the house ground or not doesn't matter for the shielding (buzzkilling) effect.

The reason why all this is (today, not in the 50s) connected to the house ground is that electrical regulations expect devices with metal cases to be connected to that ground. That way if a power wire comes loose and touches the case will trigger the home fuse (whether home depot calls it a fuse or breaker doesn't matter). If it wasn't the power wire would shock you when touching any of the exposed metal.

Now, whether that makes it a good idea to connect the strings to ground is a different matter. I'm in the camp it is not a good idea for safety reasons. But if you don't connect the strings to the mass (usually ground today) you need a complete shield inside the bass (foil, conductive paint etc) because now your body doesn't shield anymore.
 
#67
A big thank you to the TalkBass community. With your information I borrowed a meter, ran my own continuity test and returned the bass to the dealer to get fixed while I waited.

Surprise! The bridge ground wasn't connected.

All is well now.

Thanks
 
#69
georgestrings said:
Yeah, you've been lucky - I'm also guessing that you don't play and sing, otherwise contact with a mic will let you know what's up in short order... A fair amount of people have been electrocuted thru music gear and improper grounds - it's really nothing to play around with...


- georgestrings
Click to expand...

Happened to me. We were teenagers in my dad's garage and looking back, it seems the outlets were not grounded properly, because if we played barefoot on the concrete we had a great time. Same happened with shoes and a mic, but shocks to the face aren't as much fun (sic). I made a habit of disconnecting the ground from every guitar or bass I owned after that and just put up with the noise and hum.

Nowadays I pay attention to grounding and I think the OP will, too.
 
#70
gurensan said:
Happened to me. We were teenagers in my dad's garage and looking back, it seems the outlets were not grounded properly, because if we played barefoot on the concrete we had a great time. Same happened with shoes and a mic, but shocks to the face aren't as much fun (sic). I made a habit of disconnecting the ground from every guitar or bass I owned after that and just put up with the noise and hum.

Nowadays I pay attention to grounding and I think the OP will, too.
Click to expand...

I have always played and sang - one of the many benefits of running my bass thru wireless is reducing the chances of getting shocked thru a mic - I HATE that!!!

I would find another solution, rather than unground my instruments...


- georgestrings
 
#71
you can run a big cap (like 2 or 3 μF) in series with the ground connection, to block DC shocks while still getting rid of excess AC noise.

taylor uses a little (i wanna say) .5 amp fuse in series with their string ground, fine and dandy until you pop it and the guitar buzzes until you get it replaced.
 

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