Signal noise when touching the strings or any metal part of the body

I'm in your area but only know of a good tech in the Akron area. PM me if you want the info. I have heard heights guitar up there is good.

But if this is a custom and the builder shipped a noisy bass...what's up there? It sounds like a grounding issue. I would be up in his face getting him to fix this problem. What kind of builder ships a bass they know has an issue with ground/noise?

 

What kind of signal noise are we talking about here? Crackling/popping when you touch the strings, or extra hum/buzz?

 

Based on the symptoms, this is likely due to the strings not being grounded. If the strings are not grounded properly, when you touch them the "noise" voltage on your body (which is induced by all of the electromagnetic noise in your environment) gets transmitted to the conductive strings, which then act like antennae radiating this noise directly into the pickup coils. If the strings are grounded properly, as soon as you touch them any voltage on your skin gets pulled down to ground potential and this noise disappears entirely. (In other words, if everything is grounded properly, touching the strings usually *reduces* noise because your body is now grounded and no longer radiating noise into the coils.)

Strings are normally grounded via the bridge, and the bridge is normally grounded to the control cavity via a grounding wire. So I would strongly suspect that either the strings are not making electrical contact with the bridge properly, or the bridge itself is not grounded properly.

 

A quick test: Touch the output jack bushing (or cable plug shell, if metal) while also touching the strings.

If the noise disappears, the bridge is not grounded.

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