Tapewounds and grounding/hum

I have eight basses with black tapewounds...absolutely no hum.
I'm curious, too.

 

I have one Fender P-bass with tapes and no such issue so now I want to know as well!

 

I've had the black nylon tapewounds on multiple basses as well with no hum.

 

Tapewounds causing electrical hum

 

Yes.

 

I’m always curious to hear about this and I don’t know if I’ve ever read of someone remedying the issue. I have a set of la Bella black tape wounds paired with EMG Geezer pups on an aerodyne and never experience any hum/buzz.

 

Could be a ground issue with the outlet. No path to ground for your shielding, aka a Faraday cage. But when you touch the bridge or metallic strings you give a different path to ground through your body and then the shielding works.

 

The issue is RF interference and the resolution is proper shielding. Hope that solves the mystery for you. Your bass should not get any noise with no strings on it, the use of tape wounds is irrelevant. Tape wounds just lack a metal path from you to the electronics so the bass loses it's grounding (you.)

As to why others haven't experienced this, they may own a bass with proper shielding. However, with so many (presumably) stock Fenders in the house, the real reason is that your bass is susceptible to RF interference. You won't have the issue in some spaces. You won't hear it if you keep your hands on the strings/bridge/metal either. RF interference has only been treated as an issue in the last decade or so. It honestly wasn't uncommon to find old techs telling you RF noise either wasn't an issue or it was not repairable .Thankfully, most of that old guard has moved on.

 

There's a wire running under the bridge that connects the bridge to the ground loop. Anything conductive that touches the bridge, is now grounded to your amp. Strings, tuners, and ultimately...you. You are the biggest interference in the circuit. That's why the hum goes away when you ground yourself to your instrument by touching the strings.

Tapewounds do not conduct electricity very well. They are wrapped in electrical tape. Hence why they're noisy. It's hard to get a good ground when you've got a rubber glove over your connection point.

 

The same here with soooooo many basses.

 

Not me. Everytime I've ever tried them, they hum. I mean, it's not out of the ordinary hum, but it doesn't go away. It doesn't go away, because they aren't conductive. It as simple as that. You would need to rest your hand on the bridge to make it go away. Live, it's not any sort of problem. Whatsoever. Solo or recording, it's a big problem.

 

My experience as well. When I tried tapes on my fanned fret P-style custom bass, the pickup in the P position is a Rickenbacker humbucker which has a metal chrome plated grounded cover. I anchor my thumb to the cover to eliminate the hum from the tapewounds.

The other better solution (yes, all those who claim that you got rid of everything just by shielding - sit on your hands for a moment.) is to use EMG active pickups that are internally grounded and don't use a bridge ground. I did that on an Ibanez bass I have. The EMG's have an advertised noise floor of @ -100dB, depending on the model, and I can vouch for that through my band's Behringer digital board.

 

I can say that when I got a replacement guard I put shielding tape on the underside. Maybe that helped? Or maybe I just haven't been in a situation that creates a hum. I've played a couple of shows now with it as well as home and at rehearsal, nothing yet.