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Winter Build Off 2023 - Lieutenant Cushing
- Thread starter bholder
- Start date
Sigh, lost maybe 5 minutes of writing, where'd it go..
Short version - got nut files and string retainers today, filed the nut slots and the strings now lay in them nicely, installed the retainers, and they keep the strings in the slots (I was having trouble with the low E and A popping out when hit hard.
I tried to isolate the remaining buzz further, turns out it's the bridge pickup - I verified by hardwiring it solo, yup, still noisy. So I tried the same on the other guitar with these pickups - same thing - both pickups on, very little hum, bridge solo'ed, there's substantial hum.
So is it typical for higher gain bridge pickups to be more noise susceptible? Is this "normal"?
No I've found the opposite to be the case most of the time. Is it 4 wire or 2 wire? It sounds like the bridge pickups are either acting like single coils or the pickup cover might not be grounded properly. Does it increase or decrease if you touch the cover?
Yeah it's definitely something with the ground on the bridge. The noise level does change (usually increases, sometimes decreases) if I touch the cover with my bare finger. I guess I'll go over the wiring yet again... ...or maybe the ground lead came loose on the pickup end, I'll have to take the strings off to pull that out and check it.
No continuity between the bridge cover and the bare ground wire - thanks, @Will_White - that's it! Emailing TV Jones for advice now...
well now I'm not sure that was it - I manually grounded the pickup cover with a separate wire - verified connectivity to ground - the noise is still present. Arrrgh.
Here's a weird little Sunday afternoon groove I named "Weird Little Sunday Afternoon Groove":
This evening's little effort - verifying an celebrating death of a buzz that had been driving me mad. Turned out the bridge pickup cover ground was broken - I wired in another, soldered the other end to the jack ground, and voila, blessed near silence. Still got some background hiss to find. And there's an intermittent buzz in the house I need to track down and kill...
Another tidbit for this morning: noodling with chord shapes on the bass vi:
Hey thanks! I'm always happy when anyone listens to any of my stuff! (Especially if they don't sue me or press charges, hah!)I listened to this on a Saturday over lunch. I hope that's ok.
This one ended up kind of muddled sounding, I thought it sounded better at the time... too much reverb on the delay or something. But I'm still loving this guitar. Or bass. Or whatever it is. Really kind of both, but I'm using it more low-guitar like than bass. Playing lead and getting bendy on low notes is so cool!
Been off on other projects, have to get back to this, play it more again, and finalize the control wiring! I still have both pickups wired straight to the jack...
