I think our point is the same Andy. The noise shouldn't be there in the first place, and the grounding we both did cured the source ;)
Yep :D
The thing that started me posting was that I was confused by Mr Price's first "when
not touching the guitar" though? In my place, with it's fantastic mains wiring, every damn thing buzzes like a bar-steward until I touch the strings! :lol:
It's when I touch the strings and the buzzing doesn't stop that I start getting the screw-drivers and soldering iron out...
Reading yours made me think perhaps I'd misunderstood what he was saying... and then... it reminded me that, actually, my Baja's bridge pickup "failed" in its grounding after a few months - and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the problem here. Sometimes it was fine, then it would just start buzzing while I was playing, then it would go away, and then it arrived one day and stayed.
Can't remember how I tracked it down, but the connection between baseplate and earth in the pickup itself was duff, not between the screws/bridge-assembly and the baseplate. I probably wired it up to the jack, out of the guitar, and found that touching the baseplate wouldn't stop the background buzz.
Anyway, it was either earth the bridge direct or "fix" the pickup. I didn't fancy the first option for some reason - I think I'd read on here that it shouldn't need one if the pickup is doing its job and I thought "I want the baseplate earthed anyway..." (Of course, in hindsight, if I'd earthed the bridge, then the baseplate
will be earthed through that!).
I looked at the pickup, I could see the solder joints on the pickup that had to be the culprits, but I didn't fancy taking them on because coil wire was involved. So seeing as the pickup was getting replaced at some point I decided to add an extra wire soldered to the base... it worked.
But yeah, Ian, either way will do it... actually, an external wire with croc-clips connecting between the bridge metal-work and the jack-casing (if it's metal) will do it just as well :lol: (I've done that to get through a recording before! :roll: - not sure I'd trust it in gig though)
