E1 string low output, lots of hum

[Baby Evil]

A while ago I installed a Trilogy set on a new pick guard, for a Legacy Comanche.
There's a lot, and I mean a lot, of hum on the 1 3 5 positions, way more than with my BKP p90 equipped guitars.
Also with the bridge pickup, the E1 string has a serious drop in volume.   I thought it might have been a fault in the pup, and I need to get rid of the hum, so I just installed a SD Hot Stack.  Hum is gone, but still that volume drop on E1. 

Any ideas what's causing this, and how to fix it?

Btw:  the hot stack sounds incredibly thin and lifeless compared to the Trilogies, it's going out again.

[FELINEGUITARS]

the fact that you suffer in positions 1,3 and 5 mean that it is the old 50hz  mains hum problem (60hz in some countries).
It is no fault of the pickups as they are doing what all single coils do (and I assume that the middle pickup is RW/RP allowing a hum cancel in positions 2 and 4)

However it may also be likely that using Trilogies that you maybe play with a fair amount of gain - which will only serve to multiply the hum also.

There are some steps that you can take to minimise the hum - like have the insides of the guitar screened. It wont completely eliminate the hum , but if done properly it will reduce it.

Quality of guitar cables may affect it as well - so try a few and se if the effect is less with some than others.

If your Commanche was one o the ones with the staggered pickups then it may have been free from hum as each pickup is actually a humbucker with one coil under 3 strings and the other coil under the other 3 strings.



There are as a last resort noise suppressor pedals like the Boss one, MXR smart gate and the ISP Decimator

[Baby Evil]

The guitar is properly shielded, and I have quality cables.  As I've said, the guitars I have with P90's, with the same equipment, have a lot less hum than the Comanche with Trilogies.   It is the 60 hz hum, but the fact that it's so very much louder with this guitar means something is wrong with that particular guitar, not necessarily the pickups. Maybe it's because of the value of the pots, the tbx like system?

thanks,

Jan

[Guitarteach]

Is the bridge/springs all earthed right?

[Baby Evil]

Bridge, yes, I'll check the springs

Thanks

Jan

[darkbluemurder]

It is the 60 hz hum, but the fact that it's so very much louder with this guitar means something is wrong with that particular guitar, not necessarily the pickups. Maybe it's because of the value of the pots, the tbx like system?

The TBX should not be the cause of the problem. As regards the value of the pots, higher pot values let more signal through but also more unwanted signal. What do you have - 500k or 250k? However, I would not expect a dramatic difference in going from 500k to 250k.

Cheers Stephan

[Baby Evil]

I think a 500 and a 1M pot.

But the strangest thing is the lower volume of the E1 string, I've never encountered that

[Dave Sloven]

Just a wild guess, but it might be a capacitor problem.

I say this because one time I was tuning my guitar through the Polytune before playing anything, and I became convinced that there was something wrong with the E string, as I couldn't get it to tune at all, even though the others all tuned fine.  I then discovered that a friend had left my wah switched on the night before, and when I clicked it off everything tuned normally.  Given that a wah pedal operates in much the same way as a tone control, I can't help wondering if this 'E-string only' issue might somehow be related to the capacitor.  Worth investigating anyway.  It might somehow be clipping out the low frequencies.

I'm no technical wizard, as I said just a wild guess based on one experience.

[FELINEGUITARS]

If you have one string so much quieter than all the rest it is worth checking to see that you don't have one of the magnets flipped round the wrong way in the pickup
Very rare but I have seen a pickup where one magnet has turned itself around whilst the pickup was being assembled
The result is a dip in the magnetic flux around that string and as a result a very weak response
You can check for it with a compass - holding over each polepiece to ensure they are all the same way up

[Dave Sloven]

Oh, I just saw that it is E1, not E6 that is causing the issue.  Not sure if what I said above has any bearing.  Worth checking the caps anyway I guess

[Baby Evil]

The volume drop on E1 happens with different pups in the same position, so it's not a fault in them.  I didn't have that issue with the original Z coils.

thanks

Jan

[Dave Sloven]

Was it a BKP pre-wired pickguard, or did you set up a new pickguard and the pickups yourself?

[Baby Evil]

I did it myself.  I took the pots, still wired, from the original pick guard that was in the Comanche, and put the BKP's in there.  So, the pick guard was new, the wiring not.
I've replaced many pickups, and have never encountered anything like this

Jan

[Dave Sloven]

Have you tried bypassing the tone pot altogether?  If that gets rid of your volume problem then you know it is something to do with your capacitors or tone pot.