Mule Noise SORTED!

[BigBassBob]

Hi guys, I've just got my Flying V back from my tech. He gave it some TLC and swapped the Rebel Yells that were in it for a set of Mules along with 550k pots and Jensen cap:



The guitar sounds and plays great... I much prefer the Mules to the RY set but I'm getting some noise from the bridge humbucker.

The bridge seems grounded as there's no noise at all when I'm touching metal but as soon as I let go there's an excessive amount of buzz/hum from the bridge pickup. The neck pickup is dead silent in this regard. The hum I'm getting is almost like a single coil buzz.

Does anyone have any advice? I'll be seeing my tech again tomorrow. From what I've told him he thinks it may be one of the coils shorting but I've no idea.

Cheers,
Bob

[BigBassBob]

I'll also add that the RY humbucker that was in the bridge position was quiet when it came to noise so I'm a little confused as to what's causing this as the Mule is far less hotter than the RY  :(

[Dave Sloven]

If the noise is not there when you touch the strings but when you lift your hands away you hear it then that means that the strings are grounding through YOU, not the jack.  You need to check the ground inside the guitar.  Sounds like someone hasn't soldered the bridge ground in properly.

[Telerocker]

If the noise is not there when you touch the strings but when you lift your hands away you hear it then that means that the strings are grounding through YOU, not the jack.  You need to check the ground inside the guitar.  Sounds like someone hasn't soldered the bridge ground in properly.

I guess so too. My Mule-bridge is dead silent.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Could be a coil short if the pickups are 4 conductor, but if it was the pickup would sound a bit thin as it'd be running in single coil mode

If the bridge/tailpiece ground wire was off you wouldn't be able to silence the noise by touching the strings - you would have to touch the jack and it would be there for both pickups.

It may be that the grounding wire from the bridge pickup lead is off the back of the pot which would make it noisy

Also make sure that the backs of the pots are grounded to each other by a wire - the foil on the underside of the pick-guard is not a good enough earth connection in terms of reliability.

I suspect that the guitar might benefit from some better shielding inside too as Gibson are a bit light on this aspect.

[darkbluemurder]

It may be that the grounding wire from the bridge pickup lead is off the back of the pot which would make it noisy

That's what I suspect, too.

Good luck,
Stephan

[BigBassBob]

My tech and I both had the afternoon off so I popped over and waited for him to check it out.

Initially we were stumped as everything seemed to be wired fine. He tested the outputs and the readings were inline with the pickup's specifications and he tried wiring the bridge pickup straight to the jack and there was still noise.

When he installed them he used the full length of the 2-conductor wire for both pickups and wrapped the excess with cable ties. Today he cut the wires just long enough to read the pots and re-soldered the connections. The noise was significantly improved. While the pickguard was off he fully shielded the cavities and made sure everything was grounded. When we tested it with him amp the noise was gone.

I've only just got in and have a few things to do before trying it out but it seems like the issue has been resolved. I'll report back later when I give it a go myself.

Thanks for your help guys!

Cheers,
Bob

[BigBassBob]

So I plugged in to check if the problem was gone and ended up playing for an hour. Safe to say the problem is gone and the guitar sounds bloody beautiful  :P

Thanks again for your help dudes.