Bad grounding problem.*NEW PROBLEM, SORTED!

[Brow]

Hey guys.

I received my set of aged Mothers Milks on Friday afternoon and fitted them to my guitar yesterday afternoon.

I removed the Duncan Antiquities I formerly had in the guitar and fitted the Mothers Milks per the schematic which came with the pickups.

I strung the guitar up and came to test it and there's an extremly loud (what appears to be) ground hum/noise. I've checked my wiring and everything appears to be ok; white wire to switch, black wire to common ground on back of volume pot.

Does anyone have any suggestions what I could try/check to try and work out what the problem is? As I'm in desperate need of a 'Strat sounding' Strat (which it wasn't with the Antiquities, due to the guitars mainly Mahogany body) and need to get this sorted asap  :lol:

Thanks for any info anyone can offer.

Craig

[PhilKing]

Hi Craig,
do all your grounds go to one common spot (like the back of the volume)?  If there is more than one path to earth you can get a ground loop in the guitar.

Do you have the wire to the bridge connected?

Are all the joints good?

No shorts at the jack socket?

Last but not least, you are not doing this near a computer, TV or flourescent lights?  All those induce hum in single coils anyway.

Good luck, I know it can drive you crazy.

Phil

[Brow]

Hi Craig,
do all your grounds go to one common spot (like the back of the volume)?  If there is more than one path to earth you can get a ground loop in the guitar.

Do you have the wire to the bridge connected?

Are all the joints good?

No shorts at the jack socket?

Last but not least, you are not doing this near a computer, TV or flourescent lights?  All those induce hum in single coils anyway.

Good luck, I know it can drive you crazy.

Phil

Hi Phil, thanks for your reply.

I currently have all my grounds going to the back of the master volume pot, so that shouldn't be a problem. I also have the bridge wire connected (damn thing was the hardest of all to do!). If it's anything it's more than likely a bad connection somewhere, as I'm not the worlds greatest solderer  :lol:

I'm in the process of re-wiring it all, so hopefully I can get it right this time.

Craig

[Brow]

I've just taken the scratchplate off the guitar, and it turns out that a slightly dodgy connectionon on the bridge grounding wire was to blame.

I've re-soldered this and now I've got a new problem;

The guitar is quiet, until I touch the strings and then the grounding noise comes back again!

This is the 1st time I've ever seen/heard this happen with a guitar (in my experience it's usually the opposite!) so what could be to blame and how do I fix it?

This whole business is starting to do my head in now, so I wanna get it sorted asap before I throw the whole guitar through the window! lol

[Brow]

I've now sorted the newest problem; all it took was my reversing the 2 wires that go to the jack socket and the noise was gone :)

Now, I've only had chance to play the guitar through my little 10w amp, but 1st impressions are VERY good :)

I still need to balance the output of the pickups, and try it through a 'proper' amp, but I think I'll love these pickups  :D

[Peter Antal]

I'm glad you finally managed to fix it. Have fun! :)

[Brow]

I'm glad you finally managed to fix it. Have fun! :)

Me too, and I will  :D

I'm gonna try them through my 1x12 valve combo at home tonight, and then at band practise tomorrow. So I'll probably post a better opinion of them after that :)

[Elliot]

I love my MM's - you get a full but woody sound - great eq with a nice tight bottom end.  Can words describe sounds - NOPE :D

[Brow]

I love my MM's - you get a full but woody sound - great eq with a nice tight bottom end.  Can words describe sounds - NOPE :D

That's alot like my 1st impressions that I got when I tried them last night.

Then again, if they sounded that good through a 10w Marshall with a 6.5" speaker, then I'm seriously looking forward to trying them through my Orange rig tomorrow  :D  8)