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Post subject: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 8:09 am
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I've acquired a used American Standard Jazz Bass, circa 2004. Whenever the pick-ups are not either fully open or fully off, I get a hissing or frying sound. It happens regardless of the venue. Is this common or normal for this bass? Any ideas for a fix?

Thanks.


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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 10:16 am
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riffless wrote:
I've acquired a used American Standard Jazz Bass, circa 2004. Whenever the pick-ups are not either fully open or fully off, I get a hissing or frying sound. It happens regardless of the venue. Is this common or normal for this bass? Any ideas for a fix?

Thanks.


Welcome.

This is normal for your bass. Both your pickups work together to create one humbucker. Both pickups must be either fully on '10' or at exactly equal levels with the volume backed off in order for this to happen as any mismatch will reduce the humbucking effect. The greater the mismatch, the greater the hissing or frying (60 cycle hum) sound you will hear. I will say this though, the hissing or frying sound should not be all that distracting. If it is severe, you may have other problems. The only way to truly get rid of it is to install a pair of outright humbucking pickups.

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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 10:59 am
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Depends on the amt of the hissing,some(very low)is normal,but is its really distracting or overly loud you may have to do some work,try spraying the pots,wiring connections and output jack with some contact cleaner designed for this,usually any big store(walmart) or automotive place carries it realitively cheap(radio crack I mean shack..)start by spraying the pots while turning the posts all the way on and off,usually that clears it rite up,if not keep'a cleaning the other stuff,if this does'nt work you may have bad pot/s also a bad ground will do this too.
If the bass was keep in a dusty place it get build-up on the contact points but sometimes its a little more,usually stores that carry second hand guitars check all this stuff out and either dont buy it untill it gets fixed or they fix it before putting it on the sales floor,but it could have gotten by the radar,people tend to sell their stuff when it needs work,can you bring it back where yo bought it?you may get some retribution,if it was a private seller call him up and see how he reacts,either way it wont be overly expensive.

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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 2:05 pm
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Martian wrote:
riffless wrote:
I've acquired a used American Standard Jazz Bass, circa 2004. Whenever the pick-ups are not either fully open or fully off, I get a hissing or frying sound. It happens regardless of the venue. Is this common or normal for this bass? Any ideas for a fix?

Thanks.


Welcome.

This is normal for your bass. Both your pickups work together to create one humbucker. Both pickups must be either fully on '10' or at exactly equal levels with the volume backed off in order for this to happen as any mismatch will reduce the humbucking effect. The greater the mismatch, the greater the hissing or frying (60 cycle hum) sound you will hear. I will say this though, the hissing or frying sound should not be all that distracting. If it is severe, you may have other problems. The only way to truly get rid of it is to install a pair of outright humbucking pickups.


Thanks! I'll try balancing the pots and see (oops, hear) what happens. FYI: It's not 60 Hz or even the 120 Hz you might get from a rectifier power supply. It's a relatively high frequency "white" noise. It sounds like an AM radio tune to an unoccupied frequency.


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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 5:24 pm
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Sabre Lane wrote:
I'm pretty sure that qualifies for what many call "A.C." or "60 Cycle" hum... (Depends on what's causing the R.F.)

And unless you have a ground issue (which happens), you have 2 single-coil pickups (which are prone to noise from all kinds of electronic interference), by employing BOTH pickups, it technically becomes humbucking depending on how they are wired up.

Hope it works out for you! :)
(If it didn't, the fix isn't very hard, so don't worry too much!) :wink:


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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 5:56 pm
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We went green!


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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:59 am
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PERFECT! Got room for one more ? I dont take up much space,really...I am only 6.0' tall and 325.lbs :D WHAT? Is that considered the f word ? Who's calling me fat? I'm big Boned (my mom used to say) :|

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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:53 pm
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You're just husky, and yes we can always add on.

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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:51 am
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Why thank you O.F.
You are a gentleman and scholar and player of fine basses :!:

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Post subject: Re: Bass has hissy fit
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:03 am
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Do you really want me to pull the rabbit out of the hat?

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