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Post subject: Noise problem (fixed, with solutions)
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:42 pm
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Final Edit : After some fail attempts to fix my guitar, I've brought the guitar to a guitar tech, to sort it out. Now the guitar is flawless. I will post what the tech said here for future references for those who may have similar problems. May this help you guys or else giving more info on guitar wiring problems. Some info may be common for you. Solution is in red font color

I changed two pots on my guitar recently. When I plugged it in and let it sit idle, I heard buzzing noise coming out of my amp. The culprits in question are a '09 fender strat standard MIA and a brand new roland micro cube gx (I'm on a 3 months work trip overseas and the micro cube portability and size helps a lot).

What I've found:
1. This only happens when the amp gain setting is high or I use heavy channel on the amp. I try to lower the volume on both guitar and amp. But the noise is still apparent with low volume. This buzz doesn't exist on low gain/clean channel. (Normal. Humbucker pickups configuration reduce it. Position 2 and 4 on Fender Strat reduces it. Properly shielded guitar slightly reduce it. Most American Fender and a lot of mexican have been properly shielded from factory :D)

2. The buzz reduces A LOT when I'm touching the metal jack. (Normal. In fact, this shows that the jack is properly grounded. Should there is a problem with the ground connection, the buzz would still exist OR in most cases, increases.So WHY?? Why does the buzz reduce when we touch the metal?? Does this mean that when we touch the metal, our body become a ground to the guitar?? This is the biggest misconception that many guitar players have. When we touch the metal on a guitar, Our body does not become a ground for the guitar. It's the other way around, the guitar is the one who becomes a ground for our body. Huh? What kind of illuminati stuff is this?! All of this happen because our own body is actually a source of noise itself. Errr, lemme rephrase that. Our body does not really produce noise, but it functions like an antenna which accumulates noise from our surroundings. So when we are in close proximity to our guitar, the guitar will pick up the accumulated noise from our body. Hence, the buzzing noise. When we touch the metal parts of the guitar, the noise from our body will transfer via the metals to the ground connections. This will make our body grounded. Voila! The noise decreases).

3. Touching the bridge and string slightly increase the buzz. (Same theory as before. This happens because the ground connection on the bridge, strings, tuning pegs are not working properly. You guys who posted in this thread are absolutely right about this :lol: The problem lies on the ground connection between the bridge and the ground point/back of volume pot. In my case, even if my solder is not beautiful, it is still solid. Give a good pull on your wire to see if the solder is solid. Cold solder joint can be pulled off quite easily. My problem actually lies in the cable wire itself, not the solder. The inside of my wire is broken as the cable itself is badly twisted, hence electric signal can't go through. Use multimeter to run continuity test to see whether your wire is good.)


Any help would be appreciated.


Last edited by stygionyx on Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:52 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:46 pm
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If the buzz was not there before you change pickups ( you did not tell ) , check your job , bad solder or ground wire missing


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:57 pm
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Yah, ground issues likely.

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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 7:05 pm
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Thank you for clarifying. I thought it is a ground issue too due to my poor soldering skill. Now the question is where exactly I mess up.

Like I said before, only when I'm touching the jack metal, that the buzz reduce. Can I safely assume that only the jack ground wire is not properly grounded? Or must I check everything (pickups, pots, bridge) whether they are all properly grounded?


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 7:42 pm
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Trace all your connections. Check for sound solder joints and no shorting.

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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 10:11 pm
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BMW-KTM wrote:
Trace all your connections. Check for sound solder joints and no shorting.


+1

When in doubt, whip it out.

(your soldering iron, that is)

Re-heat and re-flow all of your connections to eliminate the possibility of a cold joint.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 1:44 am
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Ok. I checked all ground wires. I suspect that the solder lug at the back of neck tone pot is bad. But could it really gives effects to the symptoms I get (only when touching metal jack, the noise reduce)? I don't know. I kinda expect the problem is somewhere around the jack ground wire, which is soldered at the back of volume pot. But all solders lugs at the volume pot looks good and I don't want to mess it if possible.

I've found another thing. The noise isn't so loud when I'm using batteries on the micro cube instead of using ac adapter. But I guess it's becausr of the higher output produced by ac adapter.


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 5:12 am
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Ground issue could be anywhere , a picture of your job may help . We can't say a easy answer like you wish ( as ; reheat solder on the black wire... )


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 7:08 am
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Some things to check:
The AC adaptor; are you using the original one supplied with the MicroCube?
Have you tried the guitar/amp on some other electric outlets in the house?
Have you tried the same amp with another guitar, and the same guitar with another amp?
(And of course, the same guit/amp assembly with another guitar cable...)

The "less noise when touching jack//more noise when touching bridge" is a bit puzzling; normally they should both reduce the noise. So, you do have a ground wire from the bridge?


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:41 am
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jmattis wrote:
The "less noise when touching jack//more noise when touching bridge" is a bit puzzling; normally they should both reduce the noise. So, you do have a ground wire from the bridge?

I agree. That symptom tells me that your strings/bridge aren't grounded. If they were, the noise would decrease when you touched them.
An increase in noise tells me that they are acting as an antenna to increase radiation to the strings when you touch them.
You might have pulled something loose when working on the pots. Some bridge ground wires are just clamped between the bridge and the body and are easily pulled out.


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem (fixed, with solutions)
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:55 am
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Updated with solutions. Thank you Fender community for all your helpful contributions for me :wink:


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem (fixed, with solutions)
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 5:36 am
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I just wanted to add a quick $.02 worth to this for the sake of posterity...

Aside from the ground issues with the guitar the OP mentioned, I noticed that he said he was using a Roland Microcube. I have one of these as well (although not the GX verson) and I've had some buzz issues as well. In my case, this buzz doesn't happen when the amp is running on batteries, it only happens while using the wall wart power adapter...and as you'd imagine, no...the wall wart is not grounded. My solution is rather "low tech"...I simply tie a wire to the jack of the guitar cable (where it goes into the amp) and just run that to a ground (metal pipe, ground connector on an electrical outlet, etc).

Very simply, many of these little portable amps you see today use a wall wart as apposed to a proper grounded power supply and as such, they are prone to some buzzing. A large rig where someone may use wall warts with their pedals still has everything grounding thru the amp, however many of these little amps don't have that ground to begin with.

Obviously the OP had some other issues going on there as well with the guitar, however in the broadest general sense, 8 out of 10 times when you have a loud buzz, it's usually because something isn't properly grounded. If a person has done recent work on their instrument, that's always a good place to start, however always check the amp ground as well...it's amazing how many people I see who will STILL use a 3 prong to 2 prong adapter (which by-passes the ground), then not understand why their amp buzzes (which can be very dangerous by the way). If something is buzzing, short of issues such as fluorescent lights and single coil pickups, always check to make sure you have a proper ground.

Just something to keep in mind....


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem (fixed, with solutions)
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 5:47 am
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lomitus wrote:
simply tie a wire to the jack of the guitar cable (where it goes into the amp) and just run that to a ground (metal pipe, ground connector on an electrical outlet, etc).

Oh sheet, I didn't notice this before today. Hope nobody has died yet.

In some countries, and with older electric components, there still may be grounded outlets with just two wires. The grounding claw(s) is (are) connected to the 0-wire inside the outlet with a piece of separate wire. Usually, it's a safe system - if there's a fault, the current has only one escape rout.
But in this case: if something goes wrong, the ground wire becomes live. So the current runs to the jack, to the strings and the unlucky guitar player...
So be very cautious of this solution!


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Post subject: Re: Noise problem (fixed, with solutions)
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 8:38 am
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jmattis wrote:
lomitus wrote:
simply tie a wire to the jack of the guitar cable (where it goes into the amp) and just run that to a ground (metal pipe, ground connector on an electrical outlet, etc).

Oh sheet, I didn't notice this before today. Hope nobody has died yet.

In some countries, and with older electric components, there still may be grounded outlets with just two wires. The grounding claw(s) is (are) connected to the 0-wire inside the outlet with a piece of separate wire. Usually, it's a safe system - if there's a fault, the current has only one escape rout.
But in this case: if something goes wrong, the ground wire becomes live. So the current runs to the jack, to the strings and the unlucky guitar player...
So be very cautious of this solution!


Also, some countries have floating ground, with three wires, all different, and neither of which are earth. In which case you do not, under any circumstance, want to treat ground as earth.


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