my strat buzzes horribly when I have the pickup selector is on the neck, middle, and bridge pickups. The only time it dosen't is when I have it on pickup combinations like the 2nd position and the 4th position Anyone know why?

_________________
09 deluxe stratocaster
96 squier
08 ESP EX-260
09 Mitchell 12-string
digitech screamin' blues
Ibanez Flanger
Fab Metal
Crate gx-15
Crate custom flexwave 120

Its because your middle pickup is reverse wound / reverse polarity. Its not that your buzz is any worse than any other strats just that your noticing the difference when in positions 2&4. Also looking at your gear list i bet you use a lot of gain. That never helps. Also some pedals are noisy, single coil pickups only aggravate that buzz/hum/noise.

_________________
No no and no

Absolutely. Man, that noise must be intolerable.That 60 cycle hum you hear is being magnified exponentially with all those devices. Your only solution apart from staying in positions 2 and 4 (which are humbucking modes due to the RW/RP middle pickup) is to consider either a noise gate (yet another pedal) or better still, stacked humbuckers. I must presume that giving up all the pedals and not playing so loud is clearly NOT an option!

_________________
You dig?

Hi drewkincaid. Just to expand on what our learned colleagues (above) have already said, if you are not familiar with the dreaded "60 cycle hum", then be aware it can be exacerbated by the proximity of sources such as florescent lighting, TV screens, computers, even mains wiring and many other such sources. Just move both your guitar, cable and amp around the room a bit to see if the problem is better or worse in some areas than others.

Personally, I hate noise gates. Soon as you can tell it's having an effect it is adversely interfering with your sound and feel. A good measure is to learn to turn down your gain level. Many (but not all) of the famous players' tones you probably like are often produced with much lower gain settings than you might imagine.

This issue is all a bit of a compromise, I'm afraid...

Good luck - C