Tele Buzzing Like A Bee

Squidgy Black

I bought a mex tele recently, and at the moment the thing's buzzing like a bee.

Had a guy look at it, let's just say this lad has a bit of a reputation on here :rolleyes: and it did absolutely nothing.

The problem is that the hum seems to get noticeably worse whenever I raise the tone knob up.

It seems that any time I touch either A) a part on the control plate the neck pickup cover or C) the input jack, that the hum stops completely.

However, the tone changes, as if the tone knob is being bypassed completely.

Would soldering a ground wire from the bridge to the control plate sort this out?

If anybody in North Dublin is handy with guitar electronics, I'd be more than happy to throw them a few quid to have a look at it rather than spend a fortune either dropping it over to Derrick Nelson or soldering pointless wires to my precious pots

KeithTS

Just sounds like it's not earthed properly, simple enought to fix but hard to say how without knowing where the problem lies.

Have a look though, take the control plate off and check that there are no loose wires.
If not, take the bridge plate off to have a look at the back of the bridge pickup.
There should be a jumper wire from the bridge pickup metal backplate to the black pickup wire. If there isnt, or it is broken then you can solder one in yourself.

Squidgy Black

KeithTS wrote: »

Just sounds like it's not earthed properly, simple enought to fix but hard to say how without knowing where the problem lies.

Have a look though, take the control plate off and check that there are no loose wires.
If not, take the bridge plate off to have a look at the back of the bridge pickup.
There should be a jumper wire from the bridge pickup metal backplate to the black pickup wire. If there isnt, or it is broken then you can solder one in yourself.

Have a feeling it's a grounding issue alright, just needed a bit of re-assurance. All the wires in the control plate seem to be soldered fine, but once I get my hands on a new soldering iron, I'll take it all apart and check the pickups out.

Seziertisch

Does touching the bridge or the strings make a difference? If not, the bridge is more than likely not grounded. Depending on how is it set up there should be a wire running from underneath the bridge to (usually) the back of the pot which is connected to the ground.

Alternatively some Tele pickups are done in such a way as that the ground from the pickup makes contact with the bridge plate, thus grounding the bridge and strings.

An easy way to test this is to use a multimeter, which if you are soldering is one of those must own items.

Squidgy Black

Seziertisch wrote: »

Does touching the bridge or the strings make a difference? If not, the bridge is more than likely not grounded. Depending on how is it set up there should be a wire running from underneath the bridge to (usually) the back of the pot which is connected to the ground.

Alternatively some Tele pickups are done in such a way as that the ground from the pickup makes contact with the bridge plate, thus grounding the bridge and strings.

An easy way to test this is to use a multimeter, which if you are soldering is one of those must own items.

Touching the bridge or the strings makes no difference.

I haven't actually gone over all the wiring yet as such and checked schematics, just glanced at the control panel to check that all the solder points are okay.

I foolishly left all my soldering gear in a friend's house in galway and he's moved to the states so I have to get a new multimeter and an iron

KeithTS

Bear in mind that the best of Teles still have a bit of a hum at the best of times but saying that, if you've only bought it in the last few months don't trouble yourself over it, go in to the shop and get them to fix it for you.

Johnny Storm

This might help...
http://www.guitarnuts.com/index.php
read the section that starts "The GuitarNuts Story...."

Elysian

stetyrrell wrote: »

Touching the bridge or the strings makes no difference.

That's your problem right there, the bridge isn't grounded. Usually the metal base plate of the pickup on a Tele grounds the bridge through contact with the elevation screws however not all Tele pickups have metal baseplates and in some cases there can still be grounding issues even if there is a metal baseplate. Best thing to do is to solder a wire from the common ground point to the bridge and you should be fine.