Guitar Repairs

Mark1960

Hi All - Can anybody recomend a good place to get a guitar repaired in Leicester. Mine has a small wiring problem - might be the earthing.

Mark

Wolfetone

What's the problem with the wiring? With all the knowledge on here, it'll be fixed by tea time!

Mark1960

With the guitar plugged into the amp, there is a buzzing noise, but if you touch the strings, or the tone / volume controls (it's a telecaster so metal plate) the buzzing stops, which leads me to think it may be an earthing issue?

sweepy

The earth wire under the bridge needs to be connected to the body of either the volume or tone pot. It’s days like this where Maplins is such a loss, a quick visit for a cheap multimeter etc can save so much head scratching . Is the noise worse nearer the amp or computer and does it change when you move the guitar relative to either ?

robgilmo

My Tele makes a horrific noise, Ive just grown to accept it. I did notice that the noise changes relative to how I hold the guitar, I kid you not.

Can you try running a fly lead from the control plate or bridge to the earth on the jack socket body? See if the noise goes away?


Anyone who knows about this stuff care to comment on this idea?

Mark1960

sweepy said:

The earth wire under the bridge needs to be connected to the body of either the volume or tone pot. It’s days like this where Maplins is such a loss, a quick visit for a cheap multimeter etc can save so much head scratching . Is the noise worse nearer the amp or computer and does it change when you move the guitar relative to either ?

Thanks Sweepy - I have a mate who is a bit handy with a multimeter, and a soldering iron, I will pass on your comments and see if he can fix it.

ICBM

Mark1960 said:

With the guitar plugged into the amp, there is a buzzing noise, but if you touch the strings, or the tone / volume controls (it's a telecaster so metal plate) the buzzing stops, which leads me to think it may be an earthing issue?

That's entirely normal and means the guitar is earthed correctly.

If it's still too noisy it may need (more) shielding or the wiring tidying up, or both.

RiftAmps

ICBM said:

Mark1960 said:

With the guitar plugged into the amp, there is a buzzing noise, but if you touch the strings, or the tone / volume controls (it's a telecaster so metal plate) the buzzing stops, which leads me to think it may be an earthing issue?

That's entirely normal and means the guitar is earthed correctly.

If it's still too noisy it may need (more) shielding or the wiring tidying up, or both.

This.

When you're not touching the strings your body is acting as an antenna to various noises in the room, which the guitar then hears. Touching the strings sends those noises straight to ground rather than through the guitar/amp and it all goes quiet.

As @ICBM says, shielding and lead dress will help but this is a completely normal phenomenon.

ICBM

It's why those of us who are fortunate enough to have played at reasonable volume with vintage Fender guitars - early ones of which were barely shielded at all - or accurate reissues of them, will know why it's important to keep one hand in contact with the guitar at all times, and/or turn the volume control to zero if you're not playing.

Most modern guitars have at least slightly better shielding, often conductive paint in the control and pickup cavities, or more use of shielded wire. Even then, there's usually a noticeable increase in noise if you're not touching the strings.

Mark1960

Thanks for the input guys - i'm having the wiring checked out just in case, as it did not used to do this as its's only a couple of rears old and fitted with switchable single coil / humbuckers.

skunkwerx

Shame your not near Feline! 

Those guys offer a fantastic health check free of charge and have put worries like this away for me before, where it turned out nothing was wrong. 

Its funny, I have a Fender Tele too, and I plug in to my katana on its half a watt setting, crank the gain or use a metal muff and at moderate bedroom levels, theres nothing worse buzzing or hunning than two of my humbucker guitars. 

I know its not mad volume, but I expected more noise with single coils. 
Quite impressed with it tbh. 

I bet if I plug in when I'm home and check it out, there would actually be some buzz that stops when I touch metal parts, but I guess its not in the realms of being annoying so I've never really noticed it too much. 

Mark1960

Mark1960 said:

Hi All - Can anybody recomend a good place to get a guitar repaired in Leicester. Mine has a small wiring problem - might be the earthing.

Mark

Ha Ha - Guess what? Nothing wrong with the guitar - turned out to be dimmer switches fitted at our rehearsal rooms!!

Jimbro66

Mark1960 said:

Mark1960 said:

Hi All - Can anybody recomend a good place to get a guitar repaired in Leicester. Mine has a small wiring problem - might be the earthing.

Mark

Ha Ha - Guess what? Nothing wrong with the guitar - turned out to be dimmer switches fitted at our rehearsal rooms!!

Oh yes, we’ve all seen that one. Strangely I was just about to ask whether you have dimmers nearby when you posted. As others have said, get it properly shielded, it makes a big difference.

Jimbro66

I thought this little example of the noise differences between a shielded and unshielded (stock) Strat might interest anyone with similar issues to the OP

https://youtu.be/5N05sPzZeCA

ESBlonde

My Telecaster make a horrible noise. But when I stop playing it stops as well. ;-)