Grounding Issue?

Crazed_Fandango

Hello
I've a new Fender 70s Vintera Deluxe Telecaster (twin HBs and 2x vol & tone) that has a fair bit of buzzing that will go away when I touch any part of the guitar except the pickup selector. When I touch this is becomes much louder. All my other guitars are fine.

Any thoughts on where to start looking 1st?

Thanks

SteveRobinson

It sounds like you need to earth the body of the switch.

While you are at it you could replace the wire from switch to jack with some screened cable, I don't know why Fender don't do this.

ICBM

Crazed_Fandango said:

I've a new Fender 70s Vintera Deluxe Telecaster (twin HBs and 2x vol & tone) that has a fair bit of buzzing that will go away when I touch any part of the guitar except the pickup selector. When I touch this is becomes much louder. All my other guitars are fine.

Any thoughts on where to start looking 1st?

It's a shielding issue. These are very poorly shielded, in particular the long wiring run to and from the switch is completely unshielded (at least if it's like the previous version of this model). It also sounds like the switch frame is not grounded.

I would replace the whole thing with a piece of 4-conductor cable, using the 4th core to double the shield connection between the neck volume pot and the switch frame, and probably join it to a piece of single-core shielded cable to the jack rather than leaving the last few inches of one core unshielded - or if that's a faff, keep the 4th core separate at the controls end and twist that along with the output core to the jack.

Does that make sense?

Funkfingers

SteveRobinson said:
I don't know why Fender don't do this.

I do. To save time and, hence, money.

Look at Fender's aftermarket pickup and scratchplate assemblies. They can not even be arsed to twist the pickup conductors together for a little bit of extra hum rejection.