HELP! To much noise!

[minions]

I just finished soldering my custom guitar yesterday, and I strung it and plugged it in today.

As soon as I plugged it in, there was a ton of buzzing that decreased slightly when I put my hand on the jack plate or the lead, but was still loud. I have two metal toggle switches in my guitar and whenever I touched them, the buzzing worsened.

It's a Strat using S-Tastic Expanded wiring seen here (scroll to the bottom):

http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=schem&action=display&thread=3144

What causes this? What can I do to fix this?

Thanks.

 

[Mor Paul]

Make sure you have the output jack wired correctly. Also, check that you've grounded the bridge.

 

[Dan025]

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=10667.0
did you read this one?

 

[Dan025]

also did you ground the bridge thereby grounding the strings? it is common for a guitar to make noise in a noisy (electronically) environment. grounding the strings helps sheild the pups and since you about always touch the strings that helps too.

edit
i hate to be redundant. i just didnt notice that max said those things already.

what type of guitar is this? what pups? do the pups have the pole peices and back plate grounded or metal covers like a telecaster? this can also be your problem if that is the case. modification may need to be done the the pickup wires to ground the pup properly.

also that is a pretty ambitious wiring plan. lots of solder joints and wires and potential for loose connections and weird anomalies like ground loops and things that can act like antennas.
i know the ground loop thing has been argued on this board and some of the smartest guys here say it's not a problem but i would never rule it out.

for the future keep it simple, i was like that once but i always found one or two or no sounds i liked and i'd be taring it apart to try some new crazy idea. if you keep it simple your work will look neater have less problems be less noisy. there are ways beside series wiring that will fatten up the sound of the guitar.

 

[minions]

Make sure you have the output jack wired correctly.

This may be the problem, although I specifically remember taking extra care in getting that right. Just to make sure, the ground on the output jack should be wired to the longer contact with the dimple/indent thing in it, right?

Also, check that you've grounded the bridge.

Check.

what type of guitar is this? what pups? do the pups have the pole peices and back plate grounded or metal covers like a telecaster? this can also be your problem if that is the case. modification may need to be done the the pickup wires to ground the pup properly.

It's a Strat, but I bought it from Warmoth, so it isn't standard. It has two Strat singles and a humbucker which is a Seymour Duncan P-Rails.

also that is a pretty ambitious wiring plan. lots of solder joints and wires and potential for loose connections and weird anomalies like ground loops and things that can act like antennas.
i know the ground loop thing has been argued on this board and some of the smartest guys here say it's not a problem but i would never rule it out.

Yeah I knew I had a big project when I started, and now I'm starting to think I have a lot of loose connections due to the fact that the pickups sometimes work and sometimes they just go dead.

there are ways beside series wiring that will fatten up the sound of the guitar.

Like what?

---

Thanks guys. I'll do some modifications on my guitar, especially shielding it. But now my main concern has become that the pickups do not always deliver a sound and when they do, the sound is pretty faint. That and the volume pot not working has lead me to believe I have some loose/broken solders.

 

[Mor Paul]

Do you have a picture of your wiring job?

 

[big bob]

is there a dimmer switch in the room where the amp is? or any neon? might not be the guitar. is the amp grounded properly?

 

[Dan025]

you are probably ok with those pickup, but to be clear the bare wire from the p-rails gets grounded directly. it should not be connected to anything at the switch as the series combos might make that hot and not ground. it is hard to tell and i don't want to waist time tracing leads on the diagram.

some singles ground the pole pieces to the black lead but to my experience most strat style stuff leaves them ungrounded so that "should" be ok.

Make sure you have the output jack wired correctly.

This may be the problem, although I specifically remember taking extra care in getting that right. Just to make sure, the ground on the output jack should be wired to the longer contact with the dimple/indent thing in it, right?

Also, check that you've grounded the bridge.

Check.

also that is a pretty ambitious wiring plan. lots of solder joints and wires and potential for loose connections and weird anomalies like ground loops and things that can act like antennas.
i know the ground loop thing has been argued on this board and some of the smartest guys here say it's not a problem but i would never rule it out.

Yeah I knew I had a big project when I started, and now I'm starting to think I have a lot of loose connections due to the fact that the pickups sometimes work and sometimes they just go dead.

there are ways beside series wiring that will fatten up the sound of the guitar.

Like what?

---

Thanks guys. I'll do some modifications on my guitar, especially shielding it. But now my main concern has become that the pickups do not always deliver a sound and when they do, the sound is pretty faint. That and the volume pot not working has lead me to believe I have some loose/broken solders.

im not looking at the jack you are using so i'm not sure. some of these are deceptive.

loose connections can be the problem fix that first!

you can fatten up the sound with one or a number of small caps (smaller than the tone control) that you shunt to ground with a switch.to fatten it up is to say you will get more mids though not more volume.
use nothing bigger that .022uf. .01uf works nice

believe me i've been there and done that. it's not fun. nothing works better than the K.I.S.S. concept. a 5-way with one toggle or push/pull pot is about as complex as you want to get. there is a reason fender and gibson dont do these things. and when prs does they use a printed circuit!