Texas Special pickup Humming Need help

[Jam]

I have a strat with Texas Specials in it and I cant get it to stop humming so loud. When you have the vol all the way up its real bad. Everything looks grounded. I did change the input jack with a heavy wire than it did have. I dont know where to start Thanks

[Chuck H]

Well... They are noise cancelling/humbucking pickups. There must be an error in the grounding scheme as wired or some other ground fault in the chain. Did you try a different guitar with the same rig? Did you try a different instrument cable? Did you try a different amp? If none of these stops the hum then I think there must be an error in your wiring on the guitar. Without more details it's hard to know where. Is your volume control working correctly?

[Jam]

I tried different amps and stuff but it still hums loud. What is the right way to ground it? Could a pot othe swicth do it? Thanks

[Chuck H]

Oh hey, my bad. Those are NOT hum cancelling pickups. I thought those were one of the Fender "noiseless" types but they're not. So...

Do you have another guitar with single coil pickups to compare to and does this guitar hum more? Humbucking pickups are not a fair comparison. It must be single coil pickups you compare to. Why do you think the hum is too loud? Have you used another guitar with the same rig without problems? Did it have single coil pickups? Are you using a stomp box or cranking up the gain on the amp? What kind of tone are you using? What kind of tone are you after?

If your not in love with the tone you could change them out for a "noisless" type pickup set.

Or Suhr makes a dandy "dummy coil" system for quieting down the hum of single coil pickups, it's real spendy though.

[Jam]

I tried different amps and chord but What I did was put all the grounds form the pickups and the bridge on the volume pot then I ran a wire to the tone pot then another wire to the other tone pot then a wire to the input jack. Would that cause a ground loop?.THANKS

[Chuck H]

I don't usually see ground loops in guitars, more of an active circuit problem. Other's experience may differ. As long as all your grounds are there, and it sounds like they are, you should have typical performance. Please answer these Q's:

Do you have the cavities shielded?

Do you get hum in positions 2 and 4?

Was the guitar quieter before rewiring? AND If yes what pickups were in it before?

Have you used this rig with another guitar that is quieter? AND If yes what kind of pickups did it have?

Cheers

[David Schwab]

It sounds like the ground is not connected to the output. All the pots should have a ground wire connecting them together, and then to the jack. Is the volume pot grounded? You cannot have a ground loop in a guitar because it only has one path to ground; at the jack. Ground loops need two grounds at different potentials.

The other reason you might have a bad hum is if the ground and hot is mixed up at the jack.