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Hi guys, thanks in advance for your time, I’ll try to be succinct, but it is a bit convoluted just to warn you.
I have a MIM strat and I wanted a squier to be an okay second guitar to it. I bought a squier paranormal series semi hollow telecaster which has ‘fender designed’ jazzmaster pickups.
When I first plugged the guitar in after it was delivered , it made horrendous noise - loud ground noise which goes away when I touch the strings, bridge and metal pots, but gets worse when I touch the plate where the neck bolts on, or the metal scratch plate.
i decided to keep the guitar as the tech said the ground hum would be easily fixable. Because of this, I also decided to upgrade the bridge, tuners and pickups to Lollars. The work and the parts were pricey, needless to say.
The tech said the wiring was fine and the noise at the tech’s workshop wasn’t that bad (still too much for my liking), but I took it home assuming there was an issue with the original pickups. It was still doing the exact same thing with the Lollars - no different at all - so there is definitely an environmental issue at my house - I discovered this occurs mainly upstairs. Using my amp and normal fender lead downstairs in my house produces around the same amount of hum as in the tech’s workshop.
Despite all this, I’ve lived in the same house for years and I’ve owned many electric guitars with single coil pickups, but I’ve never had this issue or anything like it.
The tech I took the guitar to was being a bit awkward about doing more work on it as he insisted it’s okay, so I contacted another local tech. I took it to his shop and he said it’s ground hum and that it was unacceptably loud. He took it to a local tech who’s supposed to be very knowledgeable about the electrics side of guitars.
Without realising that I’d already switched the pickups, this tech came to the conclusion that it’s the pickups causing it. He even alluded to the idea that the neck is too hotly wound, so much so that it’s almost a fault. He did things like putting various lamps near the pickups to conclude that they’re pickup up a lot of environmental interference. He even wired the neck pickup so they’d be out of phase and he said that reduced the sound, but didn’t stop it.
The thing is, it’s done the exact same thing with both sets of pickups, there wasn’t even any audible difference between either set. I’ve spoken online with others who have had this issue, so I don’t think this is a pickup issue.
i spoke to fender earlier and they said sometimes with semi hollows, someone in the factory might be lazy with the shielding paint and not cover all the areas, rendering it useless. What do you guys think about this?
Unfortunately at this point I realise I’ve plowed a lot of money into a squier when I shouldn’t have done so, I just thought it would be a cool project. I can’t even return the guitar as I sold the parts the tech took off it.
I would be incredibly grateful for any input anyone can provide. At the very worst I’m hoping I could put some humbuckers in it, but I already have a guitar with humbuckers and was after a single coil sound. I understand some buzz is normal with single coils, but this is horrendous.
Thanks in advance for any insights.
I have a MIM strat and I wanted a squier to be an okay second guitar to it. I bought a squier paranormal series semi hollow telecaster which has ‘fender designed’ jazzmaster pickups.
When I first plugged the guitar in after it was delivered , it made horrendous noise - loud ground noise which goes away when I touch the strings, bridge and metal pots, but gets worse when I touch the plate where the neck bolts on, or the metal scratch plate.
i decided to keep the guitar as the tech said the ground hum would be easily fixable. Because of this, I also decided to upgrade the bridge, tuners and pickups to Lollars. The work and the parts were pricey, needless to say.
The tech said the wiring was fine and the noise at the tech’s workshop wasn’t that bad (still too much for my liking), but I took it home assuming there was an issue with the original pickups. It was still doing the exact same thing with the Lollars - no different at all - so there is definitely an environmental issue at my house - I discovered this occurs mainly upstairs. Using my amp and normal fender lead downstairs in my house produces around the same amount of hum as in the tech’s workshop.
Despite all this, I’ve lived in the same house for years and I’ve owned many electric guitars with single coil pickups, but I’ve never had this issue or anything like it.
The tech I took the guitar to was being a bit awkward about doing more work on it as he insisted it’s okay, so I contacted another local tech. I took it to his shop and he said it’s ground hum and that it was unacceptably loud. He took it to a local tech who’s supposed to be very knowledgeable about the electrics side of guitars.
Without realising that I’d already switched the pickups, this tech came to the conclusion that it’s the pickups causing it. He even alluded to the idea that the neck is too hotly wound, so much so that it’s almost a fault. He did things like putting various lamps near the pickups to conclude that they’re pickup up a lot of environmental interference. He even wired the neck pickup so they’d be out of phase and he said that reduced the sound, but didn’t stop it.
The thing is, it’s done the exact same thing with both sets of pickups, there wasn’t even any audible difference between either set. I’ve spoken online with others who have had this issue, so I don’t think this is a pickup issue.
i spoke to fender earlier and they said sometimes with semi hollows, someone in the factory might be lazy with the shielding paint and not cover all the areas, rendering it useless. What do you guys think about this?
Unfortunately at this point I realise I’ve plowed a lot of money into a squier when I shouldn’t have done so, I just thought it would be a cool project. I can’t even return the guitar as I sold the parts the tech took off it.
I would be incredibly grateful for any input anyone can provide. At the very worst I’m hoping I could put some humbuckers in it, but I already have a guitar with humbuckers and was after a single coil sound. I understand some buzz is normal with single coils, but this is horrendous.
Thanks in advance for any insights.
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