Strange grounding hum problem

[As Hell Broke Loose]

Hey guys, I just put a new pickup into a tele I've been working on, it is wired correctly and all ground wires are secure. Yet I still have very bad hum coming from the guitar. What are some other possible causes for all the noise?

[crossbones]

Its not so much as the joins being secure, but have a look at them and see if they are really shiny? Could be a dry joint if its a bit dull. The best thing I did to my tele was sheild it and grounded it to the sheilding.

I did a post about it here http://finneytron.blogspot.com/2009/10/hot-buzz.html

[andrewgosline]

hate to ask the obvious, but are these single coil pickups? Most tele's are... It's pretty hard to remove the hum from single coils other than series/parallel wiring with a second single coil that is reverse wound, reverse polarity.

[As Hell Broke Loose]

Originally Posted by andrewgosline

hate to ask the obvious, but are these single coil pickups? Most tele's are... It's pretty hard to remove the hum from single coils other than series/parallel wiring with a second single coil that is reverse wound, reverse polarity.

should've been more clear, my tele has a gibson 490 in the neck and a duncan lil' 59 in the bridge. HH.

[andrewgosline]

-These pickups were noiseless in another guitar? New pickups? the little 59 will have 4 wire, so it's possible you didn't get the wires hooked up right to make it humcanceling?

-strings/bridge grounded? If not, that can cause lots of hum.

-Ground loops? Some wiring places recommend you ground everything to a single point. 'Star grounding' i've heard it called.

[As Hell Broke Loose]

Yeah, originally I had the little 59 in the bridge, and in the neck was a dimarzio super distortion. (I know that doesn't belong there, I ordered an air zone and got a super distortion by mistake, didn't realize until after I put it in, and it actually sounded great, just way too hot for my liking.) With that config, the guitar was noiseless. The gibson pickup was also noiseless in the les paul it was pulled from. I removed my bridge, shielded the area, and reattached the ground wire, which did reduce the hum about 30% so atleast it isn't horrible anymore. Do you think there is any stock to this star grounding concept, Andrew? As it stands all the grounds are on the volume pot, however not all of them make contact with each other directly.

When I first installed the pickups, I had reversed the hot/ground wires on the '59 as per duncan's recommendation so that the pickups would be in phase. Would switching them back have any effect on the noise? Or would it just put me out of phase?

[andrewgosline]

My experience is that star grounding didn't make any audible difference in the hum. Shielding the cavity did, using pickups with shielded wire did, and using humbuckers does. I'd check the wiring diagram quickly to make sure that you've got that lil 59 in a correct humbucking state. The attached pdf says you should have red and white soldered together and taped off.
http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/...501015-100.pdf
this agrees with.
http://www.1728.com/guitar.htm
so check that you have the right ones together!

Do you have a single coil guitar to compare to? I mean I've 'always' had a little bit of hum, even with humbuckers. It's just that it's pretty much intolerable when you distort a single coil for a solo or to rock out. After that I'm outa options until somebody else gets on here...

[As Hell Broke Loose]

Yeah everything is good in that regard, not to mention, I'm getting hum in ALL positions, even with the duncan off, which leads me to think it's an issue with the pots/switch or the wiring.