[Awake77]

Hey guys -

I installed two EMG707's in my RG7620. Hand routed the body with a dremel (yikes!!). Fixed my crappy route job with some sweet pickup rings from Dave at fretsonthenet.com (my guitar is on there too if you want to have a look.

Anyway, Ive got a 707 in the neck and the bridge, with a 5-way selector switch (Gibson model). The tone and volume controls work, the selector switches the pickups - but it sounds like I have a BAD grounding problem. If I touch any metal object on the body (knobs, bridge, etc) it picks up noise as if Im touching the 1/4" end of a cable that's plugged into an amp.

If I grab the outside sleeve of the guitar cable with my hand, I ground the signal. I had to use the stock Ibanez input jack rather than the EMG supplied one, but it has 3-leads on it and EMG techsupport said it should work fine.

Im pretty good with electronics, but this is my first pickup install and for the life of me I can't figure out what Im doing wrong. Anywhere I should start looking?

Thanks,
Awake77

 

[toshiro]

Make sure you've got the hot and ground(s) to the correct lugs on the jack. Sounds like you have them reversed to me.

 

[buddroyce]

Check for a cold solder joint as well as all ground wires are soldered and like Toshiro said, check to ensure that your output jack is wired properly. I just wired and hand routed a RG1527 to fit an EMG707 and 81-7 for a client and didn't have any problems. If you didn't unsolder the leads off the original ibanez jack then the only thing you should have wired to it is the battery clip.

Btw, hand routing with a dremel isn't that bad, especially if you can use pickup rings to cover it up. The one I had to do for a client I had to route the body with my trusty pocket knife(yep a knife, proof that it can be done) and the guy didn't want pickup rings!! Talk about a pain in the rear end!

 

[Awake77]

Thanks for the suggestions...I actually have tried swapping the leads on the input jack but it didnt have an effect. Do you think it could be the input jack itself? Ill go over the solder joints again and make sure everything is flowed correctly.

Yeah, for my first time routing/wiring pickups it came out nice, now I just have to get them to work!! I actually have to go back in there and dig a little deeper into the body - I can't get the action low enough with the 707's just sitting in the cavities.

 

[Demiurge]

Did you disconnect the bridge ground wire?

 

[Awake77]

I've tried with the bridge ground wire connected and disconnected, same problem! Thanks for the suggestion though!