Jazzmaster hum problem

[east Boston guy]

Hello folks. I just change the pick ups on my fender ultra Jazzmaster from noiseless to vintage 65s., and of course, now I got some hum issues. I was thinking of ordering some shielding paint and painting the inside of the cavity that should work I hope.. does anyone out there? Have any other suggestions to quiet down the hum. I run the guitar mostly through a Marshall DSL 40 amp. Thanks in advance for any help I might receive and I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

[Biloxide]

Hi,
You can use adhesive copper foil with conductive glue and tape all your cavities and pickguard to create a faraday cage. It will take a little time and cares to do it right and a little expensive for sure, but it worth the price for eradicted annoying noises. Try also to check all your grounding wires "black" are well attached and soldered. Hope it help you. I don't trust in sheilding paint .

[mekhem]

Some inexpensive copper tape.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MFG98TV?re ... tails&th=1

[Tyrannocaster]

Shielding is a good idea, but I hope you aren't expecting to get rid of the hum, because shielding stops rf, not hum. Single coil pickups hum no matter how good your shielding is. The only successful way is to go with some sort of noiseless pickups, but they don't ever sound quite the same. I have three JMs: one has the stock CV 60s pickups, one has Dimarzio EJs (MIM CP) and one has Fender humbuckers (MIM Player). Both of the humbucker guitars have no hum (unless you use huge amounts of gain, anyway), but the CV has to be carefully pointed with respect to any transformers whenever you use one of the coils alone. All three guitars sound great for my purposes but the CV is the only one that nails *that* sound.

So shield if you are having rf problems, but otherwise don't expect miracles.

EDIT: of course if you have a bad ground or other actual wiring issue that's a different story.

[Biloxide]

Yes Tyrannocaster, right wiring is the miracle key, all the wires ground star on volume pot to avoid ground loop, and floating ground from the jack and hot, with mogami wire 2 conductors and braided copper or shielded metal alu foil ? under insulated plastic sleeve...
I'll do this and silent ...
https://www.cabler-sa-guitare.fr/cablag ... flottante/

[andy_tchp]

^ Massive overkill and the significant hum produced by the Jazzmaster single coil pickups will remain.

Buy Kinmans if you want fully noise-free pickups that actually sound good.

[alexpigment]

1) Go on Amazon and find a cheap vintage output alnico strat single coil pickup (Fleor makes one for like $10 or so).

2) Use a small neodymium magnet to reverse the magnetic polarity of the neck pickup poles, then swap the lead and ground wires going from that pickup. A small compass is a good idea so you know which polarity it currently has and confirm that you've reversed it successfully.

3) Remove the wire that goes from the pickup selector to the volume pot.

4) [OPTIONAL] Remove the magnets from the cheap pickup. I use chopsticks usually.

5) Wrap the cheap pickup from step 1 in some masking tape (to prevent it from touching anything grounded), then use some double sided tape to mount it face up somewhere in the guitar (e.g. under the pickguard between the toggle switch and the volume pot).

6) Connect one wire of the cheap pickup to the output of the 3 way toggle and the other to the input of the volume knob. This will be trial and error depending on the pickup, but you'll know when the hum goes away that you've got the right wires going to the right places. If the hum gets louder, swap the wires from the toggle to the volume knob.

Hum will go away in most scenarios. I realize that this seems like a lot of steps, but it's cheap and gets the job done, and generally only takes about 10-20 minutes.

[Larry Mal]

^ Massive overkill and the significant hum produced by the Jazzmaster single coil pickups will remain.

Buy Kinmans if you want fully noise-free pickups that actually sound good.

Yeah, I don't know about all that star-grounding stuff. A lot of work.

The Kinmans are a great idea, but they still recommend shielding. But just some copper tape will be fine.

[timtam]

JM pickups tend to be noisy. PV65s are RWRP (one set of pole piece magnets is north up, the other south-up; and one pickup has the hot and ground wires flipped). So the middle position will be better noise-wise (some people only use that position).

By all means try foil shielding but realize as already pointed out that it only addresses some noise issues, mainly if you are in an electrically noisy environment (eg does the noise reduce substantially when you touch the guitar's grounded metal ? ... which is then grounding your big body noise antenna).

Noise-producing physical ground loops are not a thing in guitars, so the only reason for using star-grounding is for wiring convenience, not noise. The potential difference between ground points that causes physical ground loops to induce current flow in the ground line (the source of noise) when using external equipment (eg when two pieces of inter-connected mains gear are plugged into different wall sockets that may be at different ground potentials) does not exist in guitars.

The above-suggested use of two-conductor cable with with a floating shield comes up rarely (different from single-conductor shielded wiring, like Gibson's), but the theory of its utility in guitars is also shaky. Its advocates could easily prove that it works to reduce noise though, by simply providing A/B noise tests with the single ground end first disconnected and then connected. But like the people who argue for avoiding ground loops in guitars, I have never seen such a proof. One prominent pickup manufacturer who argues against ground loops on their website literally refused to provide such a proof when questioned.