Microphoning

Have you tried dropping the pickups down away from the strings?

If the pickups are too close to the strings they get too sensitive.

Try this first and see what happens.

Also, if your amp has a "Presence" control, turn it down. Pick and finger noise is what "Presence" mostly is.

Thanks for the speedy replies.

Lowering the pickups was the first thing I tryed, and it didn't work. Although not very surprising, becuase in the EMG manual it says to raise the pickups as close to the strings as possible, because of the specific technology.
I just tryed lowering the presence on my amp. I tryed lowering it to half (it was near max. before) and then all the way down. It didn't even help with my problem, so it must be totally unrelated.
Could the problem be in the wood? Because the wood is so cheap, that when I open one of my control cavities, I actually get wood dust, even though I wipe it off every time, before I close it up.

pickups are microphonic. some more than others.
if the above didnt work I wonder if shielding will help. ormaly that is done to eliminate hum and other interferences.
somehow you have to isolate the pups.
I know a guy who has a p.u. in his violin. when he speaks into the sound hole his voice is amplified. microphonics!

Yeah. That has crossed my mind. Well, this is where my knowledge ends. How would you recommend that I shield them? I hope the procedure isn't too "invasive".

shielding has been talked about around here. try a search.
bascially, it is pretty simple.
there is a paint and a tape. Ive used the tape. it is sticky backed. stewmac I think has it.
ou open up the gutiar to expose the wiring, pots, p.u.s then you seal all surfaces (not the electronics but the surface around them). that's about all there is to it. not invasive as you dont cut away any part of the guitar.
this may work.
anyone else?

It's certainly not the wood. Agathis may be cheap, but it's actually a good tone wood, rather like spruce.

It's probably just technique. I used to be horribly frustrated at the amount of extraneous noise I produced whenever I picked up an electric. It got better with time and playing. If I haven't been playing electric in a while, or have been playing quietly with an unplugged electric, the noises come back. It's worse the higher the gain and the louder the amp. You just have to learn to keep the noises down.

New players seem to always want to use too much gain. The gain will go down as you play and gain experience.
8)

"It's certainly not the wood. Agathis may be cheap, but it's actually a good tone wood, rather like spruce.

It's probably just technique. I used to be horribly frustrated at the amount of extraneous noise I produced whenever I picked up an electric. It got better with time and playing. If I haven't been playing electric in a while, or have been playing quietly with an unplugged electric, the noises come back. It's worse the higher the gain and the louder the amp. You just have to learn to keep the noises down.

New players seem to always want to use too much gain. The gain will go down as you play and gain experience. "

Rats! You beat me to it! :D
I'm still noisy after a couple of years!

So, I just have to cover up the whole pickup and control cavity, with shielding tape (copper shielding tape, right?). All the wood parts, wall, bottom, the whole interior, except for the electronics (pickups, pots, wires, etc.)? I'll try that. Don't know when though.
And, unfortunatelly, I'm not an extreme gain user. So cutting the gain isn't a solution. Even when I play softer stuff (like Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler, Bruce Springsteen) and turn my gain way down, the microphoning problem is still there. Of course, the feedback and hum is gone, but I knew that already. My volume is a quarter of max. in all three channels and a quarter of max. in master, so volume isn't the problem either. I recently went to a studio with a drummer to do some jamming, and turned an amp to full volume for the first time in my life. NOW THAT'S FEED BACK!

yeah, the whole control cavity. hope it works.

Electrical shielding helps with hum. It won't help a bit with picking up noises made by picks and fingers. Neither will potting pickups or anything else I can think of with your equipment. Maybe using a string lubricant. I think it's more in the fingers. I could be wrong, but I've had the same problem even playing clean at moderate volume, and the problem was me.

One more thing: Light picks make a very noticeable snapping sound. Heavy picks don't do that. And of course neither does playing with bare fingers.

My guitar does have a hum, and even if shielding doesn't help with the microphonisation, I'll still do it.
And about the picking technique, it doesn't work here. No matter how I play, with my fingers, with a soft pick, a medium pick or a hard pick, it is always the same. I even tryed strumming extra lightly, but no good. My friend has a Squier (not a Strat, but some sort of a Les Paul copy, with a little different body, forgot the name though), and he has the same problem, although he doesn't hear it as much, since his amp is a 15W solid state. Even when I try my guitar on my 15W I can hear almost none of the microphonisation. But, when I plug it into my 100W tube, it's there. The tube must give the output signal extra clarity, and the microphoned signal stands out.
I have a theory, based on some reviews of guitars I've read around the Net. While I was reading about some Epiphone guitars, I read that some people had a problem with their pickup switches. Apparently, when you'd switch to just one pickup (on an H-H guitar), you could still hear some sound from the other pickup. The one which should be switched off. Therefore, the only way to get a solo pickup on these guitars, is to turn down the volume totally for the other one. This was especially frequent with the Goth Explorer from Epiphone.
So, maybe my 5-way switch has the same issue. Maybe the microphoned sound is coming from another pickup, one that should be switched off. One that's getting just a little electricty from the amp, that's actually meant for the currently active one. On my H-S-H guitar, you can never activate all three pickups at once, so one could always be a little active, giving off the microphoned sound. When you think about it, it actually makes sense. When I installed my EMG pickup I got a new stereo jack, a battery clip, a new volume and tone pot, and new wires. NO NEW SWITCH. Of course, there are some old wires left from the early electronics, but they shouldn't be causing problems. During the set up, they have been resoldered, and checked. So the problem is in the switch. The only old part of the electronics. And it is giving me problems, because sometimes I have to calibrate it to get the pickup. When I switch between pickups, sometimes I'd get no sound at all, and have to move it a little to turn on the correct pikcup, and sometimes I'd get a crickelly sound, and have to move it again.
What do you guys think about this?

I don't think a bad switch would explain being sensitive to extraneous mechanical noises.

I think your comment about the amp's clarity is on track. The more sensitive your pickups and amp are to higher frequencies, and the better your speaker is at reproducing them, the more of that you'll hear.

You said you've turned "Presence" down to half. I almost never turn it up as high as 1/4. Try turning "Presence" all the way down, and turn your treble way down. Then tell us if that made a difference.

I've posted earlier, but you must now have seen it. I did try lowering my presence control all the way down. Didn't help a bit. And turning down the treble, which isn't very high (a quarter, up to a half of max.), doesn't seem to work. Are you sure that the switch isn't causing the problem, because I think that one pickup could be a little bit on, when I switch to another one.