noisy lp

Tried a different cable?

It sounds to me like your control circuits are picking up some noise from you. When you touch the plug shell you are grounding yourself and bleeding all of your noise to ground. The best solution is to shield the control cavities on your guitar. This will entail putting copper foil or shielding paint over the entire cavity, grounding out the cavity, separating the signal and shield grounds (no more signal ground to the back of the pots), and then connecting it all to the cable ground at the jack. You could also add in a capacitor and resistor in parallel between the shield ground and the jack ground to protect you from any failures in your amp or the electrical wiring.
These links area a good place to get started -
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/menu.php
http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/grounding-faq.txt

The next best solution is to always keep a body part (probably a hand though your personal preference may vary :lol: ) on the strings and the string ground will ground your noise. If that doesn't work did you not connect up the string ground when you rewired everything?

Are you sure you connected the bridge or tailpiece (don't recall which one specifically) ground wire to the central grounding point? I read you've rechecked the wiring, but that particular connection is an easy one to miss, and it would cause exactly the problem you describe.

usually tailpiece, but really don't know what dif it makes if it's stop tail and ABR type bridge.

usually tailpiece, but really don't know what dif it makes if it's stop tail and ABR type bridge.

Shouldn't make any diff unless someone changes to non-metallic aftermarket saddles (e.g., Graphtech). In that case, better be the tailpiece that's grounded.

Yeah, he does need to check whether the string ground is attached or was even there in the first place. A simple check is to measure for continuity from the bridge to the jack ground (he should have a meter since he's been soldering). That string ground stops the strings from acting as antennae which pick up radio noise. Since the noise he's getting stops when he grounds out himself (touching the plug shell) then it's obvious that he's the source of the noise. What we don't know is where is the noise getting injected into the electronics. Is it through the strings because of a missing string ground? Or is it getting in there directly through the wiring and pots?

There are plenty of Les Paul (or LP-style) guitars that have a string ground and yet still have noise that doesn't go away unless the player is holding the strings. A guitar can also be quiet at home only to get noisy when there's more electronic gear around or computers or certain kinds of lighting. The only way to quiet that noise is to always hold the strings/touch the bridge or shield it.

a trick I learned to remove noise is to ground the pots too. I soldered a wire on the back of each pot and then ran that to ground. (earth).

a trick I learned to remove noise is to ground the pots too. I soldered a wire on the back of each pot and then ran that to ground. (earth).

Did you learn this recently? If so, please send a description of this to Myth Busters under the heading "Old Dog Can Be Taught New Tricks!" :wink:

a trick I learned to remove noise is to ground the pots too. I soldered a wire on the back of each pot and then ran that to ground. (earth).

Did you learn this recently? If so, please send a description of this to Myth Busters under the heading "Old Dog Can Be Taught New Tricks!" :wink:
I don't get it..am I missing something.

I don't get it..am I missing something.

Not familiar with Myth Busters?

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/mythbusters.html

nope.

I made a joke about it on your birthday thread, too. Here's a page on the show: http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/mythbusters.html

I have aTV that plugs into an electrical wall outlet. no cable, no satellite. I guess that leaves me out of a few conversations.

I watch mighty little TV, but Mythbusters is something I see a good bit. They're not always right, but they're always entertaining.