Tone knob humming

[Ripken Holt]

I just received my new SE EG in the mail today & have discovered after messing around with it a bit that whenever I turn the tone knob above 0-2 I start to get humming that gets progressively louder the farther up I turn the tone knob. I can get rid of it by turning my treble knob on my amp all the way down. Also, strangely enough, while I'm touching the strings or the metal touching the strings (tuners, bridge) it goes almost completely away. It's very irritating to say the least. Any ideas as to how I can fix it? Or should I try to return it? I bought it off of eBay so returning it would be a hassle I would like to avoid if at all possible. Other information: it happens no matter which pickup I'm using & I've tried multiple cables but just one amp, however, from what I've read online an amp problem seems unlikely. If you need any more information to diagnose just ask. Thanks for the help.

 

[John Beef]

Three single coils? Do you have other guitars, and do they hum too? How close are you to the amp? Are you using a radioactive amount of gain? Does the hum go away when the amp and pedals are set to clean? Any fluorescent lights nearby?

 

[Ripken Holt]

Three single coils? Do you have other guitars, and do they hum too? How close are you to the amp? Are you using a radioactive amount of gain? Does the hum go away when the amp and pedals are set to clean? Any fluorescent lights nearby?

Yep 3 single coils. No other electric guitars, this is my first, just switching over from acoustic. Sitting about 3-4 feet from amp. Gain is fairly low as I play mostly clean stuff like country, just high enough to get volume. The hum does go down when I turn the gain down, but not all the way. There's a decent amount of hum if the gain is all the way up & the amp is not even plugged in, but it's a different kind of hum. Like I said, the hum is controlled by the tone knob on the guitar. 3 florescent lights above me but they are not turned on while playing. I just noticed there is actually quite a bit of buzzing just from the amp being all 10s without even being plugged in to the guitar, is that normal? It seems I actually have 2 different humming problems, one correlated to the guitar tone knob & one the amp gain knob. Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[icecoolpool]

"Also, strangely enough, while I'm touching the strings or the metal touching the strings (tuners, bridge) it goes almost completely away."

That's not strange, it's perfectly normal and happens with a lot of guitars - don't panic. The reason the noise goes away is because your body acts as a shield while you are in contact with the strings or bridge (being grounded). You may want to shield the control cavity of the guitar as the wiring and controls are also a source of noise. You can either shield the cavity to permantely reduce the noise OR simply turn the volume knob down when you're not touching the strings.

This website tells you how to shield your guitar:

http://www.kinman.com/guitar-pickups/technical-support/perfect-guitar/#shielding

I'd go for the adhesive backed copper foil method personally.

 

[jimfisher]

These are great guitars! Here's how I shielded mine with an sticky-backed aluminum tape (for sealing ductwork) that really reduced the noise level.

Jim