Hi all
I've recently put some SD Quarter Pounders into a Frankenfender Pbass. These are going through a wiring harness made by KiOgon, with Alpha mini pots. The strings are D'Addario nylon tapewounds. Despite adding some copper tape shielding, especially to the underside of the scratchplate, I'm having a few issues that I'm a bit mystified by.
First of all, there appears to be some sort of grounding issue, even though I've taken the bass part twice and made sure everything is correct (i.e. wires are going into the right pots, ground wire is sitting nicely under the bridge). There is a certain amount of noise, which typically goes away when I touch the bridge, controls, etc. If I touch the poles on the forward, neck-side block of the pup, it buzzes a lot. This doesn't happen with the rear, bridge-side block. That one stays silent. I know the pickups are pretty hot but these noise issues seem a bit odd.
Secondly, when tightening up the nuts on the underside of the control knobs so that the pots are secure to the underside of the scratchplate, if I do this normally the bass tone goes completely muddy. If I loosen the tone pot slightly, the muddiness goes away.
I'd be very grateful if anyone could enlighten me as to why these things are happening! I've been using the bass a lot recently for recording and the noise issues are pretty annoying