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Buzzing when touching pole pieces on Jazz neck pickup


Clarky
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Hi all, I have an old Squier JV Jazz which sounds lovely - until I touch the pole pieces on the neck pickup with my thumb (which happens easily enough as I rest my thumb in that general vicinity) and an annoying buzz is emmitted. The buzz completely disappears if I wind the tone pot all the way to the bass side. As I graduate the pot back towards the treble side the buzz gets progressively louder.

I know Jazzes have a hum when the pickups are not matched for volume but this is different, it seems to be to do with the tone pot.

Is this normal folks? Thanks in advance

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Aha, so the tone pot should be connected to the ground wire from the bridge. Well, my Jazz is a 62 reissue and the copper wire strip that emerges from under the bridge pickup and goes to the bridge has come loose. This may be the answer

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So you've got no ground wire going to the bridge at the moment? I strongly suspect that the buzz will go after you've fixed that. The polepieces on Jazz bass pickups are not grounded, and your body acts as an antenna for interference. When you touch the poles this is induced into the pickup windings. It's worse on one pickup than the other because on most pairs of Jazz pickups one has the hot end of the coil on the inside (close to the poles) while the other is connected the other way round. When the bridge ground is connected, your body is earthed via the strings and there is much less noise when touching the poles. The same thing can happen when using nylon tapewounds as those are non conductive on the outside and leave you un-grounded.

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[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1407150431' post='2517731']
I had a similar problem on my JB.

All the earths were intact, so my solution was to paint over the top pole piece with clear nail varnish.
[/quote]
What happens if I only have red glitter nail varnish?

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