Fenders with ground buzz?

[biggreen]

My buddy recently bought one of the mexican 70's tele reissues with dual humbuckers, and a fairly big Vox tube combo. When he uses is at his home and other friends places it get's a pretty bad ground buzz that goes away when you touch the strings. When he brings it back to the guitar store to show them, it doesn't buzz there.



I brought my American Standard over tonight and plugged it into the Vox and got no buzz at all. I had a MIM classic players series strat which is a modified 50s strat that had a ground buzz as well (though I didn't own it long enough to run it in a tube amp like his and it wasn't as noticeable for me through a Line 6 and keyboard monitor), He is bringing it back to the store to see if they can fix it, but it doesn't buzz in the store so how could they diagnose the problem even?



Do old styled fenders just buzz or is this a QC issue? How come the AS strat doesn't buzz at all?

[Edutainment]

Mine does the same thing. The buzz isn't too bad but it's there and goes away when I touch the strings. I don't really hear it unless I've got reverb on or distortion or if it's really loud though. Maybe it needs to be shielded.

[FastFret]

My buddy recently bought one of the mexican 70's tele reissues with dual humbuckers, and a fairly big Vox tube combo. When he uses is at his home and other friends places it get's a pretty bad ground buzz that goes away when you touch the strings. When he brings it back to the guitar store to show them, it doesn't buzz there.


This would be symptomatic of poor guitar grounding except for the store behavior, which probably means 'dirty' electrical wiring in both houses. I'd try another, preferably recently built, house for comparison purposes. If it doesn't buzz under identical conditions than electricals are at at fault. The only solution to that would be to power-condition the outlet the guitar connects to. Even that apparently doesn't always work.

[biggreen]

This would be symptomatic of poor guitar grounding except for the store behavior, which probably means 'dirty' electrical wiring in both houses. I'd try another, preferably recently built, house for comparison purposes. If it doesn't buzz under identical conditions than electricals are at at fault. The only solution to that would be to power-condition the outlet the guitar connects to. Even that apparently doesn't always work.

There is no doubt that the electrical in the old house is partially at fault for the buzzing, it doesn't buzz in the store where the power is much newer, however, my American standard doesn't buzz using the exact same set up in the exact same house.
So if my strat doesn't buzz, yet his tele does then is the problem shody eletrical work in his guitar or is it that it is a reissue and the elctronics it replicates naturally have ground problems?
having to buy a power conditioner hardly makes sense, when he could just buy a guitar that doesn't buzz, which is where my question comes in.

Stay away from Mexi guitars? ... or stay away from reissues to avoid this problem?

[Milkman]

What kind of lighting does the room you play in have?

Do you play close to a computer monitor?

Most passive single coil pickups will buzz around either of those to some extent but not usually humbuckers. Something's goofy but it shouldn't be hard to figure out for a tech.

[biggreen]

What kind of lighting does the room you play in have?

Do you play close to a computer monitor?

Most passive single coil pickups will buzz around either of those to some extent but not usually humbuckers. Something's goofy but it shouldn't be hard to figure out for a tech.

In 3 out of the 4 houses he tried it in it buzzed. Again, my strat doesn't buzz under the same conditions same amp same house, so troubelshooting the house is redundant. If my American Standard strat doesn't buzz then his tele should be built as well, aparently it isn't. They even swapped out guitars for the same model and it did the same thing.
So really the question, once again is, Crappy mexi electronics? Or crappy vintage styled electronics?

[Apostrophe (')]

In 3 out of the 4 houses he tried it in it buzzed. Again, my strat doesn't buzz under the same conditions same amp same house, so troubelshooting the house is redundant. If my American Standard strat doesn't buzz then his tele should be built as well, aparently it isn't. They even swapped out guitars for the same model and it did the same thing.
So really the question, once again is, Crappy mexi electronics? Or crappy vintage styled electronics?

Someone can correct this - I seem to recall reading somewhere that newer MIA's are now being shielded with conductive paint?

Did you test all positions on the Strat, or was it just 2 or 4?

I have some vintage Fender Strat pickups - they use cloth wiring. Not sure if that would cause that big of a difference, I'll defer to the electronics wizards.

At any rate, this stuff would make more sense if the Tele was using single coils.

There's a noise troubleshooting guide here that may help you track down something:
http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/electrical/trouble/genericnoise.php
http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/noisebucket.php

[ Edit ]

From the article above:
A humbucking guitar that is completely immune to "smooth hum" may be obnoxiously noisy in the presence of "buzzing" noise sources if it has an unshielded control cavity or pickup leads or internal groundloops between controls.

[biggreen]

Someone can correct this - I seem to recall reading somewhere that newer MIA's are now being shielded with conductive paint?

Did you test all positions on the Strat, or was it just 2 or 4?

I have some vintage Fender Strat pickups - they use cloth wiring. Not sure if that would cause that big of a difference, I'll defer to the electronics wizards.

At any rate, this stuff would make more sense if the Tele was using single coils.

There's a noise troubleshooting guide here that may help you track down something:
http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/electrical/trouble/genericnoise.php
http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/noisebucket.php

[ Edit ]

From the article above:
A humbucking guitar that is completely immune to "smooth hum" may be obnoxiously noisy in the presence of "buzzing" noise sources if it has an unshielded control cavity or pickup leads or internal groundloops between controls.


Hey, thanks alot. Yep, I ran the strat through it for 3 hours trying all 5 positions with the pickups while doing so. Zero ground buzz, obviously they aren;t noisless pickups, but they didn't buzz bad when I took my hands off the strings like his tele does.

I think you are on the right track with the shielded cavity here. You are also right about it being weird that it buzzes even though it has HBers in it. Next week when I go over I will bring my SG and my Fender Super Champ for comparisons sake. Though he switched out his amp and his guitar tryting to troubleshoot the problem. He has become very frustrated and I think he just wants to pick up a new guitar that won't buzz. I am going to recomend he just spend the extra $200 and get the American Standard tele, that way he knows he will be getting a properly shielded cavity, what a thing to skimp on.. :mad: