honeyisfunny wrote:I got this weird 'lawsuit' copy of an SG Pro and very nice it is too. When I got it, it was pretty grubby and the electrics were expectedly shonky. When I tried it out through an amp I noticed that, if I took my left hand off the guitar completely and just moved the trem arm with my right hand it made a weird crunchy static noise. I figured it was because it was the only point of contact at that point, so I was earthing the guitar by touching the trem arm and then as I moved it around it was rapidly making and breaking metallic contact with the various springs, bolts and washers between it and the tailpiece attached to the guitar and to the electrics and creating this rapid, moving buzz/non-buzz. So I took it to bits, cleaned it up, checked the connections, checked the earth wire and it's all good. I put an extra non-metallic washer in between the arm and the tailpiece and moved it around and it was quiet as a mouse. Problem solved I figured. But then I put the spring back in the tailpiece and straight away it was crackling. The oddest thing is that the guitar still picks up the movement of the spring in the tailpiece when the tailpiece isn't touching the guitar. I can't explain it so here's a video...https://www.facebook.com/sumlin/videos/ ... 3548919938What is causing this? It's bonkers. I had an ES135 Gibson once and ended up getting rid of it because the P90s picked up static but only when it was me playing it. Am I somehow weirdly electrically charged? Oh god. I hope not. Maybe I could be a super hero...The pickups could pick up that vibration near them, much the same way you can shout into a pickup (especially a single coil through a fuzz or gainy amp) and hear it.As long as it isn't making noise when it's all reassembled, I don't see a problem.

I got this weird 'lawsuit' copy of an SG Pro and very nice it is too. When I got it, it was pretty grubby and the electrics were expectedly shonky. When I tried it out through an amp I noticed that, if I took my left hand off the guitar completely and just moved the trem arm with my right hand it made a weird crunchy static noise. I figured it was because it was the only point of contact at that point, so I was earthing the guitar by touching the trem arm and then as I moved it around it was rapidly making and breaking metallic contact with the various springs, bolts and washers between it and the tailpiece attached to the guitar and to the electrics and creating this rapid, moving buzz/non-buzz. So I took it to bits, cleaned it up, checked the connections, checked the earth wire and it's all good. I put an extra non-metallic washer in between the arm and the tailpiece and moved it around and it was quiet as a mouse. Problem solved I figured. But then I put the spring back in the tailpiece and straight away it was crackling. The oddest thing is that the guitar still picks up the movement of the spring in the tailpiece when the tailpiece isn't touching the guitar. I can't explain it so here's a video...https://www.facebook.com/sumlin/videos/ ... 3548919938What is causing this? It's bonkers. I had an ES135 Gibson once and ended up getting rid of it because the P90s picked up static but only when it was me playing it. Am I somehow weirdly electrically charged? Oh god. I hope not. Maybe I could be a super hero...

I wrapped the top and bottom coil of the spring in insulating tape and it's fixed it. I'll give it a proper run through a loud amp in the practice room tomorrow but playing along to Wipers Over The Edge in my boxer shorts at home has had no sign of trouble. Guitar sounds great.

Problem is that it IS making noise when reassembled when the trem arm is moved.FM benadrian - like some beacon of intelligence - suggested on Facebook that it's some weird occurrence where the pickups are picking up interference from me as I touch the spring with my arm over them. Makes sense and also explains this problem I had from years ago:viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24639&p=366518&hilit=static+gibson#p366518Basically - I'm filled with electricity like a substation.Ben suggested cutting a plectrum to size and inserting it between the spring and the tiny bit of metal it's connecting with in the tailpiece - seems to work.

zom-zom wrote:Are you certain the ground wire at the tailpiece is making good contact?I had an SG that did some really weird stuff as a result of a faulty ground, touching random pickguard screws would make static and such.Yeah - it seems to be. I could understand it all (and put it down to issues with the wiring) if it wasn't for the pickups transmitting the noise when the tailpiece isn't touching the guitar. It's the weirdest thing - check the video (excuse my voice, that's something I can't fix alas).

I watched the video, it's a little baffling. Two things: what happens if you rattle the spring around with something that is insulated (pencil, chopstick, drumstick)AndIs there a fluorescent light nearby?Is it possible that the spring/tailpiece combo has bad electrical contact to each other WITHIN a magnetic field or emf field? And that bad contact between two things within the field is enough for single coils to pick up? Maybe try cleaning the contact surfaces of the spring and spring cup with steel wool or fine sandpaper and see if that does anything.

Carsoni says plaid full boxers.

ldopa\_chicago wrote:honeyisfunny wrote:I wrapped the top and bottom coil of the spring in insulating tape and it's fixed it. I'll give it a proper run through a loud amp in the practice room tomorrow but playing along to Wipers Over The Edge in my boxer shorts at home has had no sign of trouble. Guitar sounds great.But was it the tape or the boxer shorts??? This is why we only change one variable at a time. If you thought that the noise caused by your wang bar was unaffected by the species of your skivvies, think again!!Are they full boxers? Boxer briefs? Have they been properly shielded? Are your nads wired in phase?

I'm going to take a guess and assume you don't have a surface DC voltmeter but if you did I'd put some money on it telling you something if you held it over that spring/tailpiece combo and waggled the spring about. I reckon that is probably static charge discharging to earth. When you're holding the tailpiece up in the air the path to earth is either too high impedance to have the effect, or else the path isn't close enough to the guitar to get picked up. If you held the bridge off the table but with your arm stretched over the pickups you might still be able to hear it. Conversely, if you put the bridge on the table but don't operate the spring with a limb stretched over the guitar it might also be silent.Try a different spring made of or finished with a different material, or try wrapping the top and bottom of the spring and/or the spring recesses with PTFE (plumbers) tape so there is no metal to metal contact between the spring and any other part of the bridge.