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UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45

ground buzz from acoustic when plugged in

lincolnbluelincolnblue Frets: 263
edited March 2021 in Acoustics
Ok so this is a strange one and I think I have narrowed down the problem. I posted yesterday in the FX thread that I thought I had an issue with my reverb pedal on my acoustic board. I have just been trying various things out to see if it is a power supply issue or something else.

What I found was that there was a buzz but if I put my finger on the pedal enclosure it went away. Randomly I tried another guitar and the buzz vanished. Tried other guitars and no issue. 

The problem seems to be with my Taylor 710e. Plugged in there is a buzz which goes away when I put my finger on a pedal or the cable jack at the guitar end. So it seems my acoustic has a ground problem. Is this common? Is there a way round it?

This is the guitar that I have a buzzing B string (https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/196247/buzzing-b-string#latest) so I do wonder if there is a cable inside that is faulty but am interested to see if anyone has any thoughts. 
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Comments

  • ICBMICBM Frets: 69426
    This is not 'ground buzz', although that seems to be a popular term for any unexplained noise. ('Ground' noise is hum, not buzz anyway.)

    It's actually caused by poor shielding of the onboard electronics, in a noisy environment. It's the *lack* of grounding of the strings which is why you notice a difference when you touch the cable plug - on an electric guitar the bridge and strings are usually grounded exactly for that reason.

    It is possible to ground the strings, although it's not easy - you need to stick a strip of copper shielding tape to the inside of the bridgeplate so the ball ends pass through it, and solder a wire to it which is then connected to the system ground. (Obviously you need to solder the wire on first!)

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • lincolnbluelincolnblue Frets: 263
    Thanks - I've mentioned it to the shop I bought the guitar from and to Taylor so they can look at it and hopefully repair when it goes off for repair when the shop opens again. I love this guitar and really hope it can be fixed but the two things are very annoying on a guitar that cost me so much.
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 69426
    lincolnblue said:
    Thanks - I've mentioned it to the shop I bought the guitar from and to Taylor so they can look at it and hopefully repair when it goes off for repair when the shop opens again. I love this guitar and really hope it can be fixed but the two things are very annoying on a guitar that cost me so much.
    Taylor electrics have always been a bit of a problem for things like this since they dropped Fishman and went to their own proprietary Expression System.

    I'm not a fan of onboard electrics at all really, but Taylors are some of the more troublesome - surprising, given their status as a professional choice. The previous 'industry standard' was Takamine, and although I don't think they sound as good, they're not prone to this sort of issue - I did recently have to replace a preamp due to it just dying, but that's actually very easy on one.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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