Another annoying noise pickup question

[kokytomv]

Hi guys, finally my mg4003 2011 arrived. I restrung the bass with thomastik flats.
Since I was excited about my new bass, I didnt check all the picks.. What I mean is...when I turn on the tones, there is a ground noise that goes away when I touch any metal part. The noise goes away when I turn off the tones.


My question is this one:
IS IT NORMAL?

Hope u can help this newbie rick fan.

[aceonbass]

Maybe. These are single coil pickups, and are more prone to hum than humbuckers (hence the name). Use a continuity tester to make sure the tailpiece is properly grounded. This can be done by touching one terminal to the tailpiece, and the other to the ring, or ground on either output jack. Assuming this is good, you now have other issues ranging from neon lighting to poor grounding of your electrical outlets. By turning off the tones, do you mean turning them counterclockwise all the way for a more bassey tone? If so this is definitely normal as 60 cycle hum often inherent in basses with single coil pickups is more prominent when the tone is turned clockwise to enhance treble. As long as the grounding in the bass is good, it's not the bass. This happens to me even with humbucking pickups in our practice space, but this is due to an improper 3rd pin ground in the wall outlets as indicated by the ground LED in my Monster power supply.

[kokytomv]

I will try to play in a different part of my house. And about the tone knobs...the sound goes away when i turn them counterclockwise. I've also heard that the sound might be caused cuz my rick has single coil pups.

thanks

[Kopfjaeger]

I will try to play in a different part of my house. And about the tone knobs...the sound goes away when i turn them counterclockwise. I've also heard that the sound might be caused cuz my rick has single coil pups.

thanks

This is exactly what Dane was saying in his post. Single coil pups hum a bit. All single coils are like this but it's part of what makes them sound so good! If you have a loud hum that goes away when you touch any metal part of your bass, strings, tail piece, jack plate, I'm also thinking ground issue. If it goes away only when you touch your strings or tail piece, I'm thinking it's the ground wire that attaches to the bottom of your mute pad. That is where I'd start. I once had an intermittent ground issue. It would crop up only when bopping up and down. For the life of me I could not figure it out until I noticed one of the mute pad screws had completely loosened. The screw did not fall out but for some reason the one screw not being in contact with the mute pad made all the difference. Since I never use the mute pad, I put a smidgen of loc-Tite on it and no issues

Sepp