First, my English sucks. But i can atleast read and understand.
I have a Fender jazz mij 1983 with klein 62 picups. It sounds fantastic.
But i have a problem with a clicking noice. (Static electricity?).
After much searching i finally found the problem. Its the (i dont know the name)
The big plastic thing on the body. Pic guard? When i slap or play chords that plastic thing gets electric like a battery and there is noice from the neck pickup.
The pickguard won’t have anything to do with electronics. It MIGHT be pushing on neck pickup and stressing a connection or a ground point. I’d start there.
I have checked all cables and connetions.
Also tryed to push the neck pickup in different directions But no noice.
Onle when the pick guard is there the noice comes.
Does the noise go away when the pickguard is on and the neck pickup is rolled all the way off and you’re playing just the bridge pickup? Theory being there is a wiring issue on the neck pickup and the pickguard jostles it just right.
If neck pickup is off there is no noice. Also if i roll off tone there is no noice.
If I play finger style there is no noice that i can hear anyways.
Its Hard to explain But sometimes there are almost no noice but if i do som slaping it kind of starts. And if i do a loose chords on the higher frets the noice comes.
What i think, is that the picguard get loaded with electricity like when you rub a ballon on your hair. Or that the neck pickup get the electricity to the picguard.
Else i have no clue.
It sounds a little like when you put old music LP on a record player.
Maybe back off the input jack a bit when you put the Pickguard down. I suspect that the jack’s tab makes contact with the wires when it’s closed so you may need to turn it to make sure that nothing makes contact with the jack input.
As the matter of fact, I usually install the Pickguard with the cable inserted.
My thought would be that a pickups wire(s) has a nick and exposed touching the conductive tape under the Pickguard and/ or some MIM has a ground wire bolt on to the body between the pickup and control (usually near the upper most volume knob) is not fasten or touching something
It sounds like grounding issue to me due to how it activates.
Kudos for putting it on the short video form. If you can show us what’s going on under the Pickguard by showing the slow sweep under the Pickguard, cavity and wiring under the control plate, we can try to solve thin problem. I thought I’ve seen everything but this is new, lol.
For a test i put plastic foil on and the noice is gone if i rub on the foil. The picguard are made of plastic.
Its probably a grounding problem but its wierd it dissapear with more plastic on.
Edit: i wish i hand another picguard to test.
I removed the picguard an put plastic foil under and put it back without screws. Still noice.
Then i held the picguard in the air above the bass and rubed it with my finger and there was noice. Up to about 20 cm (8 inches) away from the bass.
If I put my ear near the picguard i can hear the electric noice from it when i rub my finger against it.
So now i belive its the picguard that is the reson.
Yes, your problem is static electricity. The simple (but temporary) solution is to rub the pickguard with a dryer sheet which will discharge the static and prevent it from building up. This could last from a few hours to a few weeks. The more involved solution is to shield and ground the pickguard.
For sure with the new info … but why?
Why this pickguard?
Material?
Would a new one from pretty much anywhere solve this?
I’ve never seen this and just wondering why he is plagued and all the rest of us never have seen this.
It’s a pretty common problem with plastic/nylon/pvc/ect pickguards. That’s why you’ll see that most of them have foil on the back side. The foil allows the static that builds up in the pickguard to bleed to ground via the pots.
Now i testet to put aluminum foil under the picguard and it became much less noice. Its still there but much better.
Then i washed it with a washcloth and all noice dissapeared.
So now i guess i need to buy a new picguard. How can i know which to buy?
