I had a thought about twisting the wires inside the git. I was delivering a gift build to my friend, we played it a bit with a portable amp, and there was a LOT of hum from the multiple overhead fluorescent lights in his store. this moring it occurred to me that copper phone lines and computer CAT5 cable twist the conductors around each other to reduce noise. It ought to work inside a git.
The blue arrows are the "induced" current flow in the wire loops from fluorescent light EM Noise, the yellow arrows are the charge flowing in the conductors, each loop opposes the next, much like a hum-bucker.
Anyone try this and found if it makes a difference?
Replies
If any of your wire are longer than 1 inch in you guitar or amp. you should twist them to combat unneeded noise.
Then you can clam your guitar/amp is 'Twisted". Haha
i've got a hub cab banjo with a pickup wich had a little humming, i had straigt wires. i read this and tried it out and it works a little bit. most hum is cached by the metal from the hub cap its made of
If your using a single coil pickup or piezo, you won't be able to get rid of all the hum. Definitely ground the hub cap like Wayfinder said, ground the strings too and the electronics(pots & pickups).
the hubcap was already grounded, thats why i had just a tiny bit of hum. in my other instruments, there is no such big grounded surface, so those hum more.
Like Wayfinder, I twist every set of pickup wires (piezo to pot. Pot to jack). I also encase the twisted wires in 1/4" shrink wrap just to make a neat appearing harness.
There seem to be so many sources of hum (external such as lights, cheap or poorly shielded audio cables and internal such as bad pots or poor solder joints), that it seems smart to do anything you can (in advance) to reduce or eliminate hum. Twisted wires takes only seconds, so if it helps great. If not, it isn't going to hurt.
As an aside, I've made up a few very basic piezo harnesses with only the audio jack and the piezo. These, too I twist.The interesting thing is that these "basic" harnesses always seem to have practically zero hum from the git-go. Makes me wonder if all that wire running from piezo to pot to jack starts to create (or pick up) some of the hum we hear. Just a thought.
yup . a few folks on here have done the twisted wire method , but more-so in advance , so it would be hard for them to answer if it made a difference or not . i do believe i have heard one or 2 people say the twisted wire method worked for them (or at-least hushed the buzz a bit ) as a remedy after the fact . others just mention it in a list of remedies in buzz bitch posts . i , myself have never tried it , luckily i haven't had the need to .