Fender Precision Steve Harris with hum

[Asllan Pizzatto]

Good evening, friends. About a year ago, I bought my long-awaited Japanese Steve Harris Fender Signature. Since the first day I got it, I've been suffering from noise problems. One of the first things I did was shield it, which reduced the noise when I have both hands on the instrument. After 3 luthiers, a poorly done wire re-soldering, and replacing all the electrical parts with CTS potentiometers, the bass still makes noise with the tone knob turned on. I bought the Steve Harris Sansamp in December, and the pedal sounds wonderful with the bass, however, it seems to amplify the noise even more... I'm starting to give up on this bass, because the noise is VERY ANNOYING. The worst of all is that I use it to record with my Focusrite interface, and the noise usually appears at some points during the recording...

NOTE: the noise usually decreases when I touch the instrument and even when I touch the Focusrite... And it usually is a noise that varies in intensity. Sometimes it's louder, sometimes it's quieter.

NOTE 2: I don't believe it's a problem with the instrument's grounding itself, as my trusted luthier has already shown me with the multimeter that the bass is grounded!

Edited June 4 by Asllan Pizzatto

[Geek99]

I’m sure we can help however can @Woodinblack consider moving this to Repairs and Technical? 

[dudewheresmybass]

Forgive me asking, But have you asked about this issue on Talkbass? I recall seeing a similar issue mentioned there

[Marvin]

Have replaced the pick ups? 

 

A Squier p bass I had had a dreadful buzz. I shielded it, changed the pots and wiring. No change. Changed the pick ups eliminated 99% of the hum/buzz. 

[Asllan Pizzatto]

3 hours ago, dudewheresmybass said:

Forgive me asking, But have you asked about this issue on Talkbass? I recall seeing a similar issue mentioned there

Yes. I'm trying several forums because I can't find a definitive solution.

[Asllan Pizzatto]

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

Have replaced the pick ups? 

 

A Squier p bass I had had a dreadful buzz. I shielded it, changed the pots and wiring. No change. Changed the pick ups eliminated 99% of the hum/buzz. 

I was told the exact same thing on Reddit. Maybe the Seymour Duncan SPB1 is a really noisy pickup. Or maybe I just got unlucky with this one... I thought about maybe swapping it for an SPB4, but I like the sound of the SPB1 😢

[Doctor J]

The P is a humbucker, you shouldn't be getting a big level of noise at all.

 

Wire the pickup straight to the jack. See if there's still buzz.

If it's clean, add in each pot at a time.

 

Questions: is the new shielding connected to ground? Do you have dimmer switch lighting? Have the terminals of the pickups had the solder touched up?

Edited June 5 by Doctor J

[obbm]

This may have been tried before but the two parts of the P pickup make a humbucker.  Have you tried rotating one piece through 180 degrees?

[Hellzero]

The SPB1 is an excellent pickup without any issue when bought new (some people are selling defective items without shame), so I'm guessing a not fully grounded shielding (the pickup cavity must be grounded too) and maybe too many grounding wires creating ground loops...

 

A neat and clean wiring is always the best.