Strat Noise

[bcramey]

Installed new pickups in my Strat and everything looks and sounds great. The problem is that if I tap/touch the volume knob, tone knobs, pick guard or bridge the popping noise is being amplified. I used a ceramic disk capacitor on my tones controls. Could this be a micrphonic cap problem?

Thanks and sorry if this has been covered before.

[JohnH]

I dont think it is the capacitor. Some folk say ceramic capacitors have undesirable tonal qualities, but that is moot and at most a virtually inaudible difference compared to others.

This 'popping', is it like a sound amplification of your fingers striking the parts of the guitar? That could be quite normal, the pickups are mounted on a somewhat springy plastic pickguard, and when something makes it vibrate, they move relative to the strings and make a signal. My Strat does this. If it is really a problem, stuffing stuff inside the cavity may help. But does it also happen with just a light touch on the volume knob? - if so, that would disprove that theory.

If however it is more of an electirical crackling, humming or popping, then it could be a grounding problem, Do you have foil on the back of the pickguard?

John

[UnklMickey]

Hi, and welcome aboard!

doesn't sound likely.

if the tone control is at 10 then the cap is virtually out of the circuit should have minimal effect. if the problem is worse when the tone pot is at 0, then more likely.

other more likely possibilities would be poor contact between the wiper and the carbon in the volume pot, or poor contact in the selector switch. if the problem wasn't there before, anything that you soldered to, could have been affected by too much heat. also, there is the possibility of a cold solder joint.

less likely, one of the pickups could be microphonic, but you can isolate each one with the selector switch.

you might consider removing the pickguard. plug it into your amp, and with the amp at a low volume setting, gently tap (with a PLASTIC pen) on various components and connections until you zero in on where the problem is.

be careful not to touch any connections with your fingers or anything metal. you could put a lot of hum through your amp. kinda scary sounding, and not that healthy for the amp.

good luck,

U.M.

[UnklMickey]

Hey John!

that not likely comment was about the cap, not your post.

you posted while i was writing mine.

[bcramey]

Thanks for the comments...

It only takes a light touch to produce a loud noise. One other thing I forgot to mention is that as I move the 5 way switch, it's clicks are also amplified. The pickups are
Lace Sensor Silver's and I also added 500k pots and the .022 cap.

Thanks