Humming In A Piezo Only

[bassman]

I have just assembled my fretless,chambered, acoustic undersaddle transducer only bass. I have grounded the output, preamp and tuners (headless unit) (probably not neccessary or helpful since I am using tapewound strings) to the volume control. The humming goes away when I touch the volume pot or tuners- but not when I touch the strings since the tapewounds prevent electrical flow. The pickup is the Fishman Matrix Natural 1- with accompanying preamp. The 25 k vol pot is wired between the preamp and the pickup. Thank you all for the help. Oh, and besides the awfully loud humming, it sounds damn sweet.

Edited January 2, 2005 by bassman

[bassman]

Problem solved, please disregard previous post. I spent many hours trying to get it solved before I posted, naturally- shortly after I posted I got the hum completely eliminated. Damn I love the way this bass turned out tons of fretless mwah, I will post some pics in the appropriate area as time permits.

[lovekraft]

No way - you don't get off that easy! You gotta share now - what was the problem, and how did you fix it?

[bassman]

I was in denial the whole time, I knew deep down that maybe it was the lack of shielding (duh). However, I set it up and played it last week as a sort of test run to make sure everything was in proper order before i came closer to completion, there was absolutely no hum at that point and the tuners were not grounded. The difference is that it now has a single control- volume, that seems to be enough to require shielding. It seems rather silly that I just didn't sheild it- but I have never had problems with interference in the past, the past 21 electric basses I have built have had no sheilding ( all active preamps) and none of them have ever had hum/buzz problems on stage or in the studio. If you cant find the pencil, first check behind your ear.