k, so I own 2 guitars. One sounds fine, just an ibanez with the pick-ups it came with. The other is a BC Rich, got it a good number of years back . . . before I knew much about guitars. I was one of those "oo looks kewl. BUY IT!" kids. anyways, the pick-ups the BC came with were shitty sounding and muddy, so I got an EMG-81 pickup for the bridge position. but now it's started making a wierd humming sound out of my amp when I put the pick-up on high (not touching a string or anything). Now you can't hear the humming when you actually start playing, it's behind all the noise I make, and it sounds fine. I really like the sound it has for leads when the pick up is set on the high tone. The only thing I'm curious about is why when I'm not doing anything it makes an annoying humming sound? If any of you have any ideas as to what's causing it or what I can do to solve it, that'd be great.

What do you mean by when the pickup is set on high? Do you mean with the tone knob turned all the way up? If so, does the hum disappear when you turn the tone knob down?

Either way, check all the solder joints.

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yeah could be a bad connection or something

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yea thats what i meant by "on high" ... tone knob turned up. and yes the hum disappears when the tone knob is turned down.

Do not talk about pick-ups in the guitar zone.

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Insert new battery.
kthnx.

have u tried using a better cabel..usually i get some background noise if i use a cheap cabel between my guitar and amp....also if u have alot of pedals between ur guitar and amp u will prob get some noise to

Has it always made this humming sound? I had EMGs and they had a lot of humming whenever I wasn't playing. Turning the tone knob all the way down cuts out higher frequencies, so doing so will get rid of the hum, or most of it. EMGs are just noisy, there isn't really anything you can do about them other than playing away from tvs, computers, monitors, fluorescent lights, etc (which all can create hum).

bad solder joints! bad pots! its only a 15$ or so investment to get those replaced.




OOORR shitty cable. I ran into a snag once and used a speaker cable as a guitar cable. My emg guitar (also had a PA2) picked up major radio stuff, i could listen to the radio through my 4x12. But my passive guitar didnt have it as loud because the pickups werent as hot, and therefore the wire wouldnt pick up the signal as well. Are YOUUU using a speaker cable from guitar to amp?

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