Pickup Wiring on a Carter Starter

Kelly Weeks · Post by **Kelly Weeks** » 9 Sep 2012 10:29 am

I replaced the input jack on my Carter Starter and now it has a significant hum. I think that I must have wired it up wrong. All it has is a 3 wire 10 pole pickup and a jack. The pickup has a white, red and an unshielded wire. Any suggestions on how to wire it to the jack to eliminate this hum? I should have just snapped a photo before I removed the original jack.

Thanks.

Michael Hummel · Post by **Michael Hummel** » 9 Sep 2012 12:37 pm

Not completely sure about the exact pickup you have...but I would tie the white and the bare wire to the outside sleeve of the jack, and the red wire to the tip connection.

By the way, guitars have OUTPUT jacks. I have yet to see a PSG with an input jack.

Kelly Weeks · Post by **Kelly Weeks** » 9 Sep 2012 2:37 pm

Thanks Michael. I did what you specified but it still has a hefty hum. Here is a picture of the wired output.

Perhaps it hummed before and I never noticed it. Regardless, it's quite loud. Maybe I should invest in a humbucker.

Michael Hummel · Post by **Michael Hummel** » 9 Sep 2012 4:05 pm

Well darn it anyway.

The only other thing I would suggest is, if you haven't tried it already, is swap the white and red. I looked through a bunch of pickup diagrams and nobody is consistent whether they use white or red (or black for that matter) for the "hot" wire.

I was playing my guitar today -- I usually play the E9 neck, which has a humbucker -- and I switched to the C6 neck -- which has a single-coil -- and it surprised me how loud the hum and buzz were.

Sorry for the bad guidance the first time. Or maybe it is just a hummy pickup. You could try re-orienting things (turn the guitar or move it away from anything that might be generating an EM field).

Good luck.
Mike

Kelly Weeks · Post by **Kelly Weeks** » 9 Sep 2012 6:01 pm

Michael your suggestion in your first post was correct. Apparently where I live causes a significant amount of hum for single coil pickups. I plugged my strat in for comparison and in the 4th position it had the same amount of hum that the Carter did.

I guess that I just need humbuckers for St. Paul, MN. Thanks for your help!