My Danelectro U1 buzzes(elec.) but goes away when I touch the jack?

[yesteryear]

Also when I touch the metal enclosure of a pedal or the amp chassis. Its a single pickup version. Is my house not properly grounded. We had it fixed up to 3 prong not too long ago but a lot of the old 2 prong outlets are still active when I checked. My tele with hums too but not as much. More so when its in the bridge or neck position alone and it goes away when I touch the control plate. Am I in danger but keeping a bare foot on one of my pedals when I play? Any info about this is appreciated. Most of my googling led to long involved and hard to understand articles. Its not single coil hum either. I can tell the difference. Its a harsh buzzing that goes away when I touch something metal. Oh and touching the pickup on the Dano with my fingers makes it even worse.

[John Phillips]

Do you mean you still get the noise when you're touching the strings? If no, this is completely normal. The strings are connected to the ground too, so that any time you're touching them it's the same as touching the jack. So if it still buzzes when you're touching the strings, it could be that the ground connection to the bridge is broken or missing; but if you get a lot of noise when touching the pickup cover (which should also be grounded), the problem may be elsewhere - but still in the guitar, and not between the jack and the volume pot, or you'd get a very loud hum all the time.

The grounding in the house might not be great either, but buzz pickup will occur even if it is.

[blueguitar]

Just converting old 2 prong outlets to 3 prong outlets does not mean you have a grounded system in your house. The house would need to be upgraded (re-wired) to 3 conductor wire and a ground rod installed outside the house that attaches to the electric panel box and thusly to the ground wires running to the outlets.

[unklmickey]

...Its a harsh buzzing that goes away when I touch something metal. Oh and touching the pickup on the Dano with my fingers makes it even worse.

it goes away when you touch something metal.
it goes away when you touch the jack.

it's not the guitar, it's you! do you trip metal detectors at the airport? have you been checked for radioactivity lately? :worried

it should go away when you touch the strings, too. if not, check your bridge/tailpiece ground.

cheers,

unk

[JRenn]

Man, something I actually knew, and everyone else beat me to it.

Definitely check out the ground!

[yesteryear]

I assumed it would go away when I touch the strings too. Would the Rosewood bridge on those cheapo Danos make a difference with the string touching thing. Im 99% sure its the house ground but the buzzing still being there is throwing me for a loop. I picked up the guitar for 100$ just too screw with for slide but its almost unusable with the buzzing. :jo

[John Phillips]

There should be a wire that runs from one of the three screw holes under the bridge to a ground inside the control cavity. It's very likely that this wire has broken or is not making proper contact with the screw, if the buzz doesn't go away when you touch the strings.

It does also sound like there may be a problem with the pickup cover not being grounded too.