Les Paul - Humming even on clean?

[bonchie123]

When I remove my fretting hand from the strings I get a nasty hum, even on the clean channel of my amps. It's obviously worse distorted.

I've had SD Alnico II pickups in it for over a year and I recently installed new CLS 500k pots (including a p/p pot on the neck to split the coils) but from my memory it's been doing this even before that. It does it on the Bridge pickup as well so that complicates matters as at first I figured I just wired up the push/pull pot wrong. It also does it when both pickups are used together.

I'm gonna take a snap shot of the insides and perhaps someone can see if they see some obvious grounding problems.

 

[bonchie123]

Here's the pic. (click for larger).

 

[David Collins]

Look to the other end if the cable. Your problem is likely in your amp / pedals, or the outlet(s) they are plugged in to.

Unplug your guitar, hold the cable in the air, without touching ground or tip. If you have noise here (likely louder than when plugged in), then the noise is coming from the amp, pedals, adapters, original power supply, or combination of the above.

 

[Jef Bardsley]

When I remove my fretting hand from the strings I get a nasty hum.

I agree with David. If the hum goes away when you touch the strings, your guitar's okay.