Electrical Humming from Guitar

[penguinpajamas]

Hey guys, I've been playing my guitar through Ableton through my audio interface and I've noticed that whenever I'm not touching the strings, I can hear a pretty audible electrical humming which instantly goes away if I touch any of my strings at all.

What could this be?

Thanks,
Charlie

[infernal.machine]

Could be feedback, could be a grounding problem, could be electrical noise in the room... what kind of guitar do you have?

[penguinpajamas]

I have an Epiphone Standard. It could definitely be a grounding issue. I know that the outlets in my house aren't properly grounded. I read though that because the humming cuts out when I touch it, it wouldn't be a grounding issue. I don't know how true that is though.

[Angstrom]

There are different types of grounding issues. Shielding, bad wiring, bad components. All sorts.

Qs
Does the cable plugged into the interface but with no guitar on the end make the same hum?
When plugged in does the hum change when orienting the guitar differently, pointing it in different directions?
Is the hum "smooth" or "raspy" more like a sawtooth wave.

[H20nly]

does the hum have any hobbies?
what does the hum like to do in its spare time?

[crumhorn]

Do your lights have a dimmer switch? if so turn it either off or full on and see if the humming goes away.

[MArc75_RLP]

DI Box should solve the issue.

[Buleriachk]

Both of these work great for me:

For the computer:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_ ... ator%2Caps
For Audio out:
http://www.amazon.com/PAC-SNI-1-3-5-3-5 ... ords=sni-1

For the guitar specifically:
http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-NR300-B ... e+isolator

[Mister Natural]

might be as simple as one of these : https://www.google.com/search?q=ground+ ... 1280%3B960

peace

[Angstrom]

Ground lifting is a bad idea, it's better to solve problems rather than make yourself unsafe as a voltage tries to find a path to earth.

Those LP guitars are meant to have a ground wire running from the treble bridge lug, that is - the lowest one. If you pulled that lug there ought to be an earth wire which runs to your earth on your electronics, I forget exactly where on the gibson wiring. Anyway - the strings are meant to be grounded. Sometimes its left off because it can cause other issues, some people dislike it. I mainly play a strat-like thing where the tremelo claw (and therefor the bridge and strings) are earthed to the 'spider' and then to the ground.

Anyway, you can check continuity from your bridge to the ring of your output if you have a multimeter.