so i got i jackson guitar i bought from a friend (who never played it) and when i play it has so much feed back what could be the problem?

A couple things  about the guitar,

-it has two  normal pickups and one double
-a five position pick up switch
-i  looked t up  online it cost about 250$ so not real fancy guitar
-a yea also  in highest pickup position (when the switch is all the way torwards the floor) it dont  feed back one bit but as you switch it to the low tones it gets worse.

perhaps the action needs raising a tad?

i'm assuming it's nothing to do with the amp?

i assume the "normal pickups" you are talking about are single coils?? do they have one row of poles??
"
any non-active single coil will hum like crazy on high gain. so ya know. but a humbucker ( a " double") will not hum on high gain. thus the title of hum-bucker

so are you saying its normal and theres nothing i can do about it cus it makes not want to play it

o yea and the amp has nothing much to do with it cus it does it on any amp just when you add disstortion it gets even more annoying lol

wiggs, you might read the guy's responses again...there's good info in there plus a suggestion. You don't say where the
humbucker is and you didn't answer the question....we try to help but if you jump to a conclusion, it just means either
you or the guys are losing it in the communication...and to answer your question, yes, there is something you can do about
it...raise the action....that might help or switch to the humbucker when you add a lot of gain.

I see you've tried other amps and i don't know it will help, but have you tried a different cable? Tried moving  away
from in front of the amps? Good luck !

GuitarZen

just saing man if it doesnt hum when you use the humbucker, then use the humbucker with high gain.

in general:

passive single coil + high gain= craploads of hum

2 single coils wired in parralell + high gain = no hum (or at least much much less)

humbucker + high gain= no hum

any active pickup + high gain = no hum

if this technical stuff makes no sense, basically the "double" pickup is what you gotta use with high gain. any single coil will hum like crazy.

Hello metalriffzach, i get everything except 'active pickup' ....I wouldn't mind knowing what that means technically.

Cheers,

GuitarZen

active pickups have a preamp built in to them and they run off of a battery. they give more output then a regular(by which i mean passive) pickup and give no hum, even with single coils. so an active single coil will not hum, even with huge amounts of gain.

given their high output, they are usually suited to metal players or lead players who like high gain (such as myself)

i use active emg's in my guitar, and i love their sound. i have an 81 in the bridge slot for leads and heavy distortion, and an 89 in the neck slot for cleans.

if this doesn't help, maybe emg's site can help

emginc.com

sorry for such short answers guys  yes by normal  pickup i mean single row also the double or humbucker is right next to the bridge  iv played with the action befor not changing much.

by high gain do you mean distortion sorry im not sure on a alot of terms

Hi Wiggs,

What you call normal pick ups, are called "single coil" (what you call single row) and humbuckers (double row) are (in the simplest terms)- Single coil meaning a single wire winding in one direction (be it clockwise or counter clockwise) around a metal core. A humbucker is basically two single coils wired in series, with the windings of each coil being opposite of each other. The windings create an opposite polarity when placed together with the windings going oposite ways and therfore tend to cancel any noise that would be picked up by single coils wound in the same direction. A single coil will tend to pick up more noise from the surrounding electronics and whatever as the volume is raised on the amp, as a double will tend to cut that noise down via the "cancel effect".  As for the active pick ups, and the gain question.  An active PU is as Zach decribed.  A PU with a pre-amplifier built into it which is battery powered.  This built in pre-amp, creates a signal from the PU which is already much hotter than a cold (passive) PU. The amount of pre-amplification that the main amplifier receives is known as "Gain". Gain is expressed in the form of "dbs" or decibles.  The formulas for calculating gain are abit complex for this discussion.  Example of gain : With a single coil PU, you have to turn your amp to a very high setting before it begins to distort (clip), with an active PU, the amp volume will be lower before clipping occurs due to the increase in the input signal from an active PU.
Hope this makes some kind of sense, I aint to good at explaining technical stuff..

JIM

69 jaguar wrote:

Hi Wiggs,

What you call normal pick ups, are called "single coil" (what you call single row) and humbuckers (double row) are (in the simplest terms)- Single coil meaning a single wire winding in one direction (be it clockwise or counter clockwise) around a metal core. A humbucker is basically two single coils wired in series, with the windings of each coil being opposite of each other. The windings create an opposite polarity when placed together with the windings going oposite ways and therfore tend to cancel any noise that would be picked up by single coils wound in the same direction. A single coil will tend to pick up more noise from the surrounding electronics and whatever as the volume is raised on the amp, as a double will tend to cut that noise down via the "cancel effect".  As for the active pick ups, and the gain question.  An active PU is as Zach decribed.  A PU with a pre-amplifier built into it which is battery powered.  This built in pre-amp, creates a signal from the PU which is already much hotter than a cold (passive) PU. The amount of pre-amplification that the main amplifier receives is known as "Gain". Gain is expressed in the form of "dbs" or decibles.  The formulas for calculating gain are abit complex for this discussion.  Example of gain : With a single coil PU, you have to turn your amp to a very high setting before it begins to distort (clip), with an active PU, the amp volume will be lower before clipping occurs due to the increase in the input signal from an active PU.
Hope this makes some kind of sense, I aint to good at explaining technical stuff..

JIM

you enlightened me man, i don't know shit =P

i don't even know if my PU's are single coil or double coil!!!!!


i'm not sure if i have 4 single coils or 2 double coils.... i'm so confused =P


seriously though, that actualy explained a lot

Hey Freak,
If ya have two double wide PU's they will most likley be double poled humbuckers,  just like on a Les Paul ... There are double wound singles though..

Jim

I've got it now zach, thanks. So this explains why my Fender scn's don't hum with gain set on 10, volume up and the 'gainiest' sounding effects selected. I'm guessing i should look for a battery to replace since my Strat is an '04 !

Cheers,

GuitarZen

metalriffzach wrote:

active pickups have a preamp built in to them and they run off of a battery. they give more output then a regular(by which i mean passive) pickup and give no hum, even with single coils. so an active single coil will not hum, even with huge amounts of gain.

wiggs if none of this info helped you and you don,t no what is wrong the next best thang is to take it to a guitar shop near you ;then you can go from there; hope this info  will help you ;

thanks for the help guys iv learned from this post TY TY TY TY TY

Feedback and hum are different things. If it's feeding back you can try lowering the offending pickups. How close are they from the strings?