humming tele

[scaesic]

sorry this is off topic,

why does my tele hum unless i touch the grounded strings/saddle/control plate/pots?
its a stock fender, original wiring.
any common mistakes i could fix?

[Arn C.]

I have the same problem and I am still working on the problem.
Here ya go:

http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/tele.html


Peace!
Arn C.

[6stringer]

Ahh yes, a humming Tele, nature of the beast and all that....
Depending on which model you have you may or may not have a ground wire running from under the bridge plate to the output jack.   Check for continuity between the bridge plate and the output jack ferrule.   From your description, you don't have the ground wire, or it's not making good contact at one end or he other...
If you don't have the ground wire, installation is super simple and very effective.  Remove the bridge plate (leaving the pickup in place) and run a length of braded wire to bridge cavity, through the channel that the pickup wires go through, into the cavity that contains the control pots, switch and output jack.   Under the bridge plate, strip approx. ½" and fray (fan out) the strands on the end of the wire.  Screw the bridge plate back down, trapping the stripped strands of wire between the plate and the body of the guitar.   Solder the other end of the wire to the ground lug on the output jack and check for continuity. 

Other ways to reduce Tele hum (and other guitars, especially with single coil pickups)

1.   Change the pickups to stacked coil (humbucking) style pickups.  There are a number of really good ones available, Bill Lawrence, Fender Samarium       Cobalt Noiseless pickups and the Kinman's are all great and still sound like a Tele. 
2.   Change the ground wiring to a "star" ground style.
3.   Shield the control and pickup cavities and the back of the pick guard with copper sheeting, copper tape works great and is easy to install, connect a ground wire from the shielding to the output jack too.
4.   Don't play under florescent lights.
5.   Don't stand too close to an amp with poor transformer shielding.

[petemoore]

  TV's and Monitors are great sources of noise. I was using Cakewalk and getting a a farily strong noise signal through the guitars, the 3SC being the worst, and the 'FrankenTele' I copper sheeted the cavities and conduit lines [all grounded of course, fairly complete copper enclosurement from jack to HB/splitpickups, control cavity, pickguard + the shielded wire] being by far the least noisy. I don't know how much  over-shielding [double shielding] could take away from the tone, guitar has excellent tones so I'm not worried about it.
  Certain effects exacerbate noise issues more than others, running the SC's or any guitar direct to amp means low/no noise for me.