Help!!!

[guitarfreak141]

im so frustrated, my guitar was working fine 5 minmutes ago and now its plugged in and i turn the amp on and i get this insane loud feed back, at the guitar end i pushed the end of the cable a little and it stopped but as soon as i let go it started again, i dont know if its my guitar or amp, can somebody please help me ASAP

[6strngs_2hmbkrs]

hmm, it might be your cable. do you have a different one you could try and see if that helps?

[guitarfreak141]

ya i tried 2 cables, same problem with both

[hedgehog]

Might be the output jack on your guitar. Sounds like it, if you fiddled with the guitar end of the lead and the noise stopped. Is the nut around the jack tight?

[guitarfreak141]

ya i checked that also, i even opened up the back to make sure it was in right, and now its messed up completely and the notes wont even come out right

[6strngs_2hmbkrs]

ya i checked that also, i even opened up the back to make sure it was in right, and now its messed up completely and the notes wont even come out right
umm... if you don't really know what you are doing, you might want to take that to a luthier

[guitarfreak141]

ya im not gonna mess with it anymore , i dont want to make it worse

[Cryptic Excretions]

I've had that problem quite frequently with my bass and each time it was a broken connection from inside the guitar. Be it a wire from the input to a volume/tone knob or to the pickup or what, but one of those little silver wires wasn't touching it all the time. How closely did you look at it, last time I looked in my bass for that problem I almost missed it as it naturally set in a way that made it look like it was fine and only lost connection when my bass was bumped. That's my best guess.

[guitarfreak141]

ya, i didnt look at it to closely, i just dont want to mess anything up, im gonna take it to guitar center today and see if someone can hep me fix it, if it is what your talking about its a minor problem, right?

[Cryptic Excretions]

Most definitely. And if you have a soldering iron and some solder you can save the time, money and trip and just fix it yourself. I don't know what kind of guitar you have. If you've got a pick guard then just take that off and look at the gears, if not then you'd be opening it up through the back of the body. Regardless of where you open it from, open it up, get nice and close to the wires and electronics and look for anything that isn't where it's supposed to be. By that I mean, look at the wires and where they connect to the input jack, volume/tone knobs and see if they're not connected. They should be naturally bent to the area they're supposed to be so that's not really a problem, otherwise if everything looks fine, gently poke the wires to see if they move away from the electronics. Sort of a test if you will, if they're still connected then they won't budge (unless you really let them have it that is), otherwise, if it's already broken then it'll move with your finger. If that's not the problem, then I really don't know.

[guitarfreak141]

I took it to GC and they said the ground wire was loose and they said if I want it fixed I have to come in on Saturday when the tech is there.

[6strngs_2hmbkrs]

I took it to GC and they said the ground wire was loose and they said if I want it fixed I have to come in on Saturday when the tech is there.
should be a quick solder job... take you only a few minutes, and cost nothing (considering that you have the tools and supplies) I'm sure someone here could walk you through it, and it shouldn't be hard to fix.

[guitarfreak141]

i would fix it myself , but i dont know how and i dont thinlk i have the tools, the guy at GC was like well itll be about 20 maybe 30 maybe 40 maybe 50 at the most. how does 20 go to 50.;

[Cryptic Excretions]

We here can walk you through the steps to fix it and there isn't very much required to fix it. A soldering iron and solder. Even to buy the stuff yourself would be cheaper than fifty outrageous dollars.

[R. Shackleferd]

Should you decide to buy an iron (they come in handy for all kinds of stuff, so somebody you know might already have one), here's some basic info. (http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/paasurvey/elec/lesson6/lesson6.html)

[Akira]

Should you decide to buy an iron (they come in handy for all kinds of stuff, so somebody you know might already have one), here's some basic info. (http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/paasurvey/elec/lesson6/lesson6.html)

Good link!

[guitarfreak141]

thanks for the help! but what exactly does it mean that my ground wire came loose?

[Cryptic Excretions]

It means that there's a wire that was once soldered together to the input jack or whatever and now it has broken loose. At least I'm pretty sure of that. Correct me if I'm wrong people.

[Leedogg]

I've had the same thing happen to me before. A quick solder job and it was as good as new.

[R. Shackleferd]

Good link!
Yep, I searched real quick for him, but I ended up bookmarking that one for myself too. Some real useful stuff in there isn't there?

[guitarfreak141]

thanks guys, my guitar teacher came over and i got a soldering iron he was able to help me fix it and I didnt have to spend all that money, thanks

[Cryptic Excretions]

Good to hear it.