I've had my M80M for a few years, and when I was playing it the most I was using double noise gating with a plugin (Guitar > Boss NS-2 > MOTU M4 interface > Omega Grano VST with noise gate). I was also basically only playing Meshuggah shit full blast so I never really noticed the noise too much. Eventually I noticed the M80M was way noisier than other guitars I had, but wrote it off as a result of the high output M8. My EMG 81 is also noisy as hell in my room, so I figured I'd just need to live with it.
Fast forward a few months and I noticed that when I touched the metal part of the guitar cable the noise almost went away entirely, so I figured maybe a ground connection came undone in the control cavity. I tried taking off the back plate to inspect, but the route is so tight to the plastic I wasn't able to get it off even with some suction cup tools I normally use for flush backplates.
Fast forward again to today, I want to play the M80M with my actual amp and the noise when using a TS9 makes it pretty much unplayable. Used my multimeter (which I don't think I had years ago when I first noticed the noise) to test continuity and I confirmed a lack of bridge/string ground, finally manage to pry the backplate off with some feeler gauges and a lot of fingernail prying, and I see this:
As far as I can tell, the factory took what was supposed to be the bridge stud ground wire and just... routed it back to the pickup cavity and attached it to something? I tried giving it a gentle tug and it's pretty solid, but I have no idea what they'd solder it to in there. Maybe they jammed it down the hole you screw the pickup screws in to and thought that would do the trick? The bridge ground hole is present and has no wiring in it
Guess I have a project for the next string change lol.
Fast forward a few months and I noticed that when I touched the metal part of the guitar cable the noise almost went away entirely, so I figured maybe a ground connection came undone in the control cavity. I tried taking off the back plate to inspect, but the route is so tight to the plastic I wasn't able to get it off even with some suction cup tools I normally use for flush backplates.
Fast forward again to today, I want to play the M80M with my actual amp and the noise when using a TS9 makes it pretty much unplayable. Used my multimeter (which I don't think I had years ago when I first noticed the noise) to test continuity and I confirmed a lack of bridge/string ground, finally manage to pry the backplate off with some feeler gauges and a lot of fingernail prying, and I see this:
As far as I can tell, the factory took what was supposed to be the bridge stud ground wire and just... routed it back to the pickup cavity and attached it to something? I tried giving it a gentle tug and it's pretty solid, but I have no idea what they'd solder it to in there. Maybe they jammed it down the hole you screw the pickup screws in to and thought that would do the trick? The bridge ground hole is present and has no wiring in it
Guess I have a project for the next string change lol.
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