The ESP Guitar Company

Oh, and all of a sudden when I turn the neck pickup volume down while the bridge pickup is selected, the bridge pickup is running at half the volume. Why? The connections seem fine.

The volume drop is common for guitars of that type. My SG is .. like .. switched off when one of the volume knobs is turned down. How much the total volume goes down seems to depend on the resistance of the pots.
There are other wiring schemes (see Jimmy Page sig.) that allow you to freely mix your pickups.

Considering the buzz stops when you touch your strings, you should either make sure your grounds are soldered to the output jack or check your instrument cable. I once had loose connection at my pickup switch that somehow made my guitar squeal and pick up radio frequencies or something :rollin

I'll probably do that when I shield the whole damned thing. I had a shielded cavity cover for my other guitar that fit on my lp, so as a test I just ran it without the cover, then with the old cover, and with the new cover. feedback went down, and so did the buzzing.

Yeah, when I wired in the sustainiac, there was already a ground wire there. It broke at one point and I replaced it. The bridge ground was the first ground I checked, then I re-soldered the switch ground and all the pot grounds.

There is only ONE place that carries copper tape in my town. Ridiculous.

figured out the volume issue. haven't played for so long, forgot that when the battery is dying on the sustainiac, it fucks EVERYTHING.

Is your bridge pup hotter than what you had before? I've had guitars where there was no buzz with the stock units, but a hotter pup amped up stray RF to the point of buzzing. The sustaniac may also amp the issue, too. If touching the strings stops the buzzing, and all of your grounding looks good, shielding is probably the issue. And yes, you will want to bond the shield to ground as well. Another tip is to choose one pot as your central grounding point. That will reduce the likelihood of ground loops. They are usually not a problem in a guitar, but every little thing you can do will help to cut down RF noise.

For copper tape or shielding paint, I've had to just order it online.

i have a Gibson '57 Classic in bridge right now, isn't that around 8k?

It appears that the ground wire coming from the switch is bare. I put some shrink tube on it for the length that is in the cavity, but should I replace the entire wire?

Well, I rewired most of the Sustaniac to make it neater/more roomy in my control cavity. It isn't a rat's nest in there anymore and the battery fits in there without struggle.

So it isn't the wiring. Can't wait to shield the fuck out of my guitar. Seriously, this is something I'm looking forward to. I'll do the pickup cavities, the switch and the control.

EDIT: Just read, can't shield the neck cavity, because of the sustainiac. That's what the website says... But the website also says you can't use the sustainiac with metal pickup rings, mirror pickguards, floyd roses, 24 fret guitars, guitars made of wood, guitars with strings...

You don't need to ground the bridge/strings with EMG's, regardless of what kind it is. The EMG's don't have as large a magnetic field compared to passives, so they don't pickup nearly as much RF noise. Not grounding the strings is more a potential safety precaution than anything else, though. I don't believe it hurts the sound, it just lessens the chances of electrical shock from bad/no grounds, reversed hot/neutrals, etc. when touching other amps, mics, appliances in the room. Good article on these dangers.

....I THINK?

btw jett, i can't find the thread (too many emg threads) but for floyd rose guitars, do you ground EMGs or no?Oh, I didn't think of that. But their other rules are ridiculous.