ASK-HBS – Grounding a Humbucker in a Flat-Top Acoustic Guitar

Question

Hi Humbucker Soup,

I’ve put a humbucker on my flat-top acoustic guitar but it has no significant amount of metal to ground to. Is there a clever way around this? Thanks!

Answer

Hello Paul, Thanks for the great question. The primary ground point on your guitar is the sleeve lug on the output jack. This ground wire travels to your amplifier, then to the actual ground through the outlet on your wall. The guitar technician’s job is to make sure all metal has a path to that ground lug, including the back of your pots and the strings. Most technicians solder all of the ground wires to the back of the volume pot then run one wire from the back of the pot to the output jack because the output jack needs to be changed more frequently.

If you don’t have any metal, you don’t need to connect anything to the output jack. You will be fine not grounding the strings because acoustics don’t have a metal bridge, but you will need to ground any volume or tone controls you are using. Most people like to ground any switches though many do not because the part you touch is isolated from the rest of the circuit.

I hope this answers your question. If you are getting a hum or buzz that’s making you think there is a grounding problem, let us know, and don’t hesitate to ask any other questions.

Thanks for reading Humbucker Soup!

Ed Malaker