# Electric Shock from guitar strings



## thesimo (Sep 6, 2010)

Hi, 

I noticed today if I'm playing guitar, and leaning towards laptop to type or something, if my bare inner arm touches my guitar strings, i get a shock, it hurts pretty bad. 

I cant figure out whats causing it, googling seems full of scare stories. I also notice if i don't touch the guitar there is a loud hum, but once I touch it, there's a tiny click and the hum stops for the most part.

changing the power cable, and lifting the ground on my devices didn't fix it. I only have one guitar and one cable, so i cant swap those.

Is this serious? what could it be?

Thanks


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## elbiatcho1 (Sep 6, 2010)

If you get shocked and it hurts, yeah it's pretty serious!

Could be a grounding wire inside the guitar that broke.
Open it up and check for loose wiring, or use a multimeter. Probably want to disconnect guitar cable for the possibility of getting shocked as you inspect.

If you're not comfortable, take it to a repair shop and they usually can quickly tell you if your guitar is properly grounded.


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## thesimo (Sep 6, 2010)

it doesent hurt my fingertip, but it stings my inner arm. I pulled out the jack, and the soldering is rock solid. i tweaked the pins inside to clip into the cable a little better, and tried it again. 

It still does it, but just sitting with the volume up, and touching the strings/bridge u can hear it dimming, but the noise got worse on its own, seemingly independent of what I'm doing.

I'm just worried if something in the house dumps a load of voltage into earth am i going to get a shock?!

In my rack i have a power conditioner, pod xt pro and engl 840/50

both the pod and engl have ground lifted. Would putting them both to ground fix it? (can i do this with them switched on?)


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## Tree (Sep 6, 2010)

This happened to me when my band was playing at some really shady venue. The outlets and power-strips they provided us all looked ancient, and weren't properly grounded. So it may not be your equipment, but whatever it is you are plugged into.


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## MaxOfMetal (Sep 6, 2010)

IHHguitar said:


> This happened to me when my band was playing at some really shady venue. The outlets and power-strips they provided us all looked ancient, and weren't properly grounded. So it may not be your equipment, but whatever it is you are plugged into.





It's an improper ground somewhere.


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## cataclysm_child (Sep 7, 2010)

Haha. The same exact thing have happened to me many times. Haven't really thought about it more than just keeping my inner arm away from the strings though


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## rippedflesh89 (Sep 7, 2010)

look for bad grounds.. as an electrical engineer i can say grounds cause many many different problems and this sounds like a ground issue.


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## bostjan (Sep 7, 2010)

Definately check the grounding in your rig. If there is a stray current in your amp, it will go to ground either through the earth ground in the amp or through whoever is touching the ground and touching the guitar plugged into the amp.

Working with high power electronic amplification can be very dangerous if the equipment is faulty, so if I were you, I would look into this immediately.


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## Customisbetter (Sep 7, 2010)

thsi happens to me in my basement all the time. its shitty outlets.


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## Origin (Sep 7, 2010)

I have hum like hell, used to think it was just my RGA and I wired a new pickup wrong...then it happened with the 7621 and the 570 and I just got pissed off  my house is quite old and half the outlets are 2-prong (managed to jury-rig), so it's nice to hear that it might be just my shitty outlets. Or my shitty cables I've had forever.


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## thecharlesn (May 27, 2013)

Its not your equipment its bad grounding of the main outlet your equipment is plugged into, happens to me all the time, i use my ibanez k7 plugged into a focusrite scarlet 2i4 and into my laptop and i get shocked when the computer is plugged to the outlet, i just unplug my laptop and problem is gone, also solves the humming


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