[pussfeller]

I replaced the gretschbuckler with a Surf-90 in the bridge, and I thot I wired it just like the one I took off, but now I get a lot of crackling when I touch the guitar. I think its causing my Digitech Whammy to go whack-a-doodle when I walk off the plastic chairmat under my desk back onto the carpet.

I am thinking ground? Maybe somebody can give some tips before I pull this whole thing apart again. Should I ground to the back of the pot and not the side, like the originals?

ALSO, I got the pickups to align to the strings by reversing the mount so it was slanted to the neck. That might help somebody.

ALSO, why doesn't Gretsch put a connector in, ya know, like how you don't have to solder the mobo when you change the PSU on your desktop computer? It would cost like pennies, and make swapping pickups easier.

[araT]

Amen for the connectors - I've always wished guitars came like that, but then that would put me out of business so I can't really complain

It does sound like a grounding issue, but we're going to need to do more diagnonsense to figure out where the problem lies - when you touch the new pickup does it stop? when you touch the strings does it stop? likely possibilities are that you either haven't grounded the new pickup properly, or you've dislodged the bigsby/tailpiece ground accidentally along the way. Check your soldering, look for cold solder joints (not smooth & shiny)

[pussfeller]

Will check those tonight, THX!

[pussfeller]

Yeah, what looks like a dark wire going to the Bigsby is dangling free. I read Mr. Billy Zoom says 'poke a wire through and connect it to the back of a pot.', so that is what I will do. THx again, I would have had no clue what that wire was.