It was perfect, played nice, and had no issues whatsoever.
But then I decided to do few things on it:
- roll fretboard edges
- round fret ends
- add better string tree
- increase a break angle (shim the neck) cause the bridge saddles were rattling a bit and now they're not (poor quality adjust o matic, I would like to find some direct replacement at some point)
- smoothen grooves in the nut and bridge saddles a bit (used Ibanez Prestige files)
I also raised pickups a bit (cause strings were higher now) and removed the film from a scratch plate. I keep pickups 5 mm below strings, and now I positioned them parallely to strings (before they were parallel to the scratch plate).
After all this I've put new strings in, stretched them and started playing and noticed a crackling noise, which I can hear when:
- strumming or picking using a plectrum
- moving my finger on the surface of a scratch plate
I don't hear the noise when I finger pick, or when I use plectrum and at the same time touch the tremolo bar.
I took the scratch plate to see if grounding is properly attached and imo it is (see photo below). By the way there's no grounding cable under the bridge or in the tremolo cavity, so I didn't take it off for the photo.
So trying to think what the issue can be:
- raising pickups to be closer to the tremolo bar? (sounds stupid...)
- taking off the film from a scratch plate which before was serving as a shielding?
I will play with it for a while to see, but wondering, what do you think happened?
