Keyo guitar

Thanks Sgt, Pepper. It mostly goes away when I touch the strings, but not entirely. Hopefully it's just an earthing (grounding) problem. I did notice that there are no wires soldered to the back of the pots. Anyway, I'm taking it to my luthier colleague tomorrow, he knows his stuff, so with any luck he'll fix it up. Cheers.

Thanks Kidblast. I talked to my local hero (luthier), he's going to have a look at it. The static isn't the main issue, the main problems are the humming and popping. He thinks an earthing connection has gone adrift somewhere, either in the tailpiece or within the pc board. Hopefully he'll sort it out. I considered sending it back for a replacement, but here in the UK we've just left the EU, so now we have to pay 20% VAT on imports. I paid this when the guitar was delivered. If I were to send it back I would have to reclaim my VAT and start again. I looked into how you do that, and it looks like you need a degree in economics to figure out the forms involved. So it's worth spending a bit more to get it done locally. Thanks for your advice, Cheers.

I've just received a new Les Paul Studio, through the post. When you touch the strings there is a popping sound, and if you rub the back of the guitar there is a crackling sound, also, when you turn the volume down there is a loud humming. This all sounds like some sort of earthing problem. I took the rear covers off and looked at the pc board and the wiring to see if there are any wires hanging off, but it all looks ok. I'm no electrician so being as there's nothing obvious, I haven't got a clue what to do next. I don't want to send it back to Thomann in Germany (I'm in the UK), and would much rather get it sorted locally, though I am starting to worry that it might be expensive to sort. Any advice would be very welcome. Thanks. Keyo Langford