ShortScale.org

Hi NickS
I took the guitar to a very small shop nearby and the owner plugged in my guitar using a hugely thick cord into another amp, I forget the brand but something that was priced at $800, used.
It didn't display the problems then. Arrrgh! It had a touch of hum due to the fluorescent lights, but much less than my problem at home.
Touching a jumper between bridge and jack as you'd suggested, does nothing except to create a little more static.
Hum isn't even so much the problem for me now, it's more loud static.
It goes away briefly if I turn or wiggle the cable end in the jack hole, but as soon as it quiets down and I move my hand from the jack, there it goes again with the crackle. Right now the only way it's playable at home with my amp is with the volume on the guitar turned way down, and volume adjusted at amp only.
I could see if this were an old guitar that it might need pots, swtches, etc.cleaned with Deoxit or whatever.
Hard to imagine a new instrument needing that.
So I have clues, wiggling guitar end of cable quiets it momentarily and that the problem is much worse or much better in certain positions of the volume and tone knobs on the guitar.
Doesn't seem to make any difference which pickup I use, or if I use both.
I guess I need to take it to another shop and see if I can get it to do the thing there, using my amp.
Very frustrating.
This is the little beast, btw:
http://eastwoodguitars.com/products/warren-ellis-6

NickS wrote:Welcome. Not a model that I know, pics? "A bit less hum if you're touching" sounds like you have an earthing issue. Try running a wire from the bridge to the outside of the jack and see if that cuts it out.

Nice looking guitar in the demo.
Taking it to another place to try to reproduce the issue sounds like a good idea, and if Eastwood are prepared to reimburse repair costs somewhere that does repairs might give it a look over. Can you demo the issue on video?

I don't really have a way to do that. One thing I noticed, if I just keep playing despite the hum, it eventually chills out and becomes much less noisy.
Anyway, thanks again for listening.

NickS wrote:Nice looking guitar in the demo.
Taking it to another place to try to reproduce the issue sounds like a good idea, and if Eastwood are prepared to reimburse repair costs somewhere that does repairs might give it a look over. Can you demo the issue on video?

What an odd collection of guitars. Some really bizarre shapes there.

Are Eastwood guitars really that bad or is it because they're too expensive?

OutToDrift wrote:Are Eastwood guitars really that bad or is it because they're too expensive?

It's both, sadly. They cost a price approximate to what a higher end Epiphone would go for but they don't have nearly as tight a quality control tolerance.

The problem is that they're not all made in the same factory, I believe (at least, they weren't as recently as a few years back) and, even then, they don't have a very good QC department (ie: probably none at all. I imagine the first few boxes of a batch are inspected and everything else sits on a warehouse shelf waiting to be sent out).

I know that at least some models were made in the same factory as Alden/Revelation guitars at one point, while others were produced in the Gould/Farida factory, and some more came out of the same factory as the "modern" EKO/Vox models that popped up before they got a more dedicated location. Those brands tend to be pretty good quality, but they also likely get quite thoroughly checked over, too. I think Eastwood (which is basically run by a very small team headed up by one guy (who I've heard is a bit of a prick)) started out by both enlisting a couple of different cheapo factories to produce their more "unique" models while also co-opting some existing designs that those factories already made for different companies to fill out their roster, often by having a headstock and logo change, but just as often by slapping the Eastwood logo on the exact same model.

The most blatant example I can remember off the top of my head was the rebadged Gould Stormbird. They removed a P90 and added a fourth knob, changed the headstock... but kept the name!
Epiphone are a good comparison since Shine guitars is/was basically the "brand" name for the lower-end factory that produced cheaper Epiphone models. And while their cheaper Epiphone cousins tended to be pretty good, Shine guitars were fucking dogshit.