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I have a semi-hollowbody Epiphone Casino, single coil pickups. Granted some hum is to be expected with this setup, however the hum I have is unusually loud. When I am not touching anything there is slight hum/buzz. When I touch the strings there is a very loud buzz. When I touch both the strings AND one of the pickups, the buzz goes away almost entirely. This buzz ONLY occurs on the neck pickup.
What is causing the buzz? Does the bridge lack proper grounding? or the neck pickup?
If you touch your strings and the noise gets louder, there is a good chance your strings are not grounded (or they are coated, as some coated strings do not ground quite as well.) Just by grounding your strings you can bring down the hum.
This is accomplished by grounding a bridge stud, a spring claw, or a trapeze tailpiece.
By the sound of it, there is a reverse wiring issue. Hum getting louder when touching the strings rather than quieter is indicative of a ground connection accidentally being wired to output.
If its only occurring on the neck pickup, it is likely that whoever opened the guitar last mistakenly wired the neck pickup's ground to the jack output, rather than the intended wiring of output->output ground->ground. This should be a relatively simple fix if you know how to solder: simply swap the solder points of said pickup.
