I have a Fender '96 MIJ 60's reissue strat that I like a lot. However, the single coil hum is killing me! I'm thinking about replacing the pickups with noiseless, but there seem to be some mixed reviews on them. Anyone else have recommendations? My Epiphone Sheraton sounds good, but kills my back (the Strat is soooo much lighter).

If you...
a) like the sound of your existing pickups (sans the hum)
b) are not afraid of disassembling your axe
c) are handy with a soldering iron

this page will have all the info you need: http://www.guitarnuts.com.../index.php
(the specific section called "Quieting the beast" in the Modifications section)

The other alternative is to get some noise cancelling strat pickups.

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

i just use a different pickup if i get hum. not ideal but it helps.

The strangest thing happens to my strat at the mo. When Im recording on the PC, the TV is next to me. If its on, I get a loud hum from all my pickup combinations except the first & second ones. If the TV is off, no hum. How can the TV be making my guitar hum??

Did you ever think about getting seymour humbuckers or active emg pick ups?
I used to have two fender pick ups one mexican and other american, i sold them because of the hum and i am very happy with my duncans now.

I actually dig the buzz, but if you want SC pickups make sure to line your pickgaurd with foil as will will help with ground hum. I am also a huge fan of the Dimarzio Virtual series, among the best sounding most cost effective humbuckers out there. They come in a few flavors tonally so you can really dial in some great sounds hum free.

Get a Boss noise suppressor pedal. I use one with my very noisy tele and it works great. Doesn't effect your tone, you don't have to butcher your guitar and it's cheaper than new pu's too.

Went to the local music shop last night and picked up two of the DiMarzio virtuals to put in. I'll leave the middle pickup original. I can't wait to play it.

cloud9mission said:

Hum is generated by several things. Motors, (like fans next to or near your guitar or amp) and Neon lights. A monitor is a neon light, in that it's a vacuum tube with a gas and light, and hell, i don't know what else. When recording next to a computer, I'll turn the monitor OFF.

Look into lead-paint (no joke) to line the inside of the pickup cavity as well as painting on the backside of the pickguard.

Other solutions: bigger better more expensive cables. I upgraded and I'm glad I did, but LORD, I hate spending $40 for a SINGLE fricking guitar cable.

If you have major distortion sounds, you're going to get hum. Period. Your options there are to either get a noise gate for when you're not playing notes, or to roll back the distortion.

Hope this helps homes. DO NOT go to humbuckers. They are the tool of the devil. Humbuckers are tone buckers. But hey, that's my opinion, what do I know.

A few things help me:

1) On my Am.Std. Strat (natural ash finish, maple neck -- oh so lovely), I installed some Chris Kinman, noise-cancelling "blues" pickups. They work very well, sound pretty darn Strat-ish, and are a bit beefier than the stock pickups. Louder, too. Versatile sound (jazz to clean jangle to funky quack to blues mush to chunky rock). Articulate pickups. I like them muchly.

2) On my Mexican-made, Deluxe Super Strat, I've forgone the pickup swap and have learned to turn in my chair (if I'm recording on my computer) until the hum is gone. (Like, "Point north to kill the hum...") That works fairly well. Sometimes, cutting the treble by dialing down the tone knobs minimizes the hum. And, there's always the cop-out of switching to one of the in-between positions.

3) On my Hondo Strat copy, I've gotten good shielding (like other posters have mentioned) that helps deaden some of the noise. It's not totally effective, but it takes a bit of the noise away. And, these are old, cheap pickups.

Good luck to you.

I still don´t now what is all teh buzz about fenders single coils, i had 2 of them and i didn´t saw how can they compare with duncans and dimarzzios. They are not versatile, a humbucker with alnico II has a incredible clean sound, it has that jazzy thing going on if you put on the neck, and a ceramic or alnico 5 pick up SCREAAAM on the bridge position. I´m sure hendrix would play with a humbucker if he could at the time.

Salles "the official single coil hater"



by the way i used to have a humbucker on a plywood guitar, , it got more hum that madonna had lovers. so a good and balanced guitar always helps.
[This message was edited Wed Jun 2 14:45:46 2004 by 7salles]

otan said:[quote]

cloud9mission said:

I gotta disagree on that one, low output buckers have ( 8.5 is the hottest I go, even lower in the neck position) very close to the same clarity as single coil pickups ( I use both SC and HB equally) if they are mucky try an A3 or A4 magnet in place of the usual A2 or A5, they work wonders in the neck position. My mohagany Explorer can be run with my Strats and Teles with very similiar amp settings. I owe that all to messing with the magnets, in fact Texas Specials SC are muckier than any bucker I am useing these days. My days of useing high output anything are long gone, I feel that is mainly where the tone is robbed. I went from the Duncan Jerry Donahue which has long been my favorite Tele pickup to the Dimazio Virtual Tele and have zero trade off tonally. The got something going on with those pickups.

But then again, I don't go to church....

It depends on what you're going after, not everyone are going after SRV or Bbking tone. Go play PANTERA or metallica with a fender single coil or any low output pick up so you'll see what pu has THE tone.

So I just replaced the bridge and neck pickups with the DiMarzio Virtuals and tested it out. No hum and sound great!

Dude, Hendrix played a friggin' Flyin' V at times!

7salles said:[quote]I´m sure hendrix would play with a humbucker if he could at the time.

And dude,

BB plays a friggin' Gibson Lucille with PAFs!

7salles said:

hectim said:

But he's right - not everybody's going for a strat tone.

But if the initial post says, "MY STRAT is blah blah blah blah" I'm assuming that he's going for a strat tone. Silly, I know, but hey, that's me...

yeah i know about bb king i got lots of guitar player magazines with him and a humbucker guitar. I just got mad cause i saw someone saying humbuckers are tonebuckers, so i lost my mind and didn't think before i typed. :p

Prince's best guitars have bridge humbuckers...

What do you guys think of putting a Humbucker on the neck of teles ,I have a Tele and was considering this. I know you can buy Tele's with Humbuckers has anyone got or played one ,what was it like.

The basic Principle of a 'Pickup', is to create, or induce current, by the use of 3 elements. A coil, a magnet, + movement.In escence an electric generator is a coil enclosed in a magnet. spin the coil (armature) within the magnetic housing and we get 'electricity'.Apply a current 2 the coil and the "electromotive force' spins the armature,or coil(electric motor).A pickup is a variance of these conditions. we have a magnet wrapped in insulated copper wire , & the vibration of the string induces a current into the circuit, magically translating the frequency of the movement of the string, which we hear acoustically as a sound hitting our ear drum, into a electronic signal which our Amps pump our speakers with.A mic is a pick up.This sounds like a load o' crap maybe but is theoretically close 2 what goes on with ya pickups , + with a lot of electronic devices using these same principles theres a tendency 4 them 2 get confused,.i.e. guitar pickups 'hearing' the motor in your fridge instead of your strings, coz it's a stronger signal.We're just producing a current, by the principle of induction.Sorry bout all that , i've just gotten my certificate in Electronic Engineering.
So with shielding and proper Earthing of guitar, there's,as others have pointed out earlier, no probs with external stray signals ,from monitors radios,etc.
Funnily enough Gibson saw Fenders problems with'noise' & created "humbuckers" ,as the solution 2 outside frequency interference. Personally, i like double coil pickups,generate a larger signal, but there's so many devices to help us out these days , its just a matter of selecting what works 4 U.Your "pots", or potentiometers, variable resistors,(Tone & volume) are also a place 4 'stray' signals to creep in.The Electric guitar is such a simple & beautifully thought out device that it fascinates me ,in fact a lot of devices work on real simple principles of magnetism & coiled wire inducers.If youve ever wondered why pickups, pots, guitars in general are so expensive it's the ART of Electronic craftmanship, ensuring as clean a signal as possible, so you can crank up the beast without hearing the local radio station etc. through your Amp.I'll shut up now, sorry guys.
P.S> Jimi loved His Gibson Flying V.

ThreadBare said:

That's funny, because his BEST guitar is the Hohner. All those clouds and Habibis and flying plastic phalluses - they all sound exactly the same. But when he puts on the tele, whether he's soloing to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" or laying in the funk, that guitar sounds great.

But, yes, it's all opinions. So, this is all just my opinion, and yes, it totally reflects my own playing preferences.

So, hmm. That's an interesting opinion you have. That's what I meant to say.

richierich said:

Keith Richards is the only one I'd actually recognize with the hummer in the neck. Uh, so to speak. It's an interesting tone overall, I played with a guy who's guitar was set up like that. It was okay, but seemed a little too muddy for my own tastes.

I had it done on my tele, but eventually I took it out again. Because of the e neck position, it didn't give me an aggressive enough distorted tone but it did cost me a lot of the character and twang.

richierich said:

Yeah but, dude, those are Kinmans in the Hohner which are like stacked humbuckers if I understand it right?

otan said:

hectim said:

Maybe NOW they are. But on Dirty Mind, they were crap Hohner tele bridge wannabe pickups.

I gots to get me some o them Kinmans. I just need to sell my car to drum up the cash.

His best guitar is not the tele, it only looks funkier. His best guitar is the cloud. All maple neck t body and emg pick ups. cause i said so.

7salles said:

Cuz I agree!




And, yeah, Kinmans are stacked humbuckers. I have a set in my ash-maple Strat (and they're wonderful)!

If you need help with the hum: Just make sure your mouth is completely closed. (You don't necessarily have to purse your lips together) Resonate your voice as if speaking but keep your mouth closed. Be sure to breathe as you normally would or the sound will have a tendency to sound nasal. Depending on your range you will be able to hum in separate octaves. An excellent exercise can be found in the closing theme song of the TV show "The Jeffersons". I hope my technical knowledge of humming has helped.

I eliminate hum by selecting the out of phase positions on my strat...I prefer the sounds from these selections anyhow

I Remember reading in 'Guitar Player' Mag A few years back that the "hohner" was a nightmare 4 the sound tech's; in that basically it was a piece of crap! Prince used it initially coz it went with his outfit. These days its obviously been "worked", the sound is great, so the sound guy's are happy, & Prince is happy coz he likes the look of the scratch plate.