Hi all, I need some help with Harmonic Design pups. I had a pair of their Vintage Plus pups in my tele. Loved the sound, very unique, but they were noisy as heck. Lot of what sounded like 60 cycle hum when I engaged my overdrive pedals, much more than my other tele with Don Mare single coils which I compared in the same setup in the same room, and more than most tele pups I've owned (been playing tele's with overdrive pedals for probably 20 years now).
I took them out but I had a change of heart so I emailed Scott at HD to get his take. He responded very quickly (thanks Scott!) and basically said the black and white wires from the pups needed to be twisted together (they were, I have photographic proof
) and if some portion of the shielding in the guitar cavity was not grounded that could make the noise worse. I have no idea if it's even possible to tell if any portion of my tele's shielding (it is shielded) isn't grounded, but I suppose I could ask the local tech to check it out.
Lastly he said having the pups close to the strings improves signal to noise ratio. I have no idea how close to the strings the pups were, but I do know at the time they were in that guitar, it had pretty shallow pup cavities. So I'm sure they weren't super far from the strings.
Does anyone have any insight on this, maybe someone who owns or owned a pair of his pups? I know there are plenty of user reviews on the web from people who found his pups to have LESS noise than typical fender style single coils (which Scott himself alluded to).
I'd love to get that sound working for me again, but I just couldn't deal with that level of noise. I really don't mind the typical single coil hum, but this was way more than that.
Thanks!
I took them out but I had a change of heart so I emailed Scott at HD to get his take. He responded very quickly (thanks Scott!) and basically said the black and white wires from the pups needed to be twisted together (they were, I have photographic proof
) and if some portion of the shielding in the guitar cavity was not grounded that could make the noise worse. I have no idea if it's even possible to tell if any portion of my tele's shielding (it is shielded) isn't grounded, but I suppose I could ask the local tech to check it out.Lastly he said having the pups close to the strings improves signal to noise ratio. I have no idea how close to the strings the pups were, but I do know at the time they were in that guitar, it had pretty shallow pup cavities. So I'm sure they weren't super far from the strings.
Does anyone have any insight on this, maybe someone who owns or owned a pair of his pups? I know there are plenty of user reviews on the web from people who found his pups to have LESS noise than typical fender style single coils (which Scott himself alluded to).
I'd love to get that sound working for me again, but I just couldn't deal with that level of noise. I really don't mind the typical single coil hum, but this was way more than that.
Thanks!
