How to reduce hum from singlecoils?

[SwedishHumbucker]

What’s your best tips to reduce hum from singlecoils?
i have two Strats and love singlecoils and also high gain but i would like to reduce the hum.

 

[Mincer]

Make sure the guitar is well-shielded. Sometimes it is the room itself that is noisy, too. Stay away from dimmer switches. I've used active noise-cancelling systems that work, too. But in the end, if it really bothers you, it might be time for noiseless pickups.

 

[SwedishHumbucker]

Make sure the guitar is well-shielded. Sometimes it is the room itself that is noisy, too. Stay away from dimmer switches. I've used active noise-cancelling systems that work, too. But in the end, if it really bothers you, it might be time for noiseless pickups.

i use both singlecoils and stacked humbuckers

 

[IMENATOR]

If you keep your volume knob at 10 all the time and you just switch between clean and overdrive channels (or use overdrive pedals into a clean amp) then a noise suppressor pedal could be useful. When I am in the mood of playing like that I use my ISP Decimator G String ii and keep the amp's preamp sectiion silent when I don't play any note, then if the noise is not too extreme it will be masked by your guitar when playing.

Another thing I am quite intrigued about is using one of those ILICH hum cancelling coils for true single coils.

 

[Benjy_26]

Find a noise gate that works for you. High gain is noisy in and of itself.

 

[GuitarStv]

There's always a quiet angle to hold your guitar. When you've got your gain up, change the angle of the guitar and slowly turn around in a little circle. There will be one point where you're not getting any noise, even with your gain maxxed out. That's the way you have to point your guitar while recording or playing to keep it silent.

That and get used to rolling down your guitar volume as soon as you're done playing.

 

[freefrog]

For Strat single coils, Ilitch dummy coils do a good job. The official product is super expensive for what it is but it's really simple to DIY, since it's a large air coil with a few turns of thick wire... The only problem is to place it: the guitar needs to be routed and / or to receive a giant backplate.

A crude dummy coil can work in a decent way if it has the proper specs and is placed in an optimal way. It's even easier to DIY than an Ilitch coil since it can be obtained from a cheapo single coil with plastic bobbin, whose magnet(s) has/have been pulled off.

Of course, stack or rails pickups are another option, among others (Lace Sensors, Music Man active noise reduction circuit and so on)

I've many of these solutions in my own guitars : they have all their pros and cons.

Side note: TriSonic single coils are less noisy than Fender PU's - and there's Strat sized TriSonic's for anyone who would appreciate their glassy tone.

 

[Clint 55]

A little trick I came up with was to put the rwrp in the neck and then use a neck/bridge blender knob. That way you can blend in a tad of the bridge if you're in neck position and vice versa and have it cancel hum but not change the tone too badly, or even improve it.

 

[playas]

The single biggest difference I have found is shielding the guitar well.

I prefer true singles to noiseless singles, but in a guitar that's not shielded (well) I can't deal with them.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

I saw an interesting idea on YouTube (yeah I know) the other day.

Colin Smith (csguitars) winds his own pickups.

He made a hum canceling "single coil", where he cut the bobbin in two, configured one half as a single coil for the wound strings, and the other half as a RWRP coil for the plain strings, then joined the two coils together electrically and mechanically, producing a kind of twin coil single coil, not unlike a Precision bass's two pickups glued end to end.

 

[Bill Dennis]

My single coil guitars are shielded very well. It helps a lot but it does not clean up everything. One strat has an Area 61/58/58 set along with the shielding. That beast is about as quiet as it gets and they sound really good.

 

[Bill Dennis]

For Strat single coils, Ilitch dummy coils do a good job. The official product is super expensive for what it is but it's really simple to DIY, since it's a large air coil with a few turns of thick wire... The only problem is to place it: the guitar needs to be routed and / or to receive a giant backplate.

A crude dummy coil can work in a decent way if it has the proper specs and is placed in an optimal way. It's even easier to DIY than an Ilitch coil since it can be obtained from a cheapo single coil with plastic bobbin, whose magnet(s) has/have been pulled off.

Of course, stack or rails pickups are another option, among others (Lace Sensors, Music Man active noise reduction circuit and so on)

I've many of these solutions in my own guitars : they have all their pros and cons.

Side note: TriSonic single coils are less noisy than Fender PU's - and there's Strat sized TriSonic's for anyone who would appreciate their glassy tone.

The single coil Trisonics are cool as hell. I BHM'd a mahogany partscaster with a set and the complete vol/phase switching circuit. They are an extremely unique sound/voice to have available.

 

[freefrog]

I saw an interesting idea on YouTube (yeah I know) the other day.

Colin Smith (csguitars) winds his own pickups.

He made a hum canceling "single coil", where he cut the bobbin in two, configured one half as a single coil for the wound strings, and the other half as a RWRP coil for the plain strings, then joined the two coils together electrically and mechanically, producing a kind of twin coil single coil, not unlike a Precision bass's two pickups glued end to end.

FWIW, this principle has been applied in the past by various winders and makers including... Fender (with the Super 55 Split coils).

A potential problem is that any bending of the G string makes it pass from one coil to the other and kills the output temporarily... It's not a problem with bass guitars. It's rarely annoying with bridge PU's. But with neck single coils used to play "the blues" with heavily bent strings, it becomes a deal breaker. See this review about the Super 55 Split coils: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-...ef=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005MR6GFO

A solution is to build coils having each a pointy triangular end, in order to put these two ends side by side under the strings. That's the idea behind the Fralin Split Blades. The angled coils in Zexcoil pickups have been designed along the same line...

FWIW.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

^ thumbs up given. Colin didn't claim it as his own idea, but I thought it was an interesting concept.

 

[ErikH]

I have one SSS Strat with traditional single-coils. It's fine for at home or playing at church with the worship group. If I was playing it out at bars, clubs, and festivals, those would come right out and noiseless would go in. It's 2021. And the Classic Stack Plus is the best noiseless, IMO.

 

[Mincer]

I have one SSS Strat with traditional single-coils. It's fine for at home or playing at church with the worship group. If I was playing it out at bars, clubs, and festivals, those would come right out and noiseless would go in. It's 2021. And the Classic Stack Plus is the best noiseless, IMO.

I do agree with this. Places I sometimes play are questionably wired. Even studios are noisy. I ain't got time for noise.

 

[IMENATOR]

I saw an interesting idea on YouTube (yeah I know) the other day.

Colin Smith (csguitars) winds his own pickups.

He made a hum canceling "single coil", where he cut the bobbin in two, configured one half as a single coil for the wound strings, and the other half as a RWRP coil for the plain strings, then joined the two coils together electrically and mechanically, producing a kind of twin coil single coil, not unlike a Precision bass's two pickups glued end to end.

I thik that is kind of the approach of the Duncan Vintage Rails, they sound super nice in the demos but the consensus in this forum is you should better go with the full set to avoid volume mismatch with different pickups. Also the ZexCoil pickups but they take it one step further placing the RWRP on strings 2, 4 and 6 so pole 1+2 are hum canceling, then 3+4 are and finally 5+6, ZexCoil pickups sound more like traditional vintage fenders to me in the demos but I have never played a guitar with them.