Thinking of dumping the noiseless single coils

[TheGuildedAge]

Have any of you gone this route. I have had dimarzios (area, virtual vintage), lace (hot golds, holy grails, sensors) and even though I like the tone, I seem to keep hearing a certain style of single coil strat tone that noiseless isn't getting me.

I want a fat, beefed up strat tone. Something for good cleans but great overdrive. I do have a noise gate and don't use super high gain, so I am thinking I may be able to make it work.

Although, in the studio, the hum bothered me a bit.

[Chris Scott]

Common conclusion re. noiseless pups, and for me, the Suhr backplate is the only real solution - I play out a lot, often in some funky-wired venues (3rd-world wiring, who woulda thought) which makes an annoying issue quickly ramp up into the un-playable zone, and this handy little package enables us tone junkies the ability to use any damn pickup we like, with no noise artifacts, period.

WAY worth the expense, imo.

[Sensible Musician]

Yeah I've pretty much sworn off noiseless pickups for life. Some have a neat sound all their own - e.g. Fender Vintage Noiseless are neat - but they are neither fish nor foul.

Venues with dirty power/lots of neon, etc. can have the in-between position sounds and as far as I'm concerned their loss is their loss. I've had some really great nights of playing with that give-a-sh** attitude - where I'll just stay in #2 position the whole night.

Never heard of a studio with persistent hum problems. Sounds like a great opportunity to get free time or other comp goodies.

As I get older I get much freer with wiring guitars and the rest of the rig, but some concepts are getting calcified into a static state - e.g. my idea of what constitutes unhyphenated strat pickups is pretty narrow at this point. IMO a strat is hand wound (or CNC emulation a la John Suhr) with AWG42 heavy insulation wire, middle pickup has 8k turns; neck is 5%-10% fewer turns and bridge has 10%-15% more. You still have some creativity within that range, plus mags, plus the wiring of the guitar.

I guess that works because I also have a very narrow idea of what makes a strat - not hybrid strat, fat strat, versatile strat, or anything - just strat. It has an alder body, maple neck with rosewood or maple fingerboard, vintage type trem with 6 screws...

The only thing really modern I accept is tuners. And the only really oddball construction detail I like is reverse angled bridge pickup (better suited for the music since the 1950's).

BTW I have two strats that are really geared toward strat sound (rosewood and maple), and another pair for R&B that have different kinds of bridge and neck pickups - still single coil strat size, just different construction.

Point of all that is, if I'm going to bother to play an instrument that has single coils I've already jumped through a lot of hoops to get the authentic real deal - might as well use the right pickups, too.

There is no free lunch - the only thing that sounds and feels like a plain old strat pickup is a plain old strat pickup. Even Suhr's dummy coil - which is the best solution so far - lowers the peak a little and changes the sound slightly. At least with that setup you can put it on a switch and only use it in emergencies.

You can take shielding further than most people bother with. IMO it's better to exhaust that option first before you start looking for bastardized pickups.

[Structo]

Out of three different type of noiseless pickups, I found liked Fender Hot Noiseless pups the best in my strat.

They seemed to sound more strat like compared to other quieter pickups.

Now I didn't play out with it at bars where there are neon signs but I kept them in that strat.

[walterw]

which three?

i've found the areas to be far and away the closest to the real thing (barring the backplate idea).

sensible's right, though; even the best ones are "close", but they're not the real thing.

i gig with a tele with hot fralin singles in it, and have never felt a need for noiseless pickups; the guitar has a perfectly good pinky-activated noise gate right on it!

[Sweetfinger]

Adding a dummy coil to standard single coils will get in the ballpark. You lose a lot of hum and get a little thicker tone that still sounds like a Strat clean but really likes distortion. The brighter the original coils, the brighter the final tone.

[walterw]

meh, regular dummy coils extract a sizable price in tone loss, which is why they're not used very often.

the breakthrough with the backplate system is that while it technically is a dummy coil, by making it physically big they can use very few wraps of wire to get the hum-canceling needed (IIRC, it's only a few hundred ohms); this lets the coil do its job without choking the tone like a regular dummy coil.

[Husky]

Originally Posted by Sensible Musician

There is no free lunch - the only thing that sounds and feels like a plain old strat pickup is a plain old strat pickup. Even Suhr's dummy coil - which is the best solution so far - lowers the peak a little and changes the sound slightly.

Actually our SSCII does not change the resonant peak or change the tone.
No amount of shielding unless it is Mu metal will change the amount of hum.

[Sweetfinger]

Originally Posted by walterw

meh, regular dummy coils extract a sizable price in tone loss, which is why they're not used very often.

Define "sizable". I would say that the majority of players wouldn't know there was a dummy coil in a guitar unless you told them or they noticed a lack of hum. There are different ways to do a dummy coil that sound different and that "loss of tone", whatever amount it may be, is sometimes preferable for what a player needs. The OP seems like that would be a good fit.
The reason Dummy coils aren't installed more isn't that they don't work or don't sound good when nicely done, it's because there isn't one model that will retrofit every guitar or pickup and the widespread use of RWRP middle pickups makes it tough to retrofit as well. It is the kind of mod that can only be done by someone with a fair amount of experience and ingenuity. The majority of players and techs just take the easy way out and go with an aftermarket hum canceling pickup.
They're not used very often in production guitars because the added cost doesn't make sense, unless you have something like Fender's "Powerhouse" Strat where the hum would be unbearable with the preamp boost.
I've just found that given all options, dummy coils tend to work best for my needs and can be a great mod for many others, especially players who use a bit of distortion.
I've got a dummied MIM Strat that just loves full up Marshall and other rock amps.

[Sensible Musician]

John I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable or competent as you - I'm a player who likes to tinker. I did build a dummy coil like yours based on the info in Illich's [sp?] patent when it was first the big buzz : )

I could hear substantial drop in hum but it also caused a perceptible change in sound that I assumed was a shift in the peak. Not huge but it seemed too dramatic to be psycho-whatever. So I guess I should say that my personal foray into large area, low-turns coil changed the sound slightly.

I do remember that I ended up winding mine by hand because I couldn't bolt anything onto my winder that was big enough to get the desired area. I used a square plastic tub and just hand wound it.

How is that adding a coil - even with few turns of thicker wire - can have no effect on the sound? I don't doubt, I just don't understand.

[analogsystem]

I tried a lot of noiseless singles (kinman, dimarzio areas, fender SCN) and some are cool for certain things.

My strat has Lollar Specials in the neck and middle, and a harmonic design S90 in the bridge.
It hums a lot, but I don't notice it once the drummer starts. It sounds much much better than any of the noiseless.

[Zingeroo]

Bill Lawrence Keystones are true single coils, but somehow he managed to minimize the hum to where it is not very noticeable. They're the best singles I've played in my 25 years of experience.
Good shielding and grounding helps a lot also.

[Tone_Terrific]

Originally Posted by Sweetfinger

They're not used very often in production guitars because the added cost doesn't make sense, unless you have something like Fender's "Powerhouse" Strat where the hum would be unbearable with the preamp boost.
I've just found that given all options, dummy coils tend to work best for my needs and can be a great mod for many others, especially players who use a bit of distortion.
I've got a dummied MIM Strat that just loves full up Marshall and other rock amps.

I pulled the dummy from my Powerhouse, better, changed the pups, better again, and made the boost circuit bypassable, no dummy.
Works well. Noise is not a problem, but I don't do hi-volume, hi-gain.
Play clean and the dummy is noticeable, imo.

[pima1234]

Please feel free to elaborate. I have to get this done, and even star grounding, guitarnuts.com style.

Even my Kinmans are still susceptible to noise. I touch the bridge or jack and it's basically gone. Touching the strings gets rid of most of it. Touching the selector switch dramatically increases the buzz. Had a tech check it out and it was fine there.

By the way, I like the sound of the Kinman Woodstock Plus, but not in "humbucker" mode using the K9 switching. I find it thick and muddy. Not like a good humbucker at all. (Someone feel free to me why it doesn't sound right that way.)

Originally Posted by Sensible Musician

You can take shielding further than most people bother with. IMO it's better to exhaust that option first before you start looking for bastardized pickups.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by pima1234

Even my Kinmans are still susceptible to noise. I touch the bridge or jack and it's basically gone. Touching the strings gets rid of most of it. Touching the selector switch dramatically increases the buzz. Had a tech check it out and it was fine there.

sounds like the grounding is not quite right; touching any metal part, strings, jack, or the switch, should equally reduce the noise.

also, that's not so much the pickup hum, that's electrostatic "buzz".

proper shielding will reduce it, but really, you shouldn't ever have your hands off the strings with it turned up anyway.