Single Coil Buzz

[ejko]

I've got a Suhr tele w' 3 single coils. I'm a bedroom player, so my amp is a Roland cube 60 that lets me get crunch at low volume levels. Nice and quiet amp in all pickup positions. I was thinking about upgrading to a low wattage tube amp. Tried out a fairly expensive boutique amp today with settings for 2 or 7 watts. The sound was definitely 'fuller' then I get from the Roland, but I also got a lot of buzz when set to any one of the single coils. Is this common for a solid state to be quiet on any one single coil and a tube amp be noisy? I would think it is a function of the guitar and not the amp, but my little experiment suggests otherwise.

And if that is the case, is there a solid state amp that would be a sound upgrade over the Roland?

Thanks!

ejko

[rhinocaster]

Originally Posted by ejko

I've got a Suhr tele w' 3 single coils. I'm a bedroom player, so my amp is a Roland cube 60 that lets me get crunch at low volume levels. Nice and quiet amp in all pickup positions. I was thinking about upgrading to a low wattage tube amp. Tried out a fairly expensive boutique amp today with settings for 2 or 7 watts. The sound was definitely 'fuller' then I get from the Roland, but I also got a lot of buzz when set to any one of the single coils. Is this common for a solid state to be quiet on any one single coil and a tube amp be noisy? I would think it is a function of the guitar and not the amp, but my little experiment suggests otherwise.

And if that is the case, is there a solid state amp that would be a sound upgrade over the Roland?

Thanks!

ejko

Did you play both amps in the same room at the same time? If you played these amps in two different locations, you're going to have 2 different levels of noise. My Teles into my tube amps are noisy or quiet depending on the location.

[DougDoppler]

Hey Ejko:

One of thethings about boutique gear is that it delivers a much broader picture of the sonic spectrum, and as much as I do like the Cubes for the value they bring, it may be that your boutique amp is just doing a better job of reproducing an already-present buzz, separate from any additional drive on the boutique amp. The higher the drive on the amp, the more buzz you'll get from single coils, which I'll presume you already knew. Take your guitar into the store and try it out with a bunch of amps. Biased as I am, DiMarzio makes some great Virtual Vintage pickups that are hum-cancelling but great on the tone end. Single coil noise is something that can be a real drag, but the tonal characteristics are awesome. Hope that helps...

[ejko]

Thanks for the info!

ejko

[ReddRanger]

One thing to note is that the Roland Cube amps have built in noise gates...

[ejko]

Built-in noise gates??? Is this a good or bad thing?

Thanks!

ejko

[ReddRanger]

Well, I think it's a good thing since I use mine for practice near my home computer...

Without that noise gate, you might experience buzz similar to tubes amps. Just something to note, and not be too hard on tube amps in that kind of comparison.

[ReginaldBisquet]

I find the noise gate function of the Cube 80x to be subtle. What's really annoying is the built-in auto-compressor function. I'm not a compressor kind of guy... so I don't appreciate the effect at all.