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My student has a Gibson ES175 with a Charlie Christian pickup. It hums, as they are notorious for. The hum is directional and can be reduced by pointing the guitar away from lights, etc. How did Barney Kessel and other jazz guitarists who used Charlie Christian pickups eliminate the hum while recording or playing live? It seems recording or playing on stage with a lot of equipment around would worsen the possibility of hum.
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01-08-2016 07:32 PM
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they pointed the guitar in the right direction as you said!!!..single coil design with those massive cobalt magnets are gonna be massive hummers..point & shoot...some installed kill switches..to turn pup off when not playing...many a coleman hawkins sax solo saved by that no doubt!! haha
cheers
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Professional studios back then were also designed and built on a whole other level of sophistication. The level of electronic nasties floating through the air would be as low as possible in the urban environment.
Also the layer of noise in the tape machines helped hide noise from individual instruments.
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in the last Vintage Guitar magazine Pat Metheny was talking about some kind of hum cancelling box he uses when he plays his 150s. He said it doesn't alter the sound in any way.
The magazine's in my shop, maybe someone here has it and can post the device name.
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metheney mentions electro harmonix hum dubugger...but really no way to de-hum w/o freq notching..which changes tone
cheers
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I believe there's also an option to ground the pickup to the tailpiece. Don't know if Kessel's guitar had that done though.
I've also noticed Tal Farlow frequently had some kind if wiring attached to his guitar, which I always presumed was some kind of earth loop. (pic of that here)
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/...hoto/138379122Last edited by pubylakeg; 01-08-2016 at 09:15 PM.
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Saw Barney up close and personal in a small club in Buffalo in the late 70's. He was dressed well, very "academic" in his between-tunes talks, and he spoke with authority. He adjusted his knobs a lot, but I don't remember any significant hum. Of course I was with a good college buddy and before we had tacos and...well...maybe I didn't hear it. But I DO remember that tone like it was last night, clear as a bell, with his heavy breathing and humming and grunting, several feet from our little round table. What a treasured memory.
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classic bit-
cheers
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For anyone wishing to enjoy some genuine CC pickup hum in all it's glory, please listen to this recording.
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Also highly recommended for connoisseurs, Raney's setup on this CD has hum-a-plenty.
(It's also got the tune Puby La Keg
).
Last edited by pubylakeg; 01-08-2016 at 10:52 PM.
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haha..there's more goin on than just hum on that one (rene thomas)..overload!..tho..rene thomas-unheralded master...i like him more & more
listen to what he does at around the 2:50 mark..right before the horns come in..insane!
cheers
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yeah...early jimmy raney..cc pup bop king..(liked gibby amps as well) none better...he was charlie parker disciple..i believe closest anyone ever got to him (bird) with guitar
cheers
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I can hear the low pitch hum on the Rene Thomas cut but not on the Jimmy Raney/Red Norvo one. My hearing may suffer some loss in my old age though. Interesting to hear Jimmy Raney play Bernie's Tune. I'm familiar with the Tal Farlow version but hadn't heard this one before. Raney's playing reminds me of Tal on this recording, or perhaps vice versa as I believe Raney was earlier.
The hum or buzz I hear from my student's guitar is much more noticeable and higher pitch, maybe better described as hissing or buzzing. It disappears though when the guitar is pointed in the right direction. He said he can't use it for some gigs because of the noise, not to mention not wanting to use that valuable a guitar in bars. If I recall, neon lights are the worst offenders.
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Actually a lot of the break-up on the Thomas recording is courtesy of youtube rather than the recording, but you get the gist...
Originally Posted by neatomic
The Raney recording is pretty wild, if you listen to that CD on headphones, it gives a pretty good idea of what you can expect with a CC pickup under certain conditions. Funnily enough, all the noise of his amp seems to be removed in the mastering process on the other Fantasy release of those tracks, that's this one,
Red Norvo, Jimmy Raney, Red Mitchell - Trios - Amazon.com Music
On the subject of noises on recordings, has anyone noticed the bird singing on the Red Norvo Trio (with Farlow) Savoy recordings. It's on several of the tracks on that session, but most noticeable on "Prelude To A Kiss". Starts around 2m 50s, most noticeable 3:07 to 3:10. Pretty sure it's not the vibraphone motors. Check it out, headphones recommended.
Extra points to any ornithologist that can identify the species
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Thank you, Pube. It all makes gobsmacking sense now. I had thought it was short for Pub By Lake G(eneva). Originally Posted by pubylakeg
...Raney's setup on this CD has hum-a-plenty.(It's also got the tune Puby La Keg).
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Pube ? PUBE !? Those are things that block hotel shower bathplugs.
Only joking Jabs. My real name is Hinge Thunder.
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You should get a real name...like Ebony Thunder Rod! Originally Posted by pubylakeg
Just joshing, pubylakeg. Don't take offence, please. I like a good old wind-up. I'm slinking off to do it to kenbennett now.
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Zephyr Regent, please accept my most sincere apologies for this brief diversion into the Twilight Zone.
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Yeah, the lighting dimmers in my house are really bad for inducing hum/buzz. Originally Posted by zephyrregent
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There is a humbucker variation on the single-coil Charlie Christian blade pickup made by Seymour Duncan:
Scotty Moore - 50 Guitars and All That Jazz .
There is an interesting write-up here covering tricks of the studio trade:
- AC Power Handling : Recording Magazine - . Certainly, isolation transformers and the like were common knowledge to studio engineers back in Barney Kessel's day.
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I grounded the cobalt magnets and the strings in my L50/CC conversion. Strings were grounded through the tailpiece jack in the original ES-150. Don't know about the ES-175/CC but maybe the wire fell off when the tailpiece was removed at some point in the guitar's history.
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I think you can hear the hum come and go a bit at the beginning of this, if you listen carefully:
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A couple of points:
1) Noise is very dependent on location. Most GL hum is caused by old tube and post wiring in older homes, also you can get electrical interference from high-voltage sources like radio transmitters. I have a lot of problems in my house but have never had a problem at a venue interestingly, either restaurant or hotel meeting room.
2) If the pickup is not grounded, it would probably benefit from a separate grounding wire. One way to tell is if you touch the tailpiece and the sound goes away. I soldered a grounding wire from the output jack ring to the TP on one of my piezo pickup installs.
3) The amp itself may have a grounding problem. I have noticed this with SS acoustic amps more than tube amps. Using piezo pickups I sometimes hear Terry Gross from my amp--ack! Not much of a problem with my Fender SCXD.
4) The EHX HumDebugger is a marvelous pedal that in my experience pretty much eliminates GL hum without much effect on the tone. As I understand it, it generates a parallel low-level, low-frequency signal that cancels out the hum noise kind of like a hum bucking pickup would. Highly recommended for playing with SC guitars.
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When I swapped the classic 57 humbucker to the VV HCC on the Regent I could immediately hear a bit of hum coming that was not there before and it is properly grounded to the TP.
However, it was not as bad as I had expected from a single coil and I know for a fact the grounding in the electrical circuit in my living room is not good; it made the component cables for my HD TV terminal unusable, HDMI connexion fixed that anyway. Also have dimmers in the house but I make sure they are not on when playing the single coil guitar because yes they do interfere.
That EXH HumDebugger pedal might be something interesting for me on the long run if the Regent gets back more play time in the future...can't see that much happening for the moment as I am too spoiled but we never know
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I have a humdebugger pedal. It works better with solid state amps than it does with tube amps and it does cut some highs. That said, it is very useful for guitars with single coils in a concert situation. Some rooms are worse than others. In rooms where the buzz is loud, it is great to have that pedal handy...
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