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I recently acquired a guitar with a Lollar Charlie Christian pickup. It sounds great except it is extremely noisy. Humbuckers through the same amp (Henriksen Bud 12) are nearly silent.
What are the options to eliminate or significantly reduce the hum and buzz? I recall a thread on this but cannot find it.
Thanks! (FYI the guitar is a Collings Eastside LC Deluxe).
Len
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02-22-2022 07:48 PM
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Everyone seems to say that the Hum Debugger pedal works very well. I have been looking at them and will probably buy one soon.
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The best option other than humbucking pickups is the Electro Harmonix Hum Debugger. Opinion vary on how much it affects the sound. My experience is that it didn't noticeably affect my P90 guitar (which I now longer have), but it's more noticeable with my Strat, especially on the stronger setting and with overdrive. A guy I know has one for a guitar with a CC pickup and he's happy with it.
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I have a hum debugger…it’s a quick solution for hum. It may change the sound a little sometimes but , like many things that change the tone a little, it stops being noticeable after a short while…
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Try a different outlet/circuit as well.
I've got one outlet connected to a circuit with some can lights on a dimmer. Turning the lights off makes a huge difference. Plus, just plugging into an outlet in the other room instead does as well.
Otherwise, for gigs... I use an EHX hum debugger. But I only need it once or twice a year.
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Do you have hum or buzz or both? I think the two generally have different sources and coupling mechanisms, so should be considered separately.
Hum often is a result of a power transformer (such as the amp’s) coupling into your pickup coils. If the volume of the hum changes as you rotate the guitar or as you approach a piece of equipment, that’s a big clue. On my single coil guitars, I try to keep the guitar away from power transformers and sometimes must change my position to keep the hum at acceptable levels. Of course, it also helps to roll off the volume pot when not playing.
Buzzes typically come from dimmers, LEDs, poorly designed wall warts, and sometimes small arcs in high voltage power lines outside. If your guitar is particularly susceptible to buzzes, it’s probably due to poor shielding and/or poor grounding in the guitar. If the buzz drops when you touch metal parts of the guitar or the amp’s chassis, that’s a clue.
I recently discovered my Telecaster’s ground wire to the bridge had become disconnected. Correcting that made a huge improvement in buzz. It may have brought down the hum as well, but I never found the hum levels that objectionable. The buzz still comes up a bit when I’m not touching the strings, but that’s easily avoided with the volume control.
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I have seen great results with just using a passive splitter pedal, in cases where grounding or magnetic interference caused the problem. One that uses transformers to isolate incoming and outgoing signal, like this one. Easy to carry and use, and also great as a splitter.
LEHLE
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If there are two pickups and one is reverse wound, when both pickups are engaged and at similar volumes, the hum will be much less. I have several guitars configured like this.
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Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I will try them out and report back.
Len
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On my ‘97 Am Std Strat I put in those Fender 57/62 reissue pups. These are not reverse wound or reverse polarity. No hum bucking. Single coil hum supreme. So I wired it for a Star ground. All grounds go to a common point, a metal washer, and no soldering to the pot cases. No ground loops.
Then I lined the cavities with copper foil to build a Faraday cage that nulls stray electro-magnetic fields. Quite pleased with the quiet result.
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I don’t think *star* grounding is necessary since there are no ground loop issues within a guitar, but it does no harm either. Shielding does help. The Telecaster I mentioned above had factory cavity shielding.
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Here’s the circuit from the LEHLE manual. It’s an isolation transformer. Those can help eliminate ground loops between two pieces of equipment. But if a ground loop isn’t the source of the noise I’m not sure if it would help. If I had one around it would be worth a try, but I wouldn’t spend $180 on it unless I was fairly certain a ground loop was the problem, or if I had other uses for it.
Originally Posted by Alter
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I watched Sean McGowan and Henriksen do a demo once in an old cafe/bar that had neon lights on the walls and windows and refrigeration compressors just outside the building, dimmer lights in the room, etc., and it was a nightmare. They tried moving things, cables, etc., to no avail. Thought it might have been a nearby cell tower across the water. He uses single coil archtop. They didn't have an EHX hum debugger. I'm sure that neither one will ever leave home w/o one. I felt bad for them. Sean had to play through it, and he's an awesome guitar player, but in that small room, it was painful to listen. Glad I got to see him in a different venue later. I will never play a gig w/o having one in the bag. It might not get 100%, but, it'll get it to a reasonable amount.
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I agree. Also, you can lower the bridge pickup physically as far as it will go. That will reduce the hum and not add as much bridge string volume to your amp sound. Originally Posted by 73Fender
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As I understand it, an isolation transformer is the proper way to eliminate a ground loop. Originally Posted by KirkP
Here’s the circuit from the LEHLE manual. It’s an isolation transformer. Those can help eliminate ground loops between two pieces of equipment. But if a ground loop isn’t the source of the noise I’m not sure if it would help. If I had one around it would be worth a try, but I wouldn’t spend $180 on it unless I was fairly certain a ground loop was the problem, or if I had other uses for it.
It occurs, for example, if you plug into two amps. I believe that the safest thing to do is to insert an isolation transformer in front of one of the amps.
I have heard, but not verified, that it may work to cut the ground on one of the cables. Since there's already a ground (the one making the ground loop) this may work. I've never tried that because I didn't want two kinds of cables -- I'd end up taking the wrong one to a gig.
What I do, which is not recommended, is to use a ground lift adaptor (3 prong to 2 prong) on one amp's (or both) power cable. If there's a short in the amp, or something, this could be dangerous. Not recommended.
Everything I've read suggests that the CC pu is noisy. One post I saw suggested that remagnetizing the magnet might help. No idea if it's true.
I have a guess that Charlie Christian's guitar was not exposed, in his lifetime, to the kind of electrical fields we have around us now.
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Originally Posted by Brmr
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The hum debugger is probably better, since it's specialized for that. The Lehle pedal does help in various situations, i don't think all of them are just ground loops, examples: if i play with my single coil Elferink too close to some amps, it gets hum, which the Lehle reduces. At gigs, again with the single coil Elferink, it helps with noises from lights, appliances, refrigerators, etc.. i even played one where i was sitting right next to an external room with the electric company power transformers... it changed the sound from unplayable to ok. I always carry it if i play somewhere unfamiliar.
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I have not read it until now, but the classic way of getting rid of a part of the unwanted single coil sounds is shielding. That is easy on a solid top Hardly achieveable on an archtop.. One of the bigbands that I play in, is located in a large centre that hosts an ice skating arena and there are several high energy sources and high energy consuming companies are located such as restaurants with freezers etc. The outlet right behind me is giving me the creeps, even if I use a humbucker archtop. I have to roll out appr 35 meters to the next outlet to get an acceptable noise level. Horn players do not understand that
I have a noise gate allways in the bag if I go to a gig. And worse, I decided to refrain from buying last week a highly attractive flamed to the max Gibson ES5 (3x P90) for the sole reason that I would have been confronted with lots of unwanted noises.
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In my experience, the best way to stop a single coil from humming is to teach it the words of the song.
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Shielding is not entirely effective. I have a strat with a shielded cavity, and I still get buzz in some rooms. Less than I would without shielding, and less that I did with P90s in an archtop, but still to an intolerable level in some environments. That's where the Hum Debugger helps. I think this is a common experience. Noise gates are a little deceptive -- while you're _not_ playing the gate closes, so you don't hear the buzz/hum, but once you start playing the gate opens and the buzz/hum returns. Under some circumstances, it's at a low enough level that the playing drowns it out. But when the buzz/hum is really bad you need something that works by a different principle from a noise gate (e.g., humbucking pickups or the EHX HDB). Originally Posted by hotpepper01
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I don't think I understand how shielding works.
The business end of the pickup is designed to sense magnetic energy. You don't shield the pickup.
Rather, you shield the wiring and hardware inside the guitar. That is, you try to eliminate noise that is accumulated by the interior wiring and electronics. Seems to me, that for a single coil pickup, it's going to be the pickup itself, not the interior circuitry, that's producing most of the noise. What am I missing?
With a HB pickup, it's different. In that case, the pickup isn't producing much noise, so that the interior circuitry may be contributing a larger part of the overall noise.
This, btw, is consistent with my experience some time back of shielding a HB Les Paul. I used conductive paint, grounded everything etc. I don't recall hearing any real difference.
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I don't think you're missing anything. Wiring can act as an antenna for EMI, and as a result even a humbucker can pick up noise if the other circuitry isn't well shielded. But shielding can't (and doesn't) keep the pickup itself from acting as an antenna. So it decreases the overall noise, but only the part contributed by the non-pickup circuitry. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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^ You can also shield the single coil pickup itself. That why I like the Phat Cat - it's completely shielded and quite quiet.
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To shield a single coil p/u, I guess that means you wrap it, somehow, with a conductor (like foil). But, the pole pieces (or blade or whatever is on top) can't be shielded, or the p/u wouldn't work. So, even the shielded single coil p/u is going to be sensitive to electrical fields in the vicinity. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
The Phat Cat website mentions that the metal covers provide more shielding than plastic covers. I'm not sure exactly what that amounts to. What happens to the guitar signal if it has to travel through a grounded metal p/u cover? Or, is the cover not grounded?
So, if you wrap grounded foil around the sides and bottom of the p/u, that reduces noise? Noticeable or theoretical?
It also mentions noiseless operation, but only if two single coil p/u's are used together. They're wired out of phase to cancel hum. That is, it becomes like a big, wide, humbucker. My Fender Strat is wired that way too. If I'm getting too much noise, I can switch to neck/middle and the noise stops.
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So I tried the LEHLE and does not help. But I have other uses for it so don't regret getting it. Tried to buy an EHX Hum Debugger but they are out of stock everywhere. Sweetwater doesn't expect to receive more until July. Anyone know where one is available?
Also, this hum is the type that gets louder and softer depending on the position of the guitar. Touching the strings has no effect. And even at its lowest level, the noise never goes away entirely. I'd like to record using this guitar so hoping to find a way to silence it completely, if that is even possible with a CC pickup.
Thanks,
Len
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