Hum cancelling single coils

[JacksonRR]

For me the question on stacked singles is always, "Yeah, but can they do Floyd?" Here's the Kinmans I had mentioned doing some Gilmore. They're good, but I think Tim could drop trousers and take a steaming one on em, if he wanted to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu1p_GNx1Q4&feature=related

[ratspeak]

I have noise gates. Sure, they're great for stopping the signal when I'm not playing, but they do nothing for the amount of noise while I'm playing. When you play something softer, but still in high-gain mode/channel, the s/n ratio changes and it's not something I feel will be made any better with a true single coil.

That makes sense. I suppose using my Decimator I've never had an issue with single-coil hum other than when I'm not playing, even with dynamically-picked hi-gain stuff.

[Afghan Dave]

Why don't you try this?

Suhr Backplate Silent Single Coil (BPSSC) System

http://www.suhrguitars.com/pickups.aspx#bpssc

[Transcend]

The hum really isn't that big  of a problem to be honest,

I have a mississippi Queen in the neck of my rga and i play with it under high gain for soloing and some rhythm work and once you're playing you can't even hear the hum. And before that the noisegate does the rest for before you are playing.

[darkbluemurder]

I also played real single coils in the country rock band I used to play in and was never bothered by hum too much until ... we played a gig in some weird community hall. Loud unbearable hum. First everybody was blaming my amp because they knew I had modified it - supposed it was a grounding issue. I knew it wasn't but they did not believe me until we set up the other guitar player's amp in the same spot that I had my amp set up and of course - it hummed just as badly. Then I remembered having a RWRP middle pickup so I selected the inbetween position - hum gone.

Thing is in some gig situations humming pickups are just not acceptable, and you will then looked upon as being the problem. Living at the bridge pickup by approx. 70% I had to switch to noiseless single coil sized pickups. I had good experiences with Bill Lawrence's newer designs (the L-200 in particular) and DiMarzio Area 58 for neck/middle and Area 61 for the bridge. It is a while ago that I had a set of Kinmans which I didn't like but the guitar they were in was not good as well.

As regards Boutique manufacturers making noiseless SC sized pickups only Häussel and Anderson come to mind.

Cheers Stephan

[MDV]

I think Tonys right - Hums not a big deal.

Some places have bad electrics, but my sinlges (BK trilogies) are played in my home studio pretty much exclusively and thats full to the $%&#ing brim with electrical gear, and the noise, even with lots of gain, us perfectly acceptable, eminently gatable and makes no impact on the actual tone.

For the sake of getting rid of that at the source will I consider jeapardising or compromising the pure single coil tone? Not in a million years. As I mentioned to tony the other night - when I want to play a single coil, I want to play a god damned single coil.

[JacksonRR]

Afghan Dave, that Suhr product looks nice, but wow. EXPENSIVE. $260. CHRIST!
DarkBlue, I've been considering Bill Lawrence or the REAL Bill Lawrence at Wilde Pickups. Do they have a high enough quality that it wouldn't be some major let down compared to BKP?

[JacksonRR]

MDV, with all due respect, if there is hum/noise present at any level in the guitar signal it affects the result. Especially so if it is added before any gain staging or compression(or both) as the s/n ratio gets worse. Trying to pluck it out with plugins in the box or heavy gating is something I'm trying to avoid. It's the old "an ounce of prevention VS a pound of cure" kinda thing. Other manufacturers can make them ditch the hum without screwing with the goods, so it's not like you'd be losing anything at all if the pup was done right.

I'm just gonna go get all the free CRT montors on Craigslist and mount them all over my music room. That should kill the hum.

[Afghan Dave]

Afghan Dave, that Suhr product looks nice, but wow. EXPENSIVE. $260. CHRIST!
DarkBlue, I've been considering Bill Lawrence or the REAL Bill Lawrence at Wilde Pickups. Do they have a high enough quality that it wouldn't be some major let down compared to BKP?

I'm surprised others haven't coppied the idea more widely and for less...

This is the closest I've seen and so much less!

"the Bukka switch"   :D

http://www.jhs.co.uk/New%20Products/thomasblugV6.html

I wonder if you can order a replacement plate from JHS and fit it to any strat?  :lol:

[darkbluemurder]

DarkBlue, I've been considering Bill Lawrence or the REAL Bill Lawrence at Wilde Pickups. Do they have a high enough quality that it wouldn't be some major let down compared to BKP?

I have never played BKP strat pickups so I cannot compare them directly. In one guitar I used Lollar Specials which I then replaced with Wilde BL L-280 for neck and middle and L-290 for the bridge. Later I changed to L-200s which are still in the guitar. In my Grosh Retro Classic I changed the Grosh Fat 60 to the L-280/280/290 set. The guitar that now has the DiMarzio Areas in it had Fralin Blues Specials before. For tone I still would prefer the Lollars and Groshs over the BLs but the BLs proved much more useable for me with still good enough tone. The Areas were even a tonal upgrade to the IMHO bland Fralins. But in the end your ears decide.

[B3]

Having spoken with Tim at length about hum cancelling single coils, I know he is very well versed in all the different types of construction, from the Kinman stacked ones, the Dimarzios based on the same principle, the various Duncan stacked and side by side versions, the Barden type, the early Gibson sideways type, designed by Walt Fuller and eventually used on some bass pickups, the Dan Armstrong adaptation of this design which was also used by Bill Lawrence in the 70's and Kent Armstrong later.
Tim is aware of all the details and could easily design his own version but so far he hasn't met his own high standards for tone in a humcancelling single coil design. I know he is extremely open minded about pickup design but the final goal is the tone.