Stratocaster - Noise Reduction Options

jaymenon

This is something I've been giving some thought to over the last weeks...

So below are my ramblings, which I hope you’ll find interesting. And to those of you who already know this stuff - my apologies…

Traditional pickup technology goes back to the 1950s, and I find myself wondering if the exorbitant prices for boutique pickups are truly worth it. (Noiseless designs are a different matter - there is ongoing R&D).

Indeed with my eyes closed and using purely my ears, I really cannot tell the difference between similarly specified sets of decent 'basic' pickups and more expensive 'boutique' ones. 

I like how David Lockwood of Sound On Sound put it:  ‘A good single coil is, the most musically versatile of pickups. It can be sharp, or deep; it can be sweet or nasty; it can respond to your loudest or softest touch. To achieve noise-free operation without destroying these subtle nuances of musicality has always been the ultimate challenge to the pickup designer.’

Common opinion is that no one makes 100% authentic noiseless pickups.  It’s interesting that Duncan, DiMarzio and Fender offer both noiseless and traditional designs. Kinman AFAIK restrict themselves to noiseless pickups - putting their money where their mouth is...?

I have personally never liked the sound of an overdriven Stratocaster (at least in my hands).  I tend to play Strats clean - and so 50Hz hum isn’t really that intrusive. 

But when you hold a sustained chord, as the chord starts to fade, the noise / hum remains at the same volume and starts to become more and more intrusive.

‘If it was good enough for Jimi Hendrix...’

...yes but his guitar was often embarrassingly out of tune. And if he were alive today, would he be playing noiseless pickups and using a Floyd Rose? It’s anyone’s guess...

Shielding

It’s interesting to see many people advocating comprehensive copper / graphite shielding to reduce hum, when it has no effect (AFAIK) on 50Hz hum.  It does however, reduce inductive buzz (the buzzing sound that you get when you take your hands off the metal parts/strings of the guitar).  If done well, shielding can almost completely eliminate that. Plenty of online resources available re: 50/60Hz hum and inductive buzz...

Noise Gates

For real time / live playing - or staccato playing I’ve actually been surprised (and rather impressed) by various noise gates. If you however, end a song with a jangly sustained chord, the problem remains - as the chord slowly dies, the hum becomes more and more obvious...

...and if you set up your amp for higher gain, gate or no gate, the hum is quite audible, even when playing.

Noiseless pickups

The hum-cancellation of modern designs is fabulous - indeed they are even quieter than Alnico Humbuckers.   (check it out on a Les Paul with some gain - each pickup on its own will hum, put the selector switch in the middle position and the guitar becomes noiseless. Interestingly, ceramic humbuckers are much quieter) 

The Kinman Impersonators in particular sound lovely on each individual pickup. But in the ‘ in between“ positions - they don’t have that magic ‘Knopfler’ sound that you get from real single coils.

Kinman offer pole spacing of 52.5mm, 51mm & 49.5mm on bridge, middle and neck pickups respectively - apparently to optimise alignment of strings & pole pieces. But what it means in practice is that if you wish to change the colour of your pickup covers you have to buy a set from Kinman - and that’s really quite expensive - and irritates me.

Hum-Cancelling Systems (Suhr, Musicman, Ilitch Coil)

While they definitely reduce hum, they quite simply do not eliminate it as effectively as noise cancelling pickups do. There’s a lot of talk about ‘keeping your choice favourite pickups’ and reducing the hum - yes, but is that is a marketing gimmick? 

If they did indeed eliminate 100% of the hum, would your pickups still “sound like themselves“?  

...and the Ilitch coil costs $250 (plus shipping and VAT / customs duty). As much as a set of boutique pickups.

On reflection therefore - The ideal solution might possibly be:

1. A traditional strat with RP/RW middle pickup for position 2 & 4 sounds
2. A Strat with Kinmans / DiMarzio Areas / your choice noiseless for the 1, 3 and 5 sounds.
3. ...and don't touch the pickup selector switch mid-song...!

I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts - please go ahead and wax eloquent...!

ICBM

I'm not a huge fan of the in-between positions so I prefer noise-cancelling pickups.

The DiMarzio Area 61 is the best noise-cancelling Strat pickup I've heard. I haven't tried any of the other Areas. I have one of those in the middle position, and a couple of hotter side-by-side DiMarzios in the end positions.

I no longer have any interest in whether they sound exactly like traditional single coils or not - they sound good, and they do not hum. The end.

I haven't noticed any huge amount of buzz either - the cabling is shielded, and I think the coils are inside as well. The guitar they're in only has the traditional foil on the pickguard around the controls, but I've also replaced the wires to the jack with shielded cable. For traditional Strat wiring, I do think copper shielding in the cavities makes a large and worthwhile difference.

Corvus

Mojotone Quiet Coils here, I liked the first set enough to buy a second one of a different flavour but have yet to build something to put them in. They sound very Stratty, all the chime is there, the bridge is overwound and doesn't need a tone pot to kill ice pick, and doesn't overpower the others in the set either. Not cheap though with the exchange rate plus import duty etc.

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

The DiMarzio Area 61 is the best noise-cancelling Strat pickup I've heard. I haven't tried any of the other Areas. I have one of those in the middle position, and a couple of hotter side-by-side DiMarzios in the end positions.

The DiMarzio Injector pickups seem less prone to interference than most true single coils.

Fishman Fluence single width pickups are worth checking out - especially in Voice 2 mode.

cbellanga

I had those dimarzios before and wasn't that impressed. Have the fishman fluence now (with a superswitch and battery pack) and they are great! 

Voxman

There is another option, which isn't a noise-gate or a suppressor, doesn't impact on tone and doesn't still give hum as the volume drops:



£110 from Andertons: https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept/guitar-pedals/noise-gate-pedals/electro-harmonix-hum-debugger-pedal

Whitecat

I like these - https://www.tcelectronic.com/Categories/Tcelectronic/Guitar/Stompboxes/SENTRY-NOISE-GATE/p/P0DDL

Seziertisch

I’ve had a set of Kinmans in a Telecaster for a long time (at least 15 years, probably longer).

Do they sound like single coils? Yes, I think they do, more or less. I’ve listened back to recordings done with that guitar and if I didn’t know they were what they are I wouldn’t be able to pick them out as not being proper single coils.

Do they feel like single coils? Not really, there is a bounce/responsiveness that real single coils have that these just don’t, they are ultimately humbuckers and that is what they feel like. If you are used to regular SCs this might be a step too far.

Ultimately I think it comes back to what @ICBM says about about the relevant questions being whether they sound good and whether or not they hum. I think the Kinmans sound “good”, they are their own thing in a way, which might be too much of a departure for some.

And yeah, just because they are hum cancelling doesn’t mean that they prevent buzz picked up
by unshielded wiring used for the rest guitar. Cloth wiring is vintage correct but definitely won’t make your guitar any quieter

impmann

My “quiet” Strat has EMGs. The only time I find noise to be a problem is when using *a lot* of gain. Otherwise, it’s not a problem and I use regular singles.

The EMGs sound remarkably good. If you struggle to hear differences between cheap Strat pickups and boutique ones, you won’t really hear and difference with the EMGs. It sounds like a Strat!

Because EMGs are as fashionable as Gary Glitter records, you can get a set quite cheap if you hold fire. 

ICBM

Voxman said:

There is another option, which isn't a noise-gate or a suppressor, doesn't impact on tone and doesn't still give hum as the volume drops:

£110 from Andertons: https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept/guitar-pedals/noise-gate-pedals/electro-harmonix-hum-debugger-pedal

The disadvantage with that is that it requires running your signal through something made by Electro-Harmonix, so it will introduce potential reliability problems...

Moleman

Apologies to be so frank but I wonder if you’re at risk of overthinking this issue? To me the hum is part and parcel of the Strat sound (although I will say that I tend to gravitate to LP’s and the like with humbuckers). I also feel the same way about playing P90’s with traditional single coils. I have tried and owned both Dimarzio HS2 and HS3 plus the Seymour Duncan Classic Stack designs and whilst sounding good in humbucking mode, they only really came alive when wired as true single coils for me. Having said the above, I’ve always been interested in trying one of the hum-cancelling systems you mention, such as the Suhr. 

guitarmangler

I like the isp decimator, as a gate, when a venue/stage gets too noisy. I really liked emg’s for a while,  but after getting a set a wizard strat pickups, about 17 years ago, I just learnt to live with the noise. Even now, when playing in a very loud pub rock covers band, with lots of gain, it doesn’t bother me. I’ve just got very used to turning my volume down very quickly before any gaps that are coming up. 

soma1975

Moleman said:

Apologies to be so frank but I wonder if you’re at risk of overthinking this issue? To me the hum is part and parcel of the Strat sound (although I will say that I tend to gravitate to LP’s and the like with humbuckers). I also feel the same way about playing P90’s with traditional single coils. I have tried and owned both Dimarzio HS2 and HS3 plus the Seymour Duncan Classic Stack designs and whilst sounding good in humbucking mode, they only really came alive when wired as true single coils for me. Having said the above, I’ve always been interested in trying one of the hum-cancelling systems you mention, such as the Suhr. 

I'm with this. It's part of the sound. Noise reduction by way of humbucking or pedals is subtractive and a trade off.

That said with my latest pickups I've gone to a vintage style shielding plate instead of just having shielded cavities and the noise is a fraction of what it used to be. 

Voxman

ICBM said:

Voxman said:

There is another option, which isn't a noise-gate or a suppressor, doesn't impact on tone and doesn't still give hum as the volume drops:

£110 from Andertons: https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept/guitar-pedals/noise-gate-pedals/electro-harmonix-hum-debugger-pedal

The disadvantage with that is that it requires running your signal through something made by Electro-Harmonix, so it will introduce potential reliability problems...

Actually I've never had any problem with EH gear. The Humdebugger is an excellent pedal and a very good solution to the OPs problem.

ToneControl

ICBM said:

I'm not a huge fan of the in-between positions so I prefer noise-cancelling pickups.

The DiMarzio Area 61 is the best noise-cancelling Strat pickup I've heard. I haven't tried any of the other Areas. I have one of those in the middle position, and a couple of hotter side-by-side DiMarzios in the end positions.

I no longer have any interest in whether they sound exactly like traditional single coils or not - they sound good, and they do not hum. The end.

I haven't noticed any huge amount of buzz either - the cabling is shielded, and I think the coils are inside as well. The guitar they're in only has the traditional foil on the pickguard around the controls, but I've also replaced the wires to the jack with shielded cable. For traditional Strat wiring, I do think copper shielding in the cavities makes a large and worthwhile difference.

100% agree

Even 1960s strat pickups don't sound like 1960s strat pickups anymore
Nothing is the one and only true correct sound
Does it have the SC characteristics you want? Does it sounds good? That's what matters

musteatbrain

I’ve been round the houses with this issue.
now I just use a volume pedal.

ToneControl

Voxman said:

There is another option, which isn't a noise-gate or a suppressor, doesn't impact on tone and doesn't still give hum as the volume drops:



£110 from Andertons: https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept/guitar-pedals/noise-gate-pedals/electro-harmonix-hum-debugger-pedal

A few reviews on TGP say they sound awful

Redlester

Strat noise reduction option no.1: play a Lester. 

hassleham

I personally prefer HSS pickup config with reverse wound middle so that I have humbucking in positions 1 and 4. An added coil tap gives me a single coil sound in the bridge as well. This setup covers most areas that I need, chunky overdriven chords, clean stratty funk or facemelting waily solos! 

I used to use a noise gate but it definitely had a negative impact on my tone and I haven't used one for years now. 

I agree that part of the strat sound is the hum so I don't have a problem with it. In certain situations you've mentioned, I'll try and be in a humbucking pickup position to avoid the extra noise.

meltedbuzzbox

Whats the actual problem with the hum? Its not there when you are playing 

ICBM

meltedbuzzbox said:

Whats the actual problem with the hum? Its not there when you are playing 

You clearly haven’t played anywhere with bad hum .