Answers On Noise

I'll bet many of you are getting tired of these posts but I have started looking into noise issues and am mystified by what I have discovered. Last night I talked about the shielding in my new Grosh and it is very quiet. I also told you that my Asat Launch edition sounded very much like the Grosh.

Tonight I did some experiments with EMF. Generally we deal with 60 cycle hum, prevalent at most places we gig. Lights and neon signs are all over the places we play. I have also notice that Steve (our lead player) has hum a lot of the time no matter where we play.

I have florescent lights in my garage and most of my guitars will pick up noise from them. I also have a quartz lamp above my guitar table where I do most of my pictures. It is less than 24 " above the guitars. So what I am talking about here is 60 cycle hum.

Tonight I did a comparison between my G&Ls on this table with the quarts light. All of my guitars (G&L) have noise when under the light. The exception is the Legacy with the Kinman Blues and it is quiet. Last night, I thought I had the answer and I thought it was the Alnicos. The Bluesboy humbuckers are less noisy. I brought the Equatorial Bluesboy out tonight as it has the Alnico in the bridge. It had noise. Now I am really questioning what is going on. Again I tested the Launch Edition and this baby is quiet, not as quiet as the Grosh but it is quiet and it really sings. I began to wonder if they had done something different at the factory with this guitar. I decided to remove the pickguard to see what might be different. Here is a picture- no shielding, nothing different from any of my other G&Ls. Here is a picture with the pickguard off.


Any ideas or am I just lucky, I don't believe the pine body has any significance. Thanks for any ideas.-- Darwin

Kinman blues pickups are noiseless. About these pickups from Kinman website "The Strat pickup position can now compete in terms of output level and sound character. Zero-Hum."
How I solved this problem with my MFD single coils? Using volume control un guitar

If you like Kinman pickups, then you should check wildepickups com. These are 3 times cheaper and 3 times better than any boutique pickups..

Nice looking guitar without the pickguard! I like that pumpkin color.

Darwin, your post really confused me more I had to go rethink my position.

We need to define what 60 cycle hum is. If you change the direction of the guitar angle to the lights, amp, power source, or anything that gives off 60 cycles, does the hum get quieter or louder? If it does, then it is 60 cycle hum.
The other kind of noise, RF ( high frequency ), which I call buzz will happen at any angle.
Shielding will only works for RF (higher than 120 hz) not for 60 cycle hum. For 60 cycle hum you need noiseless pups or dummy coil.
The shielding can not stop those low frequency hz.


If it is non of these, like myself, it is the amp or the signal chain to the amp. Ground loops and anything else.

I'm still learning on this. Hopefully we can have a good discussion about it and iron out all the details.

Guitar noise is a funny animal. First of all, I know at my house that the rooms nearest my electric meter have the the most guitar hum from EMF's.

Humbuckers and Z coils are more immune to noise naturally, as are EMG's and other noiseless PU's. But single coils are noisy, period. But you cannot deny they have a unique sound that most double coils can't achieve, at least to my ears.

I did an experiment with an older G&L ASAT Special that had the black, metal powder coat pickguard. The MFD PU's had their hum cut in half with the pickguard on, and I could audibly hear the hum start returning when i moved the pickguard an inch or 2 away from the guitar. I tried to explain this phenomenon to people at G&L but it fell on deaf ears. It was a secret Leo too to his grave.

But it's not just having a metal pickguard. There was something in those power coated pickguards that somehow reduced noise better than any other metal pickguard.

My 2¢
Will

I think it's here:
http://billlawrence.com/Pages/ForTeleLovers.htm
The bit about aluminium, I mean, the actual metal behaving uniquely.
Leo used to fit .015" aluminium sheet under the pickguards of early Strats (I had an early P-bass that had it too). I think it filtered the high end down in a musical, subtle way too.

Thanks for adding to this post. To answer your question SkyF, I do like the Kinmans but am not changing any pickups.

Meow, we are definitely dealing with 60 cycle in this case. The noise will change as I move the guitar around under the light and as I ssaid,this light is less than 24" above the guitar. And WR mentioned that the closer he gets to his power meter, the noisier it gets, again 60 cycle. Neon lights and light dimmers are also a big noise creator, again 60 cycle. Back when I was a kid, we were on a common power feed to our whole rural neighborhood. When someone would use an AC welder , our AM radios would get all messed up. Last night when testing this, I could put a cake pan (aluminum) between the light and the guitar lying underneath and the noise was almost completely gone. EMI is a strange animal as WR mentioned and some manufactures do not address it as the player often has their own solution. What intrigues me the most about the whole thing last night is that the Grosh i well shielded against the 60 cycle. My G&L have no shielding and they have a significant amount of hum in this experiment. I don't began to have a solution but I am shocked that the Asat Launch Edition in almost as quiet as the Grosh. That is why I removed the plastic pickguard to see what is different only to discover there is no shielding, nothing different. That initially led me to believe that it was the Alnicos. That theory proved false when I checked the Bluesboys Alnicoo bridge pickup. WR, you mentioned the Z coils are quieter and that makes sense as are humbuckers. I just wonder what the magic bullet in the Launch Edition. It does sound phenomenal in my opinion. I know talked about this kind of stuff gets old but it sure is intriguing to me. Just when I think I have the answer, I prove myself wrong. I have solved pickguard static issues with aluminum tape on the back of the pickguard and it DOESN'T need to be grounded. In the early days of direct communications between computers we found that shielded cables sometimes worked best with the shielding ungrounded. Capacitance perhaps? Thanks to each of you for you addition to the topic. Maybe someone here could get rich by coming up with a bullet proof, inexpensive solution. After all, if it is an inexpensive solution, all manufacturers should be building into the product.-- Darwin

Hi Darwin,

The neck pickup on your Launch Edition should be shielded by the pickup cover if it is properly grounded, and the bridge pickup gets shielded to a certain extent by the metal bridge plate. I have only one T-style guitar with vintage style alnico pickups and it is very quiet without any shielding being added. What I can't understand is why the MFD equipped ASAT's are so darned noisy in comparison. Mine certainly are.

Yours and Will's experiment with an aluminium pickguard (or baking tray!) mirrors my own encounter with an Al pickguard. I was playing a cheapy Squier Duo Sonic at a local music shop late last year and the shop guy asked if I wanted to plug it in. So I did. Into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille. I didn't hear any noise from the amp so I turned it right up, hit a chord, and nearly blew my brains out. The guitar was dead silent when not being played. My first thought was, cool, noiseless pickups on such a cheap guitar. Then I realised it had a gold anodised aluminium pickguard. It was perfectly shielded by the aluminium. Leo knew what he was doing using aluminium on the early ASAT's and Fenders. It's a pity we've gone back to unshielded plastic IMO.

Yes Phil, the Alnico neck had the chrome cover and I believe it does shield. Also metal will reflect some frequencies and let others through and it relative to the frequency you are dealing with. Radar is a good example of that, anyway shielding can be complex depending on what you are dealing with, but I think the 60 cycle is quite easy to overcome. -- thanks for sharing your experiences Phil-- Darwin

Just visited the "singlecoil.com website" today for the first time. Some great reading with different ideas to try. This particular page made me laugh but i have yet to give it a whirl.
http://singlecoil.com/docs/silent.pdf
I tried his tip re fender amps and there was an improvement in sound. Other great tips there too regarding silencing a noisey guitar etc. Give it a try!!

I used to do this in studios all the time, especially with Fenders, and it really works well.
I used quite a long piece of cable, and just put the end against my skin inside my sock, with a long doubled-back section of bare wire to make good contact. It would happily stay there, without interfering with my hands, and turned me into a big moist grounded screen instead of a big noisy aerial. Major help.

But I would want to be confident of my amp and the grounding where I was; this is a less "quick-release" screen connection of the player than just touching the strings...