Hummy Humm Hummmmmmmmm Buzz!

[blakeish]

Well playing my guitar on a Fender Princeton 65 or whatever it is sounds okay, the hum is almost manageable. Now when I hook it up to my brother's Peavy Ultra something or other, 100Watt head with very high gain modes, the hum is louder than most anything else.

So I'm ripping out the wiring and doing it all again, reSHIELDING the cavity and taping up any bare wire I see, anywhere.

Also, this will give me the opportunity to correct the upside down and backwards controls..........knobs turning op directions and flipped from the bridge/ neck positions i wanted originally.

so it was alllll great until i plugged into a nicer amp. then i just got angry and p*ssy.

So i bought a EMG Select from stewmac for the bridge.........depending on how the holidays go, i'll buy one for the neck, or a bit pricey-er one and then just replace both, yes.

I figure my current mighty mites are bottom of the barrel.....i doubt any part of them is shielded at all, anywhere. So if reshielding the cavity (yes gregP, i know, i shouldnt have ripped it out in the first place, hehe) and throwing in a pickup "shielded and epoxy sealed for microphonic free performance" would probably get rid of a hum that overpowers most of the volume of the entire guitar on a gain channel. hell on that amp even the clean channel had a good amount of hum. no buzz, just big thick monotonous hum.

sound like a plan fellas?

a reshield, pickup replacement, and rewire. that's my plan.

(also, think I could somehow shield that other mighty mite myself somehow? disassembly and tweaks?)

[GregP]

Hum at high gain is the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. If you want less hum, you're better off going with an active (EMG, but not HZ) solution.

The Mighty Mites are probably already potted, but not shielded. Nobody makes shielded humbuckers that I'm aware of. To shield, you simply put a metal cover on and make sure the cover is soldered to the baseplate, assuming the ground is also soldered to the baseplate from the factory (normally this is the case).

Other than that, you could wrap some copper foil around the coils and make sure it connects to the ground. That's what I did with my bridge pickup.

Sometimes hum is inescapable. My apartment is LITTERED with EMI (electromagnetic interference) and no shielding job in the world will help me out.

If shielding were foolproof, nobody would own noise gates, etc.

Greg

[lovekraft]

If those Mighty Mites are humbuckers, I'd start with the re-wire. Even without any shielding, most humbuckers are fairly quiet if wired correctly (unless you live over an old Indian burial ground, like Greg does ). Don't forget to check the cord while you're checking the wiring - a lousy shielded cable will undo all the work you did shielding the guitar.

[GregP]

Yes, my apartment is truly teh suX0rZ. Depending on where I'm standing, the single-coil can produce less hum than the humbucker! (due to some sort of alignment with the phase of the EMI or whatnot... beats me how to describe what's actually happening)

Crazy high gain, though... that will amplify the hum of ANY humbucker. If it's humming like made in clean and mildly driven settings, that's when I'd really worry.

[marksound]

Yes, my apartment is truly teh suX0rZ.  Depending on where I'm standing, the single-coil can produce less hum than the humbucker!  (due to some sort of alignment with the phase of the EMI or whatnot... beats me how to describe what's actually happening)

Crazy high gain, though... that will amplify the hum of ANY humbucker.  If it's humming like made in clean and mildly driven settings, that's when I'd really worry.

←

You are wearing your special Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie while indoors, aren't you?

[Mickguard]

You are wearing your special Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie while indoors, aren't you?

←

Maybe he's got the shiny side on the inside?

[Mattia]

You are wearing your special Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie while indoors, aren't you?

←

Maybe he's got the shiny side on the inside?

←

You gotta be careful about that. Those things are government tools that let them beam signal directly to your brain. Honest. Science says so.

[marksound]

[GregP]

Holy hell, I can't believe I never noticed before. It's one of those things that was hiding in plain sight. No photo (camera is teh suXorZ) but picture if you will:

A green Hydro 'junction box' or whatever it's called... actually, it might even be a phone hookup... I don't know these things. In any case, one of those boxes that technicians of some sort dig around in. It's 4 feet away from where I play guitar. It's on the outside, I'm on the inside, but it's that close, nonetheless.

I think I can FAIRLY safely say where most of the EMI is coming from. <grumbles>

Greg

[blakeish]

thanks for the replyyyyyyyyy.

yeah, i do understand that high gain really brings out the best of the best in terms of hum and buzz from a pickup.

although, in defense of my situation, my brother has two factory installed (old and cruddy looking too, the pole pieces on the top of the pickup actually have rust around the edges) seymor duncans on his ESP Ltd. explorer pre lawsuit, its not horribly old, but im guessing its had its fair share of beatings, paint chips and the vintage white paint job is a bit more yellow than it should be.......but ANYWAYS when he plays through his amp, theres virtually no hum, as compared to when i plug in, and clean or crunch, the hum, even when both p/ups volumes are completely cut, is louder than any hum ive heard from anything, guitar wise, ever. no buzz, like from a ungrounded part or whatnot, but just this hum that's almnost louder than anything my guitar produces at full volume, like i have to try to play through a wall of humming. just an annoyance really. like lovekraft stated, ive played some beater pawnshop p.o.s's and some have been quiet as a mouse for probably being entiely koren or mexican made, with no name whatsoever on the pickups........and the instrument cable is a fairly new one from guitar center or sam ash, i cant recall

but yeah, in general, my brothers electric produces almost none of the hum that mine does, even loud as hell with the modern grainy crunch allllll theway up. i plug mine in, and i have to cut the volume even with pickups off to keep the hum from hurting my ears. the hum isodd, its almost feedbackish, but its not feedback im pretty sure.

so yeah, maybe a rewire and reshield is definitely in order.

but ithink ima throw in the EMG regardless, i cant see why it would hurt, its not like it's a downsize from the mighty mite, im sure.

[blakeish]

Hold the press. Disregard that last post. It seems that the interference was mainly because a) didn't have the backplates shielded, which meant the plastic was just lettin all kinds of stuff in there to rape any bare wires showing......also, I dont think i did a good job of taping up that large chunk of penny/solder where the grounds were.....

So after taking a wood rasp to my bridge pickup cavity, I got the EMG to fit in'ner......little boogers are a bit larger than my mighty mites.....

And being in the basement of my house when i plugged into my brothers amp.....got me thinking......we have alot of surround sound wiring and cable/ phone wiring around, and not two feet from where amp was sitting, the fusebox for the entire house.....so i plugged in upstairs after shielding and wiring in the new pickup and such.....

virtually no hum, I almost cried when it was nice and quiet.....

sweet mother of god, I was so happy....

so yeah, there's that.

this is off topic, but i hope this happened to someone else somewhere along the line or does in the future. this tv station that my mother's friend works for was throwing a guitar away in the trash, a fender strat apparently, and so the lady was like "it doesnt work? well i'll give it to my friends son, maybe he can play with it."

so a freee guitar.....can you say 'oh hell yes'?

'night all.