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Strat Hum Reduction


ansil

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so as with every new computer i get online with i end up drawing up something crazy.

this time is no exepction. i get so tired of the hum from single coils. no matter what brand i use there is always some bleed through hum. but i love strats so i shield them and do all the tricks and this gets it down really well but still in a noisy envirament it will be annoying but its only when i am playing low or not playing. tone wise in these situations it would be easier to be in the in between settings while i am not playing.

so being a logic programmer in college i built my truth table and went at an age old problem from a crazy persons view.

heres the pic. basically i am taking an old compessor circuit stripping it down. using the jfet switch idea from boss but cleaning it up a bit. and saying that when the guitar is being played in the neck or bridge posistion it is in single coil mode. when i am just standing there not playing it is in the inbetween settings. as soon as i hit the strings they cut out the middle pickup

yep-1.jpg

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All well and done, but buffering/amplifying the signal increases any noise present in the pickups in the first place. By adding a unity gain stage in the control cavity, any noise from pickups being inherently noisy will still be present in a nicely buffered form.

So what's all this other stuff? You may actually be mentally unhinged, so please elucidate as to the nub of your gist, etc.

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well first the amplification proccess is not for the output of the guitar. it steals signal from the output so the guitar is still passive. basically it has a gain of about 20 or so on the first stage which drives the second stage out of phase from the first so the two output combine through a bridge rectifier circuit to drive or light an led. the led usually works with an ldr to control the gain in the first opamp feedback loop stage. but we are using it to control voltage to an inverter which then is tied to a jfet as its control voltage. which shuts off the second coil from the output but not from the switch. so the pure unaffected signal is still there.

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So, in essence, you have made a built-in noise gate, right? I got around this problem in my SpankenStrat by getting some Fender "Hot Noiseless" pickups on the mid and neck (bridge is a coil-tapped DiMarzio FRED). They really are very quiet, no hum but still has a single coil sound.

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yes it is a noise gate but instead of cutting off the signal it just adds in the middle coil.

ed

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Yes...interesting....perhaps not the most elegant way of actually doing that.

I have been tossing up and mentioned a few times recently the idea of having an onboard noisegate for strats...this is an interesting variation. At least it makes for some reason to have the circuit in the guitar rather than adding noise reduction at the end of the signal chain.

I am a big fan of the JB noiseless pickups, but many people don't like them...for a lot of people only a single coil will do. There has yet to be a decent P-90 noiseless for instance.

However...unlike noiseless pickup designs, the noise gate approach still leaves any noise present in the signal while there is a signal and the gate is open. This idea helps with the transition between gates opening and closing and in that way is kind of clever...however, it does not remove the noise in the background masked by the signal and affecting things further down the line. With a noiseless HB design, you have not only an extremely quiet solution when there is no signal, there is no noise while you are playing either...and no batteries!

pete

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true on all respects however the idea for me was not one to rewire the guitar. this circuit can be installed in minutes and requires no rewiring of the circuit. its an add on. which is soemthing i haven't really seen. as far as completely removing the pickup and rewiring of course you could just detune a bit and make the 60hz hum just fall into the a region and then you are putting the hum in the same range of the guitar. instead of inbetween.

of course you can tune slightly up as well. which is why i tuned in between e and f in my younger days

ed

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