roahboah

Hand wound pickups can cancel hum very well. It is only necessary to use a counter to get the number of turns the same on the two coils. Fralin sells a model called the Unbucker with more wound on the screw coil. Is this what you have? If so, you cannot expect it to cancel hum as well. (Although it is possbile to design pole pieces with different sensitivities in order to compensate for the turns, but I do not think the Unbucker does.) It would be posible to wind and connect a pair of Unbuckers for good cancelation with both on, but this is the first I have have heard that it might actually work that way.

Based on the symptoms, it sounds like your pickups.

In order for a pickup to be as close to humbucking as possible, both coils need to be wound as identical but with opposite polarity as possible. Unfortunately this isn't really possible with hand-wound coils. I don't know about Fralin, but some makers are claiming that mismatched coils provide a superior sound.

Whatever, the end result is a humbucking pickup that isn't really full humbucking and it will pick up more noise, especially as you get closer to the amp - the power transformer puts out lots of hum stuff.

The reason it sounds less hummy in the middle position is that you have two mismatches that balance each other out better and get closer to true humbucking.

Very interesting information - thanks! I was not aware of problems such as these in hand-wound pickups. I guess that explains why copper etc. didn't really help with the noise. Do you have any idea how off the winds would have to be to begin picking up noise in this fashion? I might touch base with Fralin to see if this is a common occurrence.

thanks,

roah

No, these aren't Unbuckers. They're PAFs, basically.

thanks,

roah

well it seems like you've soldered them wrong. I mean, if they are noisy in what is supposed to be an humbucking position, that's not right.

What are your PUs like? 2,3 or 4 conductors?

They are 4-conductor.

Very interesting information - thanks! I was not aware of problems such as these in hand-wound pickups. I guess that explains why copper etc. didn't really help with the noise. Do you have any idea how off the winds would have to be to begin picking up noise in this fashion? I might touch base with Fralin to see if this is a common occurrence.

thanks,

roah

No. In the interest of being totally political correct concerning pickup hype, I would encourage you to contact Fralin.

Thanks for the info.

Based on the symptoms, it sounds like your pickups.

In order for a pickup to be as close to humbucking as possible, both coils need to be wound as identical but with opposite polarity as possible. Unfortunately this isn't really possible with hand-wound coils. I don't know about Fralin, but some makers are claiming that mismatched coils provide a superior sound.

Whatever, the end result is a humbucking pickup that isn't really full humbucking and it will pick up more noise, especially as you get closer to the amp - the power transformer puts out lots of hum stuff.

The reason it sounds less hummy in the middle position is that you have two mismatches that balance each other out better and get closer to true humbucking.

Very interesting information - thanks! I was not aware of problems such as these in hand-wound pickups. I guess that explains why copper etc. didn't really help with the noise. Do you have any idea how off the winds would have to be to begin picking up noise in this fashion? I might touch base with Fralin to see if this is a common occurrence.

thanks,

roah

Hi,

I'm a new member to the forums and have been a reader for awhile - great, great information here!

I've posted this question in a couple of other places, but I haven't found anyone yet with the same symptoms.

I have a 70s LP Custom that I recently put some Fralin HBs into, and I'm loving the pickups.

However, since the new PUs have been put in, I've noticed noise where there was none before.

The noise is more noticeable at high gain, and is also somewhat dependent on proximity to my amplifier. It's not dependent on whether I'm holding the strings or not.

The most significant thing in my beginner's brain that might point to the issue, though, is the fact that the noise completely vanishes when I put the LP in the in-between position on the PUs. It's not wired out-of-phase or anything like that - just a vanilla LP configuration. It's quite amazing - the noise is completely gone in that position. I feel like if it was a specific shielding thing, then noise might remain in any PU position - but I could certainly be wrong. These were coverless PUs, so I did the diligence and wrapped the PUs with copper tape and grounded said tape to the PU frame just to make sure that wasn't the issue, but there was no change.

Has anyone experienced an issue similar to this one? I'm kinda baffled!

Thanks in advance, and please let me know if you want more information.

roah