Shielding

[Skinnyman]

My Les Paul Trad has always had a low-level electrical hum - the sort that stops when you touch the strings. 

I’ve had some time on my hands recently and started playing it a lot more and now the hum has started to really wind me up. 

So I’ve just spent a happy morning shielding the control cavity with copper tape and - like magic - the hum has now gone!

Happy day! 

Im now wondering if this might work on the irritating noise coming from Mrs S*......
 

 

 

*Just kidding, obvs. The next 12 weeks will fly past in the wink of an eye

[ezbass]

I think we’re all about to become a bit Zen about small tasks, learning to take joy in little everyday things. For my part, I always enjoy tinkering with guitars, but I’m up to date with all of that at the moment, so I’ll have to find other things that need doing, although I draw the line at painting skirting boards - hateful task.

[Kiwi]

18 hours ago, Skinnyman said:

So I’ve just spent a happy morning shielding the control cavity with copper tape and - like magic - the hum has now gone!

I'm just wondering if some unconnected earth contacts might have been accidentally reconnected during the installation process? 

[Skinnyman]

4 hours ago, Kiwi said:

I'm just wondering if some unconnected earth contacts might have been accidentally reconnected during the installation process? 

I checked all of the contacts before I did anything and they were all in place. It’s very much like my Rick basses which also needed shielding. 

[Kiwi]

OK s'hard to tell without knowing what it sounds like but I'm glad you worked something out.

[Skinnyman]

Following on from my success at getting rid of the hum from the Les Paul, I’ve been giving similar treatment to a couple of other guitars with equal success - and then I can to the Telecaster. 

It’s a bog standard MIM telecaster which has always hummed a bit even at low gain/volume settings. The hum doesn’t alter at all when I touch the bridge or strings and it hasn’t gone away when I’ve shielded the pickup cavities and the cavity that the controls sit in. 

It’s not the amp or the lead as I’ve tried different guitars, leads and amps in all combinations to conclusively prove that it’s the guitar. 

So now I’m out of ideas. Could this just be a question of “they all do that, sir”? Is this an inherent feature of a telecaster?

Or am I missing something obvious?

[Dad3353]

The hum doesn't come from the instrument, really, it's coming from the environment, but is picked up by the guitar pick-ups, then amplified. The Gibson (and maybe the other, successful...) guitars have 'humbucking' pick-ups; that term tells us something. Their pick-ups have been so designed and made to pick up hum twice (with double coils...), then cleverly have one of these signals cancel out the other. The hum you cured was picked up, not by the pick-up, but from the cabling and switch stuff which, once shielded, picked up the hum no more.
The Tele, on the other hand, has single -coil pick-ups, designed and made precisely to pick up electrical signals from the magnetic field around the strings, but also any other stray hum, without distinction, nor this clever method of cancelling. That's why shielding, so efficient on the other guitars, won't help the Tele, unless you shield the pick-ups, in which case they won't pick up the strings..!
Two solutions, really. The first is to swap out the Tele pick-ups for single-coil-shaped humbuckers. You'll lose the hum, but will no longer have that delicious 'Tele' twang, and they're not cheap.
The other is to track down the source of the hum (electrical fittings such as halogen or neon lighting, or light dimmer switches, some transformers... The list is long...). This can sometimes be aided by stalking around with the guitar, offering it up to all points in the room, trying to find where the hum is loudest. Not always easy, nor successful. We have a six-string bass with 'J'-type pick-ups (and so single-coil...) which picks up hum when too close to the bass amp (a valve Hiwatt, so huge transformers...). Turning the amp off cures the hum, but leaves the bass with much lower volume..! D'oh..! 
Hope this helps. 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Dad3353

[Skinnyman]

Thanks, Dad, that makes a lot of sense. Having eliminated all the other sources (poor shielding, dud cables, bad amp grounding,etc), then I guess it has to be environmental and a “feature” of single coils. 

I managed to eliminate it on my Strat by fitting Kingsman hum cancelling pickups (which are excellent) but, as you say, doing the same with the Tele is going to lose the twang. 

I’ll just have to live with it I guess

[ezbass]

DiMarzio do some very good hum cancelling Tele pickups, that still sound like a Tele, the Area T for instance.

[Kiwi]

3 hours ago, ezbass said:

DiMarzio do some very good hum cancelling Tele pickups, that still sound like a Tele, the Area T for instance.

I was thinking Lace Sensors after I saw your suggestion. 

[Skinnyman]

23 hours ago, ezbass said:

 

DiMarzio do some very good hum cancelling Tele pickups, that still sound like a Tele, the Area T for instance.

 

 

20 hours ago, Kiwi said:

I was thinking Lace Sensors after I saw your suggestion. 

I’m liking this idea - I get to fix the hum, let off some GAS at the same time and get a bit of a project as well! Win-win, I say!

[Skinnyman]

After a little bit of googling I think I’m going to go for a set of the Area T’s. 

Will update with progress once they turn up

[ezbass]

10 hours ago, Skinnyman said:

After a little bit of googling I think I’m going to go for a set of the Area T’s. 

Will update with progress once they turn up

I don’t think you’ll be sorry. I have an Area T hot on mine because I wanted something a bit more more P90ish, but it is still fundamentally a Tele sound. I love the guys at DiMarzio, always helpful and their products are great. 

[Skinnyman]

Fitted a pair of Area T pickups to the Tele and can’t believe the difference!

Completely hum-free and a gorgeous tone - I really like the tone of the bridge pickup. 
 

Thanks for the suggestion!

[ezbass]

You are welcome, I’m glad it has proved to a positive experience (although it’s hard to go wrong with DiMarzio IMO).

[Skinnyman]

That’s the Les Paul, Strat and Tele now sorted.  The only thing that’s still noisy is a K-Line San Bernardino which has P90s in it. I might see if DiMarzio have a similar fix for that

[ezbass]

1 hour ago, Skinnyman said:

That’s the Les Paul, Strat and Tele now sorted.  The only thing that’s still noisy is a K-Line San Bernardino which has P90s in it. I might see if DiMarzio have a similar fix for that

I’m pretty sure they do but, having not tried them, I don’t know if they’d lose their P90-ness. You’d think not, given their success with other single coils. If you do it and it’s all positive, I might swap out the dog-ears in my Casino Coupé.

[ezbass]

On 03/05/2020 at 13:11, Skinnyman said:

That’s the Les Paul, Strat and Tele now sorted.  The only thing that’s still noisy is a K-Line San Bernardino which has P90s in it. I might see if DiMarzio have a similar fix for that

Surfing the guitar based web, as you do, and came across these https://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/soap-bar/fantom-p90-dog-ear I see expenditure in my future