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Post subject: upgrade to noiseless vs sheilding
Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:43 am
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In this forum I read that most of the hum in single coil pickkups can be eliminated with sheilding the interior with copper paint/foil.

As I looked into this, it seems that considerable time is involved and some significant cost if you go with the preferred copper instead of aluminum foil.

Last weekend I was preparing to go that route, when I played on a new Strat in the store that had the Vintage Noiseless Fender pickups on it. It was of course a higher priced model, the Clapton with the blocked tremelo and all.

The output of the pickups was significantly higher than the Squire models I compared it to, which I am guessiing more closely match my MIJ 80's model.

The cost of the whole setup for noiseless, wired and soldered to new posts is $130US, which I can afford. Would this be a better overall upgrade, which most of the sites admit that sheilding for it would not be necessary.

Dan


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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:54 am
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You would probably be happy with shielding. Shielding helps alot, but for most people it just isn't enough.


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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:06 pm
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I have had great luck with Shielding.
I shielded my strat for Texas Specials and have been very happy.
The noisless pick ups are in my opinion a little tone less as well.

Personaly i think the way to go is Shielding and real single coils.

i have not tried the SCN pickups in the American Deluxe they may be different.

good luck with you decision.


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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:17 pm
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Another vote for shielding.

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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:31 pm
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Shielding isn't really that hard or time consuming, in my opinion, and it does work.

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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:32 pm
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Are you guys taking into consideration that my current pups are not USA? "Experts" on these 84-87 MIJ Strats are that the pups are lower quality ceramic magnet models.

Not that I don't like their sound for many things, but the sound is a bit thin sometimes. Actually, the tones from the 5 positions are more distinct from one another than the Vintage Noiseless as I remember.

Ok. Should I go the full route from GuitarNuts.com? Changing the grounding and capacitor etc?

Or would just lining everything with foil and making sure it is all grounded good enough?

What about changing the pots?

Dan


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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:35 pm
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Do you like the sound of the pups ? If not, change them.

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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:44 pm
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+1 on changing pups
shielding will cost very little, with the dough that you have left over go get some real pup's...


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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 4:27 pm
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Imho, if hum bothers you, get pickups that don' t hum. That doesn't mean you have to get noiseless, although that's the complete way. Fenders SSS noiseless pickups are cheap and good. Both SCN and vintage noiseless sound good. I mean, great players are using them. I found them awesomely quiet, but then a little too quiet and so I passed. Maybe someday I'll do it, or get another one with them.

There's a different way to cancel hum, especially if you need to upgrade your pickups anyway. I don't mind the very slight hum from my Highway One Strat in neck and bridge, because it's reduced a lot whenever I choose if I switch to neck/mid and bridge/mid where the hum is cancelled by the reverse polarity middle pickup. Seymore Duncan and others sell pickup sets with reverse polarity in the middle pickup.


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Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 3:27 pm
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strat58cat wrote:
Imho, if hum bothers you, get pickups that don' t hum. That doesn't mean you have to get noiseless, although that's the complete way. Fenders SSS noiseless pickups are cheap and good. Both SCN and vintage noiseless sound good. I mean, great players are using them. I found them awesomely quiet, but then a little too quiet and so I passed. Maybe someday I'll do it, or get another one with them.

There's a different way to cancel hum, especially if you need to upgrade your pickups anyway. I don't mind the very slight hum from my Highway One Strat in neck and bridge, because it's reduced a lot whenever I choose if I switch to neck/mid and bridge/mid where the hum is cancelled by the reverse polarity middle pickup. Seymore Duncan and others sell pickup sets with reverse polarity in the middle pickup.


The noise seems to have gotten worse, or at least I am noticing it more in recording. I know how to reduce it on the switch, but I simply need all the choices for recording, so I started the sheilding project last night.

With all the strings off, I also noticed some fret wear, so I took it to a local shop for an estimate. They want to charge for a full settup, which I want to do myself - at $195.00! The system 1 (floyd rose style) bridge bumped up the cost considerably.

So, I think I will just try and reduce the hum for now, and perhaps watch for a good deal on a new Strat.

Dan


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Post subject: Sheildin vs noiseless pickups
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:10 pm
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Just an update. I took a couple of evenings and sheilded the interior of my Strat basically acording to instructions from a link a helpful guy posted in this forum - http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php

Great success! I did have to take the pickguard off to insulate the connections on the pickup switch as they are touching the sheild. I used some thin copper I found at Hobby Lobby, which is stiffer than HD aluminum foil, so the fit was a bit tighter inside.

The main thing is that the noise was greatly reduced. On an amp at another guys house it was extremely quiet at all pickup settings. My house or amp might not be as hum free as his.

To be precise, I recorded the guitar before and after and the buzz differerence there was significant. Thanks guys for the encouragement.

Dan


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Post subject: Sheilding vs noiseless pickups
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:11 pm
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Just an update. I took a couple of evenings and sheilded the interior of my Strat basically acording to instructions from a link a helpful guy posted in this forum - http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php

Great success! I did have to take the pickguard off to insulate the connections on the pickup switch as they are touching the sheild. I used some thin copper I found at Hobby Lobby, which is stiffer than HD aluminum foil, so the fit was a bit tighter inside.

The main thing is that the noise was greatly reduced. On an amp at another guys house it was extremely quiet at all pickup settings. My house or amp might not be as hum free as his.

To be precise, I recorded the guitar before and after and the buzz differerence there was significant. Thanks guys for the encouragement.

Dan


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