I've noticed that not too many guitarists use noiseless pickups and swear by pickups like the CS 69's or Fat 50's that do hum. I have noiseless pickups that I been unhappy with , and I've been looking to switch pickups and I found some that I really like with great reviews and an even better price (BG Picksups Vintage 60's) but aren't noiseless. So, is 60 cycle hum worth it for a better tone? Is it really that bad? Any help would be appreciated.

Suggest you give an Electro Hamonix Hum De-Bugger a go.

It's a stomp box which this picker loves, even able to quiet those big single coil Mosrite pups.

I said this a while back: This whole 60 cycle hum thing is nothing but a huge paranoia started by pickup manufacturers to stimulate sales of their stacked humbuckers.

60 cycle hum has been around since Rickenbacker invented the first electric guitar. Players got through it then, all the way up through now and will get through it well into the foreseeable future.

There is nothing wrong with non-humbucking pickups. Think of the countless artists who to this day still use them by choice.

I still use them and believe me, the hum is quite manageable unless of course, you are going to use 10 power boosting stomp boxes with your amps on 12 near every florescent light you can find with your amp plugged into poor house/hall wiring. Yet even at this, I wouldn't worry all that much because once the rest of the band kicks in, you'll never hear it. And if the hum gets to you or whomever between songs, turn your guitar's volume off.

Honestly, I wouldn't give it a second thought.

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Haha thanks for the help. You've convinced me to go for it and buy the pickups despite the hum. Now that you mention it, I can't think of any Strat player other than Clapton who uses noiseless pickups!

I think once I get the pickups and if the hum is bad enough, I'll definitely check this out. Thanks.

You're quite welcome.

Well, there is Jeff Beck. But regardless, their careers were not built on using exclusively humbuckers.

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I have Vintage Noiseless pickups that I'm going to sell because I'm unhappy with them. I have Texas Specials in my other Strat and I love those more than any other pickup ever. The hum is worth it, just turn it down when you're not playing.

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I used to do a lot of multi-tracking on my computer and the hum that the monitor caused was a pain in the neck. I took out my 1996 Fender pickups and put in some Dimarzio noiseless (area 61, 58, and 67). The tone is FAR better than the stock Fender pickups, which isn't saying much, but nonetheless, these things sound very good and are as quiet around the monitor as any humbucker.

I don't record anymore, so the moniitor is no longer an issue, but these pickups sound so good I see no need to change them. I've A-B'd them against other single coils a Guitar Center, and that confirmed for me that these are quiet and have good tone.

I guess it all depends on how much hum bothers you. It bugs me if I'm playing out and I'm getting a nasty hum. Yeah, I know the cure is to turn down my guitar, but it bugs me. Sup to you.

The hum is part of the whole single coil sound. You've got to have it or your sound just isn't "right".

Embrace the hum!

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Ah, I forgot about Jeff Beck. But still, that's only two.

I have the Vintage Noiseless pickups too. Those are the ones I'm replacing. Something about them just doesn't do it for me. After watching videos on youtube of people with great tone and a similar set up as mine (Strat, Blues Junior, Tubescreamer) and messing around with my settings a ton, I realized it's time to change.

Buddy Guy uses Lace Sensors. They are pretty near noiseless...

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To me what it lacks is mid range. I could turn the tone knobs all the way down and still no mid range. And after I got those Texas Specials and I realized just how good a single coil pickup could sound, I decided to change them.

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What bothered me most is that the bridge pickup is so bright and thin its unusable and the neck/mid position just doesn't sound good, it almost sounds like some of the attack is gone and it's almost a little muddy. The only way to get a good sound out of the Vintage Noiseless is to have a mega-rig like Clapton.

Hum worthwhile?

Definitely..

I would always choose Single coils over humbuckers. They have more clarity and definition and have a degree of tonal sophistication and harmonic movement I've never found in humbuckers. Especially where levels of distortion/overdrive are kept at low to medium levels. Similarly, I would choose 'noisy' over (single coil) noiseless pickups, probably for the same reasons. I've owned 2 sets of noiseless Fender p/ups - the Vintage & SCN. Both were bland in comparison and I consider my experimentation with them to have been an expensive folly, though I can't deny that they did exactly what they claimed to do. The SCNs especially were almost supernaturally noise free - even under fluorescent lamps or in front a tradtional TV monitor.