I was watching a review of an American standard strat with Alnico v
However, when the pups were played individually there was the prevalent 60 cycle hum.
Are the Alnico v in the American standard the same as the vintage Alnico v noiseless?
With the newer Cobalt Samarium is it possible to play an individual pup and not have any hum.
Can you play individual pups with the Alnico vintage noiseless ( assuming they are not the same as on the American standard ) and not have that hum.
All this because I am planning to buy a Strat.
Ronald

part of haveing a Strat (at least to me) is haveing the hum. All i can say is I have a 2008 Am. Std. Strat, most times i am playing in front of the PC (recording) so i pick up alot of the 60 cycle hum, but not so bad that it cant record.

I also have a Am. Deluxe Strat. with the SCNs but its a HSS with the S-1 and to me they are the best , still get some hum.

It all depends on where you are and whats around you as far as how much hum you get..and if you use the 2nd and 4th (i use them most times anyhow)settings on the PU swich it should take out alot of it.

Ronald,

Welcome!

Briefly, Alnico and Samarium Cobalt are merely magnet types. It is what the magnets themselves are composed of. Magnet types are not indicative as to whether a pickup is humbucking (HB) or not. In the case of Alnico V, the 'V' denotes the charged strength of the Alnico magnets.

To answer your questions:

An American Standard Strat does not have individual HB pickups. Rather, as close to HB as they get is with the middle pickup. Although not HB of itself either, it is manufactured to what is called, reverse wound/reverse polarity (RW/RP) specifications. Oversimplified, it is made totally opposite to the magnetic pull and coil wind orientation of the other two. What this pickup does is when it is teamed with one of the other two, together they become one HB. So, only pickup selector switch positions 2 and 4 are HB on an American Standard Strat. And yes, these use Alnico V magnets.

Vintage Noiseless pickups are HB with Alnico V magnets. Substitute the word, "Noiseless" for HB. The Samarium Cobalt pickups are also HB by design so yes, each one in either set is noiseless.

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You dig?

My 57 hotrod which has a dimarzio humbucker and 2 scn's is silent. The amp and pedals hum but not the guitar. American standard alnico 5's are not the same pickup as vintage noiseless pickups. Both have alnico magnets and thats about where the similarity ends.

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No no and no

and i could be wrong. It could be something else making the hum.

oh and welcome to the forum.


Jimmie

Thank You for the Welcome,
And thanks for the answers.
All this means is that I am slowly learning.
Ronald

I have been playing an American Deluxe with the Samarium Cobalt Noiseless Pickups and S1 Switch for over two years now. I thought "noiseless" was the way to go and though I love my Am/Dlx I can attest that you can't get that 60s/70s mojo out of them. No matter what I plug it into or into it, I can't get a hot Tex/Mex or Hazey psychidellic sound out of her that is to my liking. So this month I bought a Highway One HSS. The Alnico III Fender Hot Single-Coil pickups are sizzling and the Atomic Humbucking pickup screams. And yes there is that 60 cycle hum if you crank everything up to 10. Even "humbuckers" hum with enough gain and treble. If you want to sound clean don't turn down the amp's gain or use a volume pedal. The Strat's volume knob is in a very strategic location allowing you to dial in your dynamics with your pinkie even as you are playing. David Gilmour (though he currently uses EMG noiseless pickups the example still applies) tweaks his volume knob between practically every phrase. You won't hear the 60 cycle hum if you use the volume knob wisely. Then when you want your gain, dial up the guitar volume for your solo. At that point your tube (or germanium) satuation should drown it out as long as you keep playing. If you use a wah pedal that 60 cycle hum is your friend because its part of the color and character of that classic Strat sound.

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix

Hello,
So, when using middle pickup on and American Standard wth on of the othe it cancels out position one and two.
What happens when you use all three pickups at once , do you still get some hum cancellation ?
Ronald

You can't run all 3 at once without changing the wiring around.

Noise-cancelling is why some people don't like to mix humbuckers with singlecoils. My HSS is quiet when running the bridge by itself, but hums when set for bridge /mid. The 2 halves of the bridge pickup cancells each other out but, the single coil in the mid is left hanging out there without the reverse to offset it. The neck and mid are quiet together but separate they hum. I guess I could rewire it to run all three at once and it would be quiet, but technically that would be 4 pickups since the humbucker in the bridge is actually 2 pickups wired together to cancel out the hum. If you had 3 singlecoils hot at the same time you would get hum.

I'm saving up for a new HH but sometimes think I should take that money and put stacked humbuckers in the neck and middle of my HSS with push-pull pots to retain singlecoil sound when I want it.

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Stagemaster
Roadhouse Strat
Epi Traditional Pro Les Paul
Ovation Celeb
Esteban Celestial Night(nicely tweeked)
Blackheart tube amp

If I'm understanding your question correctly, no. When using the middle pickup with one of the other two, that makes ONLY positions two and four of the pickup selector switch make the circuit HB as these are the only two positions on a stock wired American Standard Strat where either the bridge or the neck pickup is teamed with the middle one.

If all three pickups were on at once, the circuit would NOT be fully humbucking. There are still two 'normal' pickups coils and their DC resistance vs. the one RW/RP pickup coil and its DC resistance. Consequently, an imbalance exists where at best, the circuit would be hum reduced.

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You dig?

I love the sound of single coils, but some environments (my house actually) are just not single coil friendly.
There are a few noise canceling pickups that sound extreamly close to a regular single coil.
The Kinmann and Dimarzio "Area" or "Vitrual Vintage" are the way to go in my opinion if you can't deal with the hum.

By the album "The Wall", David Gilmour's 57 Vintage reissue Strat's single-coil pups in the six or so Strats he lugged around for performances were giving him problems. As Pink Floyd got bigger, the radio signals and the electronic noise of the elaborate lighting and projection systems of their stage prompted him to convert to EMG active pups. Just some trivia.

"Each of his red Stratocasters (and the cream coloured) has low impedance active EMG-SA single coils with Alnico magnets, which he beefs up with two more tone modules: the EXG mid-cut/expander & SPC mid booster, - controlled with the tone knobs. David mainly use the EXG feature on rhythms as it helps define the notes, especially with a mild overdrive. The EXG is like a V-set EQ boosting the treble and bass. The SPC boosts the midrange producing a tone close to a humbucker. The SPC is where you really hear the Gilmour sound emerge. Turn it all the way up and you get that thick bluesy sound used on Shine On, Another Brick2 etc."

www.giloumrish.com

I love Gilmour only next to Hendrix but even as an ignorant high school kid I felt like his solos sounded more like a sound coming from a Gibson rather than a Strat. To me his tone sounded homogeneous--like all the tones came at you in a uniform texture. The single coils, to me, sound very open--variable textures with all kinds of microtones. Noiseless pickups may be small enough to fit in a single-coil slot but they are effectively humbucking technology to some degree. It can be close but it won't be the same. Thats why we work hard to get more guitars right?

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"If I don't see you no more in this world I'll meet you on the next one and don't be late... don't be late." -Jimi Hendrix