I just recently bought the fender lonestar which is equipped with a seymour duncan pearly gates humbucker and two texas special single coils. I love the sound of the guitar, but i noticed when i brought it home it had a lot of hum on the neck pickup, middle pickup, and the middle and humbucker position, any suggestions to get rid of hum?

Play louder!

Just kidding, I don't know what you could do other than make sure you use good cables and stay away from florescent lighting.

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Don't worry, Be happy.

Sorry I'm too lazy to send you to a specific link, but the answer to your question is yes, there is something you can do.

Do some googling and probably do a search on this site for "shielding".

Basically, that means coating the entire interior of your guitar (under the pickguard) with either conductive paint or using adhesive copper foil, or even aluminum foil. The underside of the pickguard itself will also have to be covered with foil. And, you have to make sure there's a connection between the cavity shielding and the pickguard shielding, and then that all gets connected to the ground.

It's a mild pain in the butt to do, but if you look around, you'll find some good instructions on how to do it.

Me, I'm just satisfied with KNOWING it can be done, and that if I do it, it will signficantly reduce the hum. Knowing, means the hum is temporary and with a little effort, much of it will go away in the future. Someday...I said I'm lazy.

For materials, one place to look is Stewmac.com. You'll most likely find both the paint and the copper shielding there.

Now, IMHO, this is something that should probably happen to the guitar before it leaves the factory...although I understand how things add up quickly in manufacturing. As a manufacturer you could start properly shielding your guitars tomorrow, and never notice an uptick in sales.

Samarian Cobalt Noiseless or just Noiseless will complete the sound without the hum

I have a Morley Hum Eliminator that can help in some cases -- it's a passive device and pretty inexpensive. There are also much more costly active hum eliminators and cables have already been mentioned.

The next trick: try to isolate the source of the hum. You might be in a noisy room (or next to one) with say a refrigerator or some other appliance like that. Sometimes moving to another room or even changing the orientation of the amp (north-south instead of east-west) can help.

Try different plugs and different rooms. This may get you away from the source even if you can't identify it. Also, many homes have two separate circuits -- one feeds one set of plugs and lights and the other the rest. Getting on a different circuit might solve your problem.

If you have premium cables, and you've tried different rooms and different orientations, you may just live in an electrically noisy environment. But before concluding that, you might have the amp checked. If you have filter cap issues, you may be amplifying hum that only seems to be mostly coming from the guitar.

That is your options -shielding or swapping pups. If you swap you can get a lot of great pups depending on the music you play.

The only way shielding will be of any practical help is if your single coils are literally submerged in and level with the pickguard. Even at this, it will not be a total remedy with the overall results probably not to your expectations nor acceptable. Aside from the volume drop, you will ramp up the capacitance of your circuit and introduce eddy currents which in turn, will narrow the frequency response of your now lowered and less responsive pickups all the more. Yes, it will affect your bridge pickup too.

Either get some kind of premium noise gate which won't suck the tone out of your pickups or switch to a premium stacked set of humbuckers. A stacked set may be your best bet as guaranteed, the hum will be tamed and you can select two pickups which will then be able to 'compete' with the volume of your bridge pickup.

As always, this is merely IMO, YMMV.

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You dig?

This might sound silly but when I got my first Strat with SSS it was a hum city. Until I got rid of Fender and another noname el-cheapo cable and got my self planet waves and another vintage looking one (name escapes me). After that allmost no to very little hum. Nowdays I also run at least 3-4 pedals in the chain in front of the amp and still very little hum.

Another thing try changing the location where you play. Do a rock tour thruought your house. Your home might have the electrical issue(s).

Im really looking to stay away from changing the pickups, due to being low on cash and i really like the sound of the texas specials that are in the guitar already, but thankyou all for the suggestions

Alot of people like to sit and play right in front and facing the amp. If I sit away from it and keep my body between the guitar and the amp most of the hum goes away.

With a humbucker in the bridge you will get hum when playing it with the mid. The 2 halves of the bridge hb cancell each other out but then when you throw the mid into the mix it doesn't have anything to cancell with. I have the same problem so just use bridge or neck & mid together. Think that is why some people don't like mixing singlecoils with humbuckers and instead run 3 singles or 2 HBs. For less than the price of stacked humbuckers for the mid & neck you can have a pushpull pot put in that will split the bridge to cancel with the mid.

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

There's an easier way to cancel hum when combining single coils and humbuckers.

1) Get a RWRP (reverse wind reverse polarity) single coil. It can be a plain ol' single coil, a stacked version or side-by-side single coil sized humbucker.
2) Use a 5 way mega/super switch. Stew Mac sells them.
3) Find the wiring diagram for the pickups you have.
4) Wire it up.

That would work except that he wants to keep his original pups. That is why I suggested splitting the bridge with the push/pull. He can play bridge alone as his original humbucker or split it to cancel with the mid if he wants to use them together.

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

Your guitar is just fine. It's really all about technique. If you've ever watched David Gilmour play, for example, you've probably noticed that he tweaks the knobs of his guitar between practically every phrase. Now he uses noiseless active electronics but back in the day, just like Clapton and Hendrix, he played vintage single coil pups. Early models of Strats didn't even have the Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity middle pup that we have now either. I remember shielding the individual pickups, electronics and cavity then flipping the middle pup. It was one of the first mods I learned working on guitars in the early '80s.

1) wrap the pinkie of your strumming hand around the volume knob and get get used to rolling it back and forth. Get into the habit of rolling off your volume between songs and any time you put the guitar down. The noise you hear is subjective. The guitar won't sound noisy with full accompaniment because the rest of the band will drown it out. And if you habitually roll off the volume when not actually handling the strings then you won't hear any noise any longer.

2) use your pickups strategically. Since you know that the neck + middle and the bridge pickup positions are noiseless so favor those during soft rhythms and clean passages, then when you want more chimes and harmonics engage the individual single-coils.

3) know your tone controls. there are so many electronic configurations out there; TBX, Delta Tone, S1, Grease Bucket, etc. there are several tone configurations. the tone on some Strats control the neck and bridge pickup while some control the neck and middle pickup. some tone knob have a detent in the middle while others have one at the end. knowing what controls what when will also help.

4) use your volume like a gain control. if you like overdrive or distortion, set your amp/stomp box to the maximum gain level you want for your style then roll back the volume of your guitar till the signal cleans up. this way, when you want to play clean you'll be hanging out between 2-5, then crank for warmth as needed up to full blown distortion all at the roll of your pinkie.

5) purists don't like them but anyone who uses noiseless/stacked humbucking pickups aren't purists by their own definition so don't sweat it. there are a lot of good noise gates and hum cancelers out there at competitive prices. a compressor/sustainer is also a good investment, especially in conjunction with the techniques outlined in item #4.

I believe that learning and using these techniques first before spending hundreds of $$$ on noiseless pickups and down time for the technician will help you more in the long run. If you master these techniques, rather than going full bore all the time, you'll gain the subtleties and dynamics which makes a great player great.

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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