okay- i have a new strat mim hss. having owned one years ago, i'm familiar with the hum. i know by putting the switch in positions 2 and 4 that the hum is cancelled out, but i like the sounds of position 3 and 5.

are there any mods or anything i can use in either the connection to the amp, or a filter in the power cord, that would eliminate the hum?

when i stand farther away from the amp it goes away, but that's not always possible

Go here:

http://www.suhrguitars.com/pickups.aspx

and scroll to the bottom of the page.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

You can use a noise gate/filter to remove the hum or replace the pickups with "noiseless" pickups. Sheilding the guitar cavity and pickguard can help too. Basically, your dealing with a single coil 60 cycle hum. the 2 and 4 cancel the hum because the middle pickup acts like the second half of a humbucker.

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


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I agree with most of that accept -1- thing...going to Noiseless pickups. If the OP likes the sound of the single coils, VN's -WILL- change that sound and it may or may not be what the OP is after. Very simply, VN pickups do NOT sound like traditional single coils...that's not to say that they sound "bad" by any means...I have a set myself that I've rotated through a couple of guitars but they don't really have that traditional single coil sound at all.

Sheilding the cavity and the pickguard is right on the money though and that's the first place I would start. The MIM's typically have very poor shielding...usually only a little swatch on the pickguard near the controls and that's it. Even fully shielding the pickguard (or getting a fully shielded pickguard) can make a huge difference. Personally I wouldn't really worry about a noise gate unless I was recording or something unless the noise was really a significant issue (and good shielding would fix most of that)...yea...noise gates do work and can be particularly helpful if you get a lot of noise from your pedals and such but I really tend to think of them more as a luxury item for the nit pickers more than anything.

Also, it's worth making sure that your amp is properly grounded as well as the electrical that your plugging in to. When it comes to "noise", a lot of folks tend to over-look the environment they are playing in. Never assume that because an electrical outlet looks like it's grounded, that it actually is...I -always- carry a basic circuit tester with me to gigs just to make sure. Also, things such as fluorescent lighting, TV's and computer monitors, etc., can wreak havoc with a guitar...even a well shielded one.

Okies...just some things to consider.

Peace,
Jim