Theory on killing single coil hum

[mr_sooty]

I stumbled across this while reading peoples posts on the pros and cons of the whole 'star gounding' idea. I've done the sheilding and star grounding found at GuitarNuts.com before, and while I found it helped a little, I figured it was probably more due to the sheilding than the star grounding. I was searching other peoples experience with this, and stumbled accross this post:

There is a new method of thinking within the idea of "star grounding" that has proven very beneificial to noise issues in guitars.

years ago Some engineer decided that "Ground" should be "everywhere" in a circuit thereby making it easy to wire only the "hot" signal.

but, by looking at the "ground" as another completely seperate signal and trying to "force" it to travel a specific path within the layout of the circuit, you can make any shielding in the circuit become more "active" so to speak.
this is not an easy concept to explain without showing it . so I will leave you with an example to ponder.

Imagine a strat with full shielding. connect all the pickup grounds to the back of the vol, pot as per "normal" .
now, without altering anything else in the circuit, move the output jacks ground wire from the pot back, to the sheilding on the floor of the cavity, and make sure that the guitar will only work when the guard is fully screwed in it's normal position...

your "forceing" the ground signal to flow through the sheilding to even get to the output jack. this mod alone can drop another 6Db in noise if done correctly.

and if you want a Strat to be completely silent. lift all the pickup grounds with a .005 Cap. this will give a notch filtering effect in the low mids. but it will leave your highs alone. and there wil be NO hum at all.

This sounds rather interesting. I'd be perfectly willing to give it a go just for experimentation's sake, but of course I've now got noiseless pickups in my Strat again and I've just sold my old ones. Anybody willing to give this a try and report their findings? I'm dying to know if it works.

[Slowy]

Interesting, agreed. I star ground an shielded my Strat and it really is quiet; not just for a Strat either. Not sure I really want to undo it all for an experiment so I'll see if anyone else is game first.

Now who has some tips on how to make a Tele behave?

[jeremyb]

What are these single coils ye speak of?

[Bg]

Now who has some tips on how to make a Tele behave?

*cough*

[alanp]

Dimarzio noiseless pickups? Works for me.

[Slowy]

Now who has some tips on how to make a Tele behave?

*cough*

I realise it's an oxymoron............

[mr_sooty]

Dimarzio noiseless pickups? Works for me.

Yeah well that's what I've got now too, but I'm really curious about this idea. Seems a heck of a lot easier than the whole star grounding operataion.

[Slowy]

Dimarzio noiseless pickups? Works for me.

Seems a heck of a lot easier than the whole star grounding operataion.

Resoldering 4 wires vs purchase and installation of new pups?

[druz15]

Interesting, agreed. I star ground an shielded my Strat and it really is quiet; not just for a Strat either. Not sure I really want to undo it all for an experiment so I'll see if anyone else is game first.

Now who has some tips on how to make a Tele behave?

Fender SCNs

[mr_sooty]

Ignoring the whole idea of noiseless pickups - which is of course one way of killing hum - as a sometimes guitar tech I'm curious about the idea above. I have done the star ground wiring before, and it's a little fiddly, you're changing quite a bit of the circuit, and I'm not sure if it does a whole lot. But this appears to be a slightly different take on the concept - it claims to kill ALL single coil hum, and only requires a couple of simple mods if you've already done the sheilding. If it worked, it would give you the option of using any single coil pickup you like, which would be advantageous for those of us who like to argue the differences between Fat 50's and CS 54 single coils but can't stand the associated noise issues.

[Bg]

I'm a bit perplexed by it. Why would you want to force a signal through shielding? A ground signal is even more intriguing. The 6db is a pure bullshit call. The idea behind star grounding is to kill any ground loops - its a completely different scenario as to what the shielding is for.
As I understand it YMMV etc.

[Slowy]

I'm a bit perplexed by it. Why would you want to force a signal through shielding? A ground signal is even more intriguing. The 6db is a pure bullshit call. The idea behind star grounding is to kill any ground loops - its a completely different scenario as to what the shielding is for.
As I understand it YMMV etc.

A wild guess born of dangerously little knowledge: If you force the signal through your shielding foil, aren't you creating a Faraday cage which, if I understand correctly, is a very efficient type of shield?

[GrantB]

All this talk of hum in single coils...really, is it this bad? I played Strats for decades before I become ill with them and never suffered from all this hum that I see regular posts on (and we had big lighting racks back then - pre LED days). Sooty, are you sure you haven't sort of become overly obsessive about this? Maybe the whole suburb where you live has dirty power or something? I know where we record the power is hideous...everything hums there (amps, humbuckers, bass guitar, monitor systems, me humming when taking a pee). Not ideal. Maybe you have the same problem?

The solution might be to move.

[Slowy]

I can see the Real Estate agent now.... "That's right, I need a house with clean power"

[Hot_Grits]

Suhr's contract with Illich over the backplate noiseless system is finishing up and ol' Husky is working on his own version now. He reports that he's developing a much smaller system that will fit inside a strat's control cavity. Sayin'...