guitar noise in proximity to amp.

[jim]

My home made Strat has always been buzzy when I play close to my home made high gain amp. The amp is quiet with humbuckers.  This strat has low gain singe-coil pickups ("Big Dippers") and my guitar cavity is already shielded with grounded copper foil. I am also using a chrome pickguard on top.  Position 2 and 4 are quiet. The other positions are very buzzy.  Sometimes I need to stand close to the amp in these small clubs.  I use a noise gate but dont like it.

any ideas? Jim

[Ed_Chambley]

Does your amp have shielding covering the chassis? Often overlooked.
I use sheet copper and it helps a lot as I prefer real single coils. if this does not help, look at Suhr guitars silencing coil. John Suhr patented his, but you can make a similar one. Basically it is a humbucking coil inside the guitars tone cavity. I unhooked the one in my guitar just to see if it was causing an change in tone ad it does not.


My Suhr is H_S_H. When I disconnected it he middle pup started humming but sounded exactly the same. Cool idea for Suhr.

[jim]

You're right...I think that flimsy foil shield is pretty much in tatters.   And this silencing coil..can it be added to non Suhr guitars?

[Ed_Chambley]

You're right...I think that flimsy foil shield is pretty much in tatters.   And this silencing coil..can it be added to non Suhr guitars?

Yes, but you will have to either find the parent or tinker. I would think a search could turnup something.

[jim]

Wow.  Tonnes of info on guitar noise on the net--a more common problem then I would have believed.  Here is a youtube on making a silencing coil from a throwaway squire pickup:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=reduce+single+coil+guitar+hum#id=8&vid=c5c229c40723f2db3318fca4e5d22063&action=view

[Ed_Chambley]

Yes, but I know how well this one works. Also, hen implemented correctly the volume does not change the tone at all. I have never had a setup in a guitar where the volume and tone controls work as well as my Suhr Modern Custom. The tone control all the way up is very bright, even with humbuckers. I run the tone most times at less than half turn. On darker amps like Orange amps it can actually make them a little bright.


I have owned a few guitar and still do. This is the only one that I cannot tell where the guitar volume is set. Often I find myself playing with it half up to. Of course it still will clean up the amp when rolling off but it does not change tone.


Attached is the original design which is adjustable, but once you find the values that you are happy with you can eliminate the board. I have other guitars I love more, but it is simply because of how they inspire me. I have 2 that are quite valuable and have resisted changing anything about those, but I did do this to a thinline telecaster with an original 1954 bridge pup and a strat (fralin) in the neck and it is very quiet, as quiet as my 335 with PAF pups and that is amazing to me. This one does not have room for the board, so I had to find the correct caps and resistors.


Worked great and still has a very open sound with the bridge pup low output and still bites hard when I dig in.


Good luck, as it takes some tweaking.

[Ritchie200]

Aren't there enough flavors of Lace PUPs to use for this problem?  Which after looking at the surh system is pretty much the same deal - only outboard?  I mean if this is a high gain setup, would you even know if you had a lefthandedflipnutfralinspecial from 1920 or a Lace (or any other noise-free single PUP brands) in the signal chain?  If you were a country or jazz or soft rock abba player, I can see going through the gyrations to add this coil to maybe preserve some clean characteristic of your fav PUP.  But I doubt you are any of these with a high gain amp turned up so much that it buzzes in your home.


Something else to look at as well is take inventory of your playing area, adjacent, above and below.  Computers, cell phones, anything blue tooth, TVs, neon signs, routers, anything digital.  I played a plain unshielded strat for years with pedals that would pick up a foreign country in many a bar with all sorts of interference.  If there is a will, there's a way.


Jim

edit:  Sorry, I did not see that you DO play out.  I thought this was in your home.  What I used to do with my radio friendly pedal board was have a volume pedal at the end of the signal chain before the amp.  Worked great for swell effects too!  There are very few noise gates that I like.  Either too much unnatural clamp or not enough.  My fav if you want to try another one is the old Scholz Rockman rack version.  Very transparent.