Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hello ! I'm getting some noise when I engage just the front pickup.It's a single coil. It seems to go away when
the other pickups are engaged.I'm wondering should I get a noiseless pickup,or whether to have my
tech go over the whole thing and get better wiring and maybe shielding.Have any of you experienced this,and what have you done?
Thanks!

Single coils are inherently noisy. It is most likely interference from an outside source. Does the noise change when you move the guitaaround, or when you turn around?

Hmm,I'll get back to this tomorrow.Thanks for your reply

No,it gets worse when I move around.Changing pickups with the selector switch doesn't do that much
to get rid of the noise.

Try shielding the cavity.

There's a lot of different reasons why there's noise. Recommend you take it to a good guitar tech. You might want to ask him or her to set it up too. I know nothing about Phred guitars, but I can tell you that you can't beat the diagnosis and set up from an experienced guitar tech.

To diagnose yourself, you should start with checking continuity and confirm there's continuity from the strings to the pots to the ground of the output cable, and if there's metal knobs, continuity from the strings to the knobs to the guitar cable. If there's continuity then you need to start building up noise reduction (shielding, high quality pups, correct amp wiring, etc.). Good luck.

Ok,well thanks everyone! I'll hand it over to the expert.

If both your humbuckers are quiet, it may just be that it's a single coil- which will be noisier. Do you know what the pickup is? There are "more and less noisy" single coils.

It's the korean artec.I liked the pickups,but it looks like I'll have to sink some money into an upgrade on the electronics.

Single coil pickups hum.

Humbuckers dont as much.

B

Well,I've since learned that the whole thing is noisy,it's just more pronounced when just the front pickup is engaged.
I can stand a little hum,but if it distracts me from playing,that's a problem.

Could be the preamp

brbadg wrote:No,it gets worse when I move around.Changing pickups with the selector switch doesn't do that much
to get rid of the noise.

If it gets worse when you move around it's most likely shielding. Is it well shielded around the single coil? The cavity? The first issue to address with noise is shielding.

So just to wrap this one up.The battery in the preamp was about to die.
A quick replacement,and clean as a whistle.Sounding good!

Two years later!