Noiseless guitars (other than Variax) - is there anything?

fretmeister

thecolourbox said:

Silly me yes I forgot the Emgs. I've had them before, the Tele set sounded adequate. I'm ok with sterile, my playing is quite sterile to be honest.

I had the Hetfield set (I'm still not sure who he is to be honest) in my DIY guitar and they were still notar but I think that's because of my wiring to the switch. The instructions on the website were incorrect, plus I had assumed that solderless pickups required no solder but they do to connect the switch!

However on my normal day to day instrument as long as I can use the humbucker ones with a tele switch I should be good to give that a go.

Will look at the other products though as well, cheers guys

EMG have their new Retroactive series too. More of a traditional sound.

http://www.emgpickups.com/guitar/retro-active.html

James Hetfield is the singer in Metallica. One of the finest rhythm guitarists around.

thecolourbox

Voxman said:

A solution that might be good for any electric guitar generating unwanted noise is the Electroharmonix Humdebugger. 

I think that's for ground hum isn't it? Presumably just a ground lift of which I've tried a few and they don't really work, the noise is static based I think.

On a related note I've had three static shocks today, two in the kitchen and one whilst picking up a couscous that had dropped out of the bag. Bizarre.

I think Emgs are the way to go so I'll just keep looking on eBay for when the silver or Chrome coloured ones show up

rpr

What about Wilde / Bill and Becky pickups ? Bill Lawrence passed away but his family are still keeping the business going -  
http://wildepickups.com/Home_Page.html ;
Not sure if that link will work for some reason,

thecolourbox

I'm just a little unsure about "noiseless pickups" as such apart from Emgs which I know to work, because shouldn't humbuckers already be pretty much noiseless?

ToneControl

thecolourbox said:

I'm just a little unsure about "noiseless pickups" as such apart from Emgs which I know to work, because shouldn't humbuckers already be pretty much noiseless?

yes, normal humbuckers should be. Some have slightly asymmetric windings on the 2 halves to get a different sound, but they then have a slight hum

ToneControl

strats and teles have various options
my favourites are the EMGs, kinmans and the Fender noiseless - not all models of those though
there are others. Seymour duncan does loads of stacked humbuckers, but they don't sound like normal single coils to me.

I think the Fender SCNs were a Bill Lawrence design, I have them in a strat, very nice

thecolourbox

ToneControl said:

thecolourbox said:

I'm just a little unsure about "noiseless pickups" as such apart from Emgs which I know to work, because shouldn't humbuckers already be pretty much noiseless?

yes, normal humbuckers should be. Some have slightly asymmetric windings on the 2 halves to get a different sound, but they then have a slight hum

Yeah see I'm pretty sure it's not hum it's static noise. I only have humbuckers because I thought getting guitars with humvuhumbu in wood fix it but sadly nay.

Therefore I think other noiseless pickups are not going to work either except the Emgs which I know worried before. I was silly not to remember this really.

And if they don't work as I remember them working I'll just have to flog them and get a variax probably

ToneControl

hmm if you don't get it with wireless, then it sounds like a problem with the lead and possibly your pedals or amp
what are you plugging the guitars into, also wondering about impedance issues.

ToneControl

can you post a sound clip of the noise you are getting?

thecolourbox

ToneControl said:

can you post a sound clip of the noise you are getting?

I'll try again capture it if I get chance later

The problem is not with the guitar or leads or pedals or amps or whatever because it has happened across two houses in different areas, about seven different guitars, any number of pedals (or none at all), five different amps and several modelling units

ICBM

thecolourbox said:

I'm just a little unsure about "noiseless pickups" as such apart from Emgs which I know to work, because shouldn't humbuckers already be pretty much noiseless?

Yes, but although they're pretty good at cancelling hum, they don't completely cancel buzz even when fitted with a fully-enclosing metal cover - it's just a problem with high-impedance pickups, and the rest of the circuitry in the guitar. EMGs are in fact conventional humbuckers, although they're low-impedance, so they rely on the active circuitry to boost the signal back up to normal levels - and which also has the advantage that the output from the guitar is then buffered, so there's less tendency for noise to be picked up by the cable.

ToneControl

thecolourbox said:

ToneControl said:

can you post a sound clip of the noise you are getting?

I'll try again capture it if I get chance later

The problem is not with the guitar or leads or pedals or amps or whatever because it has happened across two houses in different areas, about seven different guitars, any number of pedals (or none at all), five different amps and several modelling units

but if you don't get the noise when you use wireless, then surely it could be the leads, or that you are missing the buffered outputs from the wireless or EMG?

Do you have compact fluorescent bulbs above or next floor down from your guitar leads?

thecolourbox

ToneControl said:

thecolourbox said:

ToneControl said:

can you post a sound clip of the noise you are getting?

I'll try again capture it if I get chance later

The problem is not with the guitar or leads or pedals or amps or whatever because it has happened across two houses in different areas, about seven different guitars, any number of pedals (or none at all), five different amps and several modelling units

but if you don't get the noise when you use wireless, then surely it could be the leads, or that you are missing the buffered outputs from the wireless or EMG?

Do you have compact fluorescent bulbs above or next floor down from your guitar leads?

I understand the logic but if it is the has then it must be every lead I've ever used that is faulty! Which would be terrible bad luck even for me. Also if I use a buffered pedal first in line that doesn't work, so I don't think it's the buffer thing. I've tried that and a DI box and also a TC Teleporter thing which is a two box thing meant to help long cable runs but has ground lift and stuff like that but no avail.

I'm not aware of any flourescent bulbs in this house or my old house

At the last House I got to the point where I thought it was the burglar alarm add it was worst around the sensors/doors and positively deafening when I went l went near the control panel with my Amplug headphones things

ToneControl

compact fluorescents are the non-LED low energy bulbs 

ICBM

ToneControl said:

compact fluorescents are the really crap low energy bulbs 

FTFY

ToneControl

anyway, if it's OK with wireless, but not with leads, then the leads are picking up something, unless you have some serious grounding issues with your rig

thecolourbox

ToneControl said:

anyway, if it's OK with wireless, but not with leads, then the leads are picking up something, unless you have some serious grounding issues with your rig

But would every lead ever pick this up? Including the vox headphone amp thing?

thecolourbox

Right I've done some recordings, hopefully this should be audible. Excuse the noodling.

ToneControl

do you keep your hands on the strings at all times?
It sounds like you are letting go of them 

With EMGs, you don't need to ground the strings (AFAIK), but I think you need to ground the strings and keep one of your hands in contact with them or a metal bridge too

thecolourbox

No I do let go but you can still hear it when I do touch then just slightly different noise, think there are two noises one goes away if I touch something.

I suppose Emgs are out then and Variax only