Express and single coils

[Cliff Schecht]

I'd like to know what others experiences are with the Express and single coils (true single coils, not the stacked humbucking type). I've found that while the amp sounds as good as ever with most Fender pickups, the induced hum takes up too much headroom and tends to kill the sustain early on some notes. There are certain notes you can hit or bend to that the amp naturally likes to sustain on but other notes will die fairly suddenly if I try to hold them too long. With those notes, the sustain quickly cuts down and the hum takes over. When I switch to humbuckers, every note sings as it should and the amp is as quiet as a mouse (relatively, that is) but single coils have that clean sound that I just can't get enough of..


I've done every noise-killing trick in the book on my other guitars but I don't want to shove a bunch of copper or aluminum tape inside of my Tele (besides this trick only goes so far on a high gain amp w/ single coils). I'm really thinking about a set of Danny Gatton pickups eventually (other recommendations are of course welcome, it's a 52 Tele RI) but I like the stock pickups a lot as well. This is the one guitar I own that I haven't yet felt the need to muck with and I'd like to change it as little as possible, so if I can avoid a pickup change that would kinda be nice.

[redshark]

I have heard Lollar single coils in my Wreck and they sound good, not too much hum. My favorite pickup with the amp is the Lollar low gain P-90, best clean to mean. Humbuckers are more challenging to clean in my opinion.

[Jackie Treehorn]

I tend to prefer strats with high gain amps like the Express. I think there's something very complimentary about the way they compress the tone and add sustain. A humbucker just seems like too much to me.

Most of the Express clips I've posted were with strats. Here's a couple I've posted before, http://www.theinside.net/SSRev-01.mp3 with the band, airbrake on 4 and http://www.theinside.net/Expressclip2.MP3 which is just a bit of solo "improvisation." That's pretty much the type of sound I go for with an Express and a strat.

[eazilyled]

I can highly recommend Kinman pickups eliminate hum. I have them in my Tele and strat, and they sound really good.

I ended up using adhesive copper foil tape in the Tele, but that was to address buzz rather than hum. The cavity in the strat (Schecter) had already been painted with conductive paint. I've heard that the conductive paint is far less hassle than foil, but I couldn't seem to find an outlet that would sell it in / ship to the UK. But to be honest the foil wasn't that hard to install, and has the added bonus of being reversible.

This page on the Kinman site gives some good info:
http://www.kinman.com/image/fault_tmp/D ... Pickup.pdf

[geetarpicker]

I just added s Suhr BPSSC backplate noise cancelling system to one of my strats. I'm quite pleased with it so far. The intended setup with this system is to have all regular phase pickups. I had a Fralin set with the reverse wound middle pickup which basically gives you hum cancelling in positions 2 and 4. Instead of swapping my reverse wound middle pickup I wired the BPSSC system differently. I have it so when I'm in positions 2 an4 for BPSSC is bypassed and the stock hum cancelling of the reverse wound pickup comes into play. Then on positions 1 and 5 the BPSSC comes into the circuit, and those positions are now almost as quiet as positions 2 and 4. Not quite but pretty close. Currently with this wiring mod the middle pickup hums as much as stock, but I truly use that the least anyway. That all said the backplate system makes my bridge and neck pickup positions much quieter. This weekend will be my first gig with the new system. So far I've noticed no change in tone with the system added and it should make the guitar more forgiving when used with the wreck.

[FYL]

I couldn't seem to find an outlet that would sell (conductive paint)in / ship to the UK.

Have a look at Stewmac's Conductive Shielding Paint. Quite expensive but high quality.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics ... Paint.html

[eazilyled]

Have a look at Stewmac's Conductive Shielding Paint. Quite expensive but high quality.

I think at the time even Stewmac wouldn't ship the paint internationally. But thanks for the tip FYL, I'll bear it in mind for the future

[Aurora]

Lining the PU cavity with copper foil does the same job and is a LOT cheaper...??
- At least copper foil ships without restrictions....
and even thick alu kicthen foil will do the job nicely.....

[geetarpicker]

As an experiment I once took an entire strat pickup/pickguard assembly and tapped up any exposed terminals and wrapped the entire thing in aluminum foil and then grounded it. It hardly made any difference at all in the hum department. When I just recently put the BPSSC setup in my strat it made a noticable difference in the hum. I then decided to do a permanent clean install of the thing so I also painted the cavities with conductive paint and also installed a ground plate under the guard that covers everything. I guess the only thing still not covered up is the coils themselves being plastic. It made a just a little difference in the top end buzz, but very little. Since my setup still has the middle pickup wide open I can still compare the hum of that pickup since the BPSSC doesn't apply to it. Seems the conductive paint made little to no difference on the deep 60hz hum issues overall but perhaps would help kill some top end noise like dimmer buzz. Point is, don't expect shielding to do much with single coils at least in the low hum department.