KILL The Hum and Buzz!! - Keeping Your Single Coils QUIET! 

I use the J Mascis technique: “just don’t stop playing, man“

Man, Darrell, you were a real buzz kill in this video

Turning around is a good method - if you spin 360 degrees you can usually find a position in which the hum is less intense. Moving around also helps. This is most useful while recording, especially with a computer, which can be a massive source of electromagnetic noises. If you use pedals, changing the power supply can help a lot. I've switched from using individual wallwarts to Mooer MPS8 and the difference is huge. Part of it is unlike with most wallwarts, this one is properly grounded, part of it is that a single transformer in a proper metal shielding sends out less interference than 3 with unshielded plastic cases. Finally, since individual PSUs can float in terms of voltage in relation to each other, they can cause hum in the effects chain, even if there was none coming from the guitar. Having a single PSU deals with that too. Finally, a somewhat controversial option for recording is to use a noise removal plugin. Essentially, you leave a few seconds of just noise and hum at the start or end of the recording, then feed this into the plugin so that it can build a noise profile and use that profile to remove the noise and hum in a much more nuanced way then a simple gate would. I use Z-Noise by Waves and just feed it a signal from an amp or a distortion pedal and it works wonders. It has a huge latency though, so it's unusable in live situations.

I could hear AM radio out of my single coils when it existed. Now they turned off all AM radios in Russia and all I hear is 50 Hz hum

You need to rename the wall behind you Mount Tele.

Wow. That's more Teles on the wall than at many music stores. 😀

In the UK we do not have a problem with 60Hz buzz. We do have a problem with 50Hz buzz.

i really dont know why but something tells me Darrel really likes Teles.

Self-adhesive copper tape (anti-snail tape) throughout the pickup cavities and routing cavities, and on scratch plate, all joined up, wire from tape to back of volume pot. Done. Costs virtually nothing and is amazingly effective. Takes 20 minutes and transforms your guitar.

As a HUGE single coil fan this is a subject near and dear to my heart! If you guys have any favourite noise reduction or gate pedals post them below :)

I was reading this week about a new way of winding a single coil that's completely silent. This is genius! You wind the first 3 magnets fully and then go on to the remaining 3 magnets and wind them in a reverse direction....TA RAAA! ....silence...

I’d suggest using the gate as the very last solution. It’s the most obstructive method to your sound. First step, use high quality cables! Second, check the other electronics in the area and where their magnetic fields are! Third, insulate your guitar’s electronic cavities with the proper copper shielding tape (adhesive needs to be conductive), by this point you should be almost noise free. Then a gate with very low settings could certainly help. And/or hum/noise reduction if your setup has that option.

Why does your guitar hum? It doesn't know the words :)

If it ain't hummin', I ain't strummin'.

Also check your guitar cables too. My sons guitar sounded bad. I changed the guitar cord, it made a world of difference.

I just had an electrician come over and put my studio on it's own circuit / ground. Everything is very silent.

I have Ibanez RC430 that uses 2 dummy coils . One in series and one in parallel to eliminate virtually all single coil hum without changing the tone. It’s pretty ingenious:) This guitar is quieter and more authentic sounding than my Fender Stratocaster with Dimarzio Area pickups in it. The best part is it’s all passive ( no batteries needed ) and I can use any single coil pickups I want with it.

There are a lot of myths about 60hz hum. In a nutshell, any electric instrument is effectively an electrical circuit thus 60hz hum (electrostatic noise) is nothing but RF interference. The only way to get rid of it is to ensure a proper electrical grounding of the circuit. Electric guitar circuit is basically conformed by the pickups + cable + amplifier, the amplifier should have a metal chassis which is grounded internally . The important thing here is to make sure your amplifier is electrically grounded when you plug it to the power line. This ensures the RF interference bleeds to ground and is not amplified by your amp's circuit. Shielding the interior of the guitar's body and the back of the pickguard can help to reduce the hum however only grounding the amp can get rid of the hum. If you choose to shield the interior of the guitar's body and back of the pickguard, it is very important that you make sure you ground it to the output's jack ground terminal and not to the tremolo bridge. Fail to do this and in case of an electrical discharge you might get a very unpleasant electrical shock. In some cases this might even be life threatening.

I've been using the EH Silencer, with all my gain pedals in the loop, and modulation coming after. The other guitarist in my band is using a Decimator. I showed him my setup and he was blown away that he didn't have to keep stomping it on and off. Hell, he would play (thru my setup), and then we'd talk gear for a second. There were a few times he'd hit the strings and scare himself, completely forgetting that the amps were on and turned up! Those pedals make a huge difference. I've also used the Boss Noise Gate for a long time, until it was stolen. Keep the vids coming Darrell!

Darrell, your videos are the best man. If there is a guitar topic I'm thinking of and want to research, you always seem to have covered it. Plus, you aren't lazy, you always link to related stuff in annotations or in the video description. Keep up the great work man!

What a "Tele" of a day! Darrell, did you intentionally fill the wall with Teles, and rock that T-shirt to match? LOL ... Thank You for these fast and easy fix solutions!

I recently bought the Electro Harmonix Hum Debugger, and it's a fantastic solution. Doesn't affect the tone at all. The only issue: it has to be plugged directly into the wall with the power adapter that comes with it. Not a gate. It goes after JUST the buzz/hum and it's INCREDIBLY effective. Won't play without it now. Has 2 settings: Normal and High.

Nicely done as usual, Darrell. I have a couple instruments with single coils, and this will give me some ways to deal with the noise that I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the tips!

Boss NS-2. Awesome pedal for even the simplest of feedback. Has a great "decay" range to get short chops or nearly unrestricted sustain.. threshold has nice range to adjust the strength of gate up front. I highly recommend it!

My advice is 1. shield the guitar properly (create a Farriday cage by making sure all shielding is touching and grounded ) 2. don't play under florescent lights. Play by candle light if you have to. 3. Unplug unneeded electrical appliances (including wifi devices). 4. Try plugging your Amp into different outlets, because sometimes a high amperage appliance can create line noise on all outlets running on that breaker (of course this problem effects humbuckers too)

Very informative, thanks for today's topic. I've agonized over 60 cycle hum for decades.

I love how you let your viewers form their own opinion and place the facts in from of them in a clear concise manner. Thanks a lot...

The Boss NS-2 noise gate is my favorite. Easy to use and effective. Plus, it has some unique routing options where your pedals run in a loop if creates and your guitar goes in and out. That way it can separate the guitar signal from pedal noise. Really helps with high gain setups.

I've tried a number of noise gate / reduction pedals over the years... Boss, MXR, ISP... the MXR Smart Gate is the best I've used. But the Suhr SSCII system built into my red Suhr is a much more effective solution :) No battery needed unless you're using the S90s (P90 style) too.

I have Lace Sensors… when in single coil, no noise. And, they truly can sing. Once everything is heated up and rolling, sweet sting. Clarity is amazing, and the cello tones I can get on the lower portions of the fretboard give me whole other voice to go to.

A great article as usual Darrell. Lots of posts so I guess it's try them all and see what works best for you. Love your tee and the gats on the wall.

Eating lunch, watching Darrell, how could life get any better ?

Before watching the vid and just by looking at it's title, i thought that u gonna give us tutorial on how to do EMI shielding with copper tape 😁 Nice vids as usual sir. Thank You

I think gating is by far the answer most pros use, even if they play the high end single coils. One point I would make is that the gating will also change the way you play. It actually helps you become more subtle with left hand pressure. It also makes the rhythm riffs sound more punchy, provided the player has the gate dialed in right and gets used to it.

this is so unfair. i just typed a fresh search and still found this posted by you. 👌 man please live a thousand years.

Interesting you posted this, as I just acquired a Boss NS2 noise suppressor. It works exceptionally well at cutting out hum from vintage single coils without altering attack or killing sustain. If you hold a note, you can hear the hum start to creep in (but reduced in volume) before the gate shuts, so like most things, not perfect........but otherwise pretty great. The other thing that helps w/ pedals is a good isolated linear PS vs a cheap daisy chained switching unit, but this is more about hiss than 60 hz buzz. I don't play professionally, but having a rig that is now nearly silent makes me really happy. Plus, I could swear that my little 20 watt Mesa combo now has more clean headroom without all the noise being fed to the input. Could be my imagination, or confusing the noise added to signal as distortion.

I put 3 hotrails in one of my Strats. With a toggle switch for each one to go from single to humbucker. No noise. Noise Gate otherwise. 👍

A perfect solution for me is a plugin called Noise repellent. It eliminates noise in realtime, introduces a bit of latency but very little and it doesn't interfere on your tone or playing. Awesome.

Good Vid Darrell! I had this problem with my Telecaster and my Reissue Gibson ‘60s LP w/P-90s. My solution was Duncan Classic Series Stacked Pickups. NO NOISE AT ALL even in Old Clubs with bad worrying. I was pleasantly surprised at the tones from this Series. Very hard to tell the difference. Please keep up the Good Work! I truly enjoy your Content and look forward to you Vids. Have a great day!

Thank you very much. Your video helped me out a lot to understand what was going on, I'm a bit of a DIY electrician, and I kind of figured some of it not all was due to the ground, but I still don't understand why the companies just haven't overcome this overall, it's dirty, electricity! And in this day and age, they should've overcome that, that kind of integrity is passed on to the consumer and we really shouldn't have to deal with that! Nobody wants to walk around with a pebble in the shoe and you've already figured out. All you have to do is take it out! I want to thank you very much for taking the time out to make your video and explain everything, keep up the good work a lot of us depend upon people like you!

Great video, and I learned a few things! Thanks!

Some people like the Electro-Harmonix Hum Debugger pedal. It's not a noise gate, it works differently.

Very helpful! Thank you! I’m a bassist and usually my basses I have have hummbuckers in them but I have gotten a bass with hummbuckers but has the option to go single coil for both the neck and bridge pickups and at first I was just experimenting with having the option to go single coil or hummbucker and didn’t notice it right away because I was still experimenting with it and adjusted my tone knob accordingly I noticed this buzz coming from it. But when I’d switch it to just hummbuckers for both pickups the noise went away completely. At first thought it was a cable or my amp then found out it was just the single coil settings. Glad I found out that this is a common occurrence and not something actually wrong/broken.

This is something I've been struggling with this for a long time, this video was extremely helpful. Thank you!

I have discovered with my guitars that playing with guitar volume turned down between 5 and 7 reduces hum and I feel like my tone is much better. Sharper and less compressed and more nuanced.

Embrace the hum. Favorite album: Jimi Hendrix - Blues, tons of hum on almost every song, does it bother me? No, it's part of the tunes to my ears now :)

I just installed a simple dummy coil in my MIM Telecaster...big improvement. Hum/buzz is reduced to a tolerable level. The pickups aren't RWRP, so I was able to use the same dummy coil in all three switch positions by wiring it between the output of the switch and the input of the volume control. And cost $0, since I already had an old pickup to use for the dummy coil.

Awesome video dude! Your videos are always enjoyable. Thank you for the tips. Rock on!

10:24 I felt kind of intimidated by that look. That soul eating look.

You can shield the pickup cavities and make the ground wire go to the strings so that your body absorbs all the static, but people often forget about the amp, it needs to have a ground conection, your house sure must have one (a copper rod burryed in the ground) but the plug you have on the wall may not have the ground part conected for various reasons (lazynesis a common reason, many people just connect the red and black and ignore the green\yellow because it serves little to no purpose, but it's important for this) so make sure it has, it makes a huge difference, my guitar has humbuckers and when i use it conected to a solar inverter that has no ground it buzzes a lot, but when i use with normal energy it's perfectly silent, also make sure that if you are using a extention cord (or a triple one) , make sure its all stretched and that it has a ground pin in the plugs, at home i have some that only have the holes for the plug but not the metal part that is supossed to make the ground for the amp and it's kinda common in many cheap extensions, the ground conection is really important and easy to neglect, i noticed this because the amp would buzz even with the guitar cable disconnected :v

A noise gate is SO HELPFUL in reducing/killing your hum. I have always used the noise gate from my Line 6 interface in every single coil tone/chain I have built and saved. Okay, with the exception of 2 or 3 saved tones without noise gate all the rest include a noise gate. Great recommendation Darrell. My Nashville Tele has the noiseless pickups and I love them!!! In my opinion if one hates or dislikes hum, the fender noiseless pickups are the way to go. Keep up all of the great work...love what you are doing here!!!

I have a Tele that buzzed. I painted the pickup cavity with conductive paint, and replaced the internal wire with insulated wire. Big improvement. More playable and enjoyable. I recommend this approach. Yes, ‘some (re)assembly required, but it actually addresses the problem.

those noiseless pickups were so good my soundcard failed and i couldnt even hear the video LMAO

Shielding paint worked wonders on my MIM Tele. Virtually no hum, even under fluorescent lighting.

Very helpful video, Darrell. Another thing I would offer regarding noise gates is if the gating is too strong, it can mess with some effects such as delay pedals (the later, quieter echoes might get cut off altogether) and flangers (the swooshy noise character can be affected).

Thanks, my Tele is used for 40% of my live songs! I think the gate is best for me. Great job DBG!

I love listening radio on my single coils.

this was really informative! now I'm off to find a good noise gate for my Cort strat clone.

Great video! Ive been thinking about getting a Suhr Classic with single coils. That D'Angelico is one sweet looking guitar!!!

Another great video Darrell! You have to work with whatever venue you get invited to but there are "electronical" issues that occur as well which include your CABLING (in and out of the guitar)... Quality cables help, one weak cable in the link can be the culprit. Wall rheostats dimmer packs, etc. Havoc for 60C hum... check your hardwiring gear, grounding can be your friend! Cheers!

Mooer noise killer is amazing and Mooer is also a great company with a very good products so my advice to you guys is to go with the noise killer by Mooer

Thank You For Your Intelligent Guitar Reviews . 🇨🇦

TC Electronic Sentry. Best gate I've tried so far. Definitely not a simple threshold gate. You run your dirt pedals through the loop and set the gate exactly how you want it via threshold, decay, and damp controls (it also has a tone print option which allows you to edit various parameters of the gate on their software and save those settings). Your clean signal stays intact and your buzz/hum from the dirt pedals run through the gate.

Wow, this is an awesome video! I just started playing electric,.. I've always played acoustic and also dabble in classical. I'm going to shield my strat now after seeing this.

Zoom's G1on and G1Xon multi effects pedal have a filter called a ZNR. (zoom noise reduction) Brilliant!! Most of the effects in this pedal are really digital sounding and I dont like them particularly, BUT, put the ZNR on and watch the hum disappear. Worth the price (A$100 or so) just for this effect.

As John Mayer once said, "60 cycle hum is like the guitar is breathing".

I recently rebuilt my parts caster Stratocaster with the Eric Clapton mod. The mod is the TBX and Mid Range boost. I lined the electronics cavity with copper foil. I grounded the volume pot to the body and the Bridge also to the volume pot. Another thing I did was I put together a AC receptacle. I put a silicon diode and a resistor inline on the ground wire. I have a vacuum tube amplifier that I play my guitar thru. I have zero 60 cycle hum even I raise the volume or the gain. It is a bit of work to solve the problem but well worth it.

I love how the push pull coil split gives you that beautiful hum without sounding even close like a single coil :D

The ISP Decimator II is the best thing ever.

Something you didn't say: Stand the exact right direction to minimize it.

I love sitting by the fire with my prs sc45 and watching your vids such a helpful person!

This is what I'm looking for. Nice work sir amazing youtuber for my kind of needs

The quality of your cables will also make a hugh difference (clean or overdrive) especially if you are using multiple pedals. Quality cables are a better investment than a new pedal on a noisy pedalboard!

Why does expensive Fender USA guitars don't come with paint or copper/aluminum foil out of the box?

This video was precisely what I was looking for, specially due to its details. Thanks a lot for such info!

Great comparison, as usual, Darrell. Thanks, man.

Bonus trick/hack for killing single coil hum: If you're facing your amp head on, turn around and face away from it; it may sound stupidly simple, but it works for me. Maybe you can also try turning the amp or cab (if you're using a stack) around to face away from you.

Sometimes we can achieve great single coil sounds from humbuckers wired in parallel, with no 60 cycle hum whatsoever. I have some guitars wired like that.

Darrell.... You're the man! Always awesome tips. Cheers mate.

I play live with a Firehawk FX and use the gate all the time. Thanks for the informative video Darrell. God bless and rock on 👏🎸😎

I've been using Electro-Harmonix Hum Debugger for a few years now. Works well.

The Decimator II is always a good choice. However, my experience has been using Mogami cables took care of the buzz. I do keep my cable ends clean as well as use a volume pedal, so I don't notice anything. The gates always seemed finicky when I played. I won't get rid of it though. Telecasters do seem to suffer the most. Good grounding, shielding, good cables, should be all set. Great video!

Hi darrell ,i know it's a old video ,but i find an other solution for the noise cancelling ,it's a dummy coil , you just solder an single coil pickup with no magnet and no plot between the switch and the volume pot (the hot wire) and that's all ! it's very effective ! try it with old spare single coil of china .take care.

After trying everything, I got an Electro Harmonix Hum Debugger. It is not a gate or a notch filter. I don't know how it works but it solved the problem on a steady gig that I had which was plagued by neon lights.

TC Electronics Sentry! Amazing gate pedal with a loop for your noisier peddles.

I use the Donner Noise Killer. It's a fairly cheap pedal on Amazon, but it gets the job done.

Really useful video on hum elimination techniques - thanks Darrel!

This is a great video, so helpful. I had a Strat with Fender noiseless pickups, which I really liked. I have a noise gate as well on my G-Dec, which gets the job done. Shielding is not that difficult, and worth the effort, and I did that as well. There are youtube videos showing you how. There are various ways to solve this problem.

I have a Joe Barden pickups on my Eric Clapton signature Strat. They are quiet in every volume and position. That`s tree pickups are Mini Humbeckers , but thay sunds 95 % singel coil . This is the perfect solution . All the best to everybody .

I taught myself to do the shielding right (make a Faraday cage), and I hated every minute of it. I hated cutting my fingers with the copper foil, I hated having to learn how to solder ground wires to potentiometers, which seemed to take forever. But if you do it correctly, it actually IS a good solution. The best in my opinion.

When I built a Tele kit guitar recently, I used Copper shielding tape in all cavities and pick guard plus twisted the earth and hot wire as tight as possible - I think I saw this tip on RU-vid - It made huge difference. I'm no expert, but it's worth a go considering how cheap the tape is and nothing for twisting the wires. I also came across some device you can plug in to eliminate the hum, I think it was not cheap nor if it was all hype, the video I saw came across as if it eliminated the hum all together? Has anyone had experience with it? Keep up the great work Darrell, your are an inspiration....

Good explanation of the benefits and drawbacks of a noise gate and how it can somewhat negate your sustain and attack.

Just finishing up an eBay $60 strat kit so this is a very timely video. Thanks for the video. I’m going to go with stand-alone Gate pedal solution.

The Sentry noise Gate some TC electronic is incredible. Kind of hard to explain but you can go into the toneprint editor. And tweak it VERY SPECIFICALLY, for your specific rig. That is the only gate that has this option. OUTSTANDING

Thank you - I'm a beginner that has collected a few guitars and was wondering why my new Strat hummed when using certain pickups but my Epiphones were quiet. Within the 1st few seconds of your video it all made perfect sense - that's why they call them Humbuckers. I guess I have to look for a peddle or maybe there is a setting in my Mustang GT already. Thanks again.

Love your channel Darrell. Bought the Vega Trem to upgrade my Mexi-Strat... what a stunning guitar now. Fortunately I bought the guitar for less than £200, so the trem investment (more than the purchase price of the guitar) makes some sense.

There is a different between 60 cycle hum and ground noise. Most guitars have problem with ground. 60 cycle hum can be solved super easily by using humbuckers, noise gates or stacked noiseless single coils and it goes on. While ground noise until now still has its debates on what is the best way to ground a guitar other then copper shielding

My Boss Katana 50 has a built-in noise suppressor. Only problem is that it's only accessible in the Boss Tone Studio via USB but it works wonders once set up.

Great channel and excellent presentations! Subscribed!!

I own Fender Jaguar which has pair of single coil pickup. For offsets guitarist like me, I would recommend to use a 'Buzz Stop' . It's like a small piece hardware that screwed between your bridge and tremolo to eliminate buzzing noise.