I just had an idea ( ;D). Is there a pedal to filter 50Hz hum (or whatever the mains voltage freq is in your country) for single coil guitars? I assume there should be... It doesn´t seem too difficult to design a schem with a tunable notch filter... the only thing I believe should be difficult with analog means is to make the notch narrow enough to not affect the tone, or at least not too much. Oh, another thing is those pesky harmonics... so two, three or more filters. Hmmm, not so easy after all. But, with one of these you could avoid those hum cancelling pickups that never really sound like a single coil, even if they have been trying for some years now, and with each new model they tell you "this one really, really works!"
All this thinking was triggered by the Waves X Hum plugin. Pure magic!! But digital. Not easy to put your desktop in your pedalboard.
If you are worried about the fundamental, a sharp rolloff low pass filter could do some good stuff, since a standard tuned guitar only goes down to about 70Hz or thereabouts. Also, Suhr has a quiet backplate system that apparently works very well. As for a pedal, I don't know of one. The one issue with sharp notch filters for 50 or 60 Hz is that the inductors are typically very large and tend to wander. You could do something with an active inductance simulation circuit that might work well, however. I probably wouldn't worry about too many harmonics, especially since the 120Hz harmonic corresponds well to the Bb, so you don't want to notch that out.
Doesn't the EH Dehummer use notch filtering ?
So are you taking about filtering your pedals power supply?
I used an RC filter (resistor capacitor filter) after the rectifier. You calculate it at twice the supply freq. 100Hz , 120Hz respectively.
I googled "RC filters" and found a calculator to find the values.
I think he is talking about filtering the hum from the single coils. That would be 50 or 60 Hz and I think he talking about notching that out along with possibly the harmonics.
There is a reason that the world is not full of products like this.
60Hz is OK, it's quite a ways down from 82Hz (low E). However, the second harmonic is 120Hz. B is 123.47Hz. The third harmonic is 180hz; there are two notes straddling this one, 184.997Hz and 174.6Hz.To get a filter to notch the harmonics out and not affect the nearby notes too badly depends on what your definition of "too badly" means (thank you William Jefferson Clinton for your additions to the English language).
You can do this kind of thing in a DSP, OK. But it's insanely difficult in real electronics, which DSP is not. Worse yet, what happens when you bend one of these notes? Or don't use a tuner, but do it by ear and lay a note right over the filter?
CBS tried to do an analog copy protection scheme that used very deep notch filters "between" the notes of the musical scale and convince the world that it was inaudible. The world was smarter than that.
So much for my idea. Sigh.
It would be interesting to see what the amplitude of the harmonics in relation to the fundamental is, it might be enough to filter just the fundamental. Of course the amplitude relationship would vary with instrument location, angle, room, city, temperature, player´s mood, lighting fixtures, planets alignment, etc. etc.
How about out of phase cancellation? Mixing an 180 degree out of phase "noise" sample with the signal? Hmmm. Where would you get the noise sample. you ask?
From a unshielded dummy pickup in the stompbox maybe? Or mounted in the guitar, that then would need a stereo out jack to get both signals to the pedal? From a signal generator? From the air with a particle accelerator?
Quote from: Morocotopo on July 10, 2009, 01:22:32 PM
How about out of phase cancellation? Mixing an 180 degree out of phase "noise" sample with the signal? Hmmm. Where would you get the noise sample. you ask?
Congratulations. You have reinvented the manual hum canceller. See http://www.ethanwiner.com/filters.html (http://www.ethanwiner.com/filters.html)
I have one I built. Works OK, but tends to need readjustment as you move around with a guitar. It's deadly effective for sitting in one spot, though. :icon_lol:
And it needs readjustment at each new site for that location's particular hum blend.
Well, you know, stay still, man! Forget about your Angus Young impersonations!
Since I´m 41 years old, the idea of staying still while I play doesn´t seem so bad. Not that I can do anything else really. The "Old Man Single Coil Noise Reducer" is born? The box would have a legend that says: Caution. Do not use on people under 40.
;D
Quote from: R.G. on July 10, 2009, 01:28:35 PM
Congratulations. You have reinvented the manual hum canceller. See http://www.ethanwiner.com/filters.html (http://www.ethanwiner.com/filters.html)
I have one I built. Works OK, but tends to need readjustment as you move around with a guitar. It's deadly effective for sitting in one spot, though. :icon_lol:
And it needs readjustment at each new site for that location's particular hum blend.
For whatever reason it always seems that there is that 'one' spot, if I spin slowly where most of the hum cancels...sad, though to be stuck there.
I'm truly glad on a regular basis that my ears favor humbuckers, because I can't stand amplifyied hum! My main guitar was a custom order with miswired humbuckers at the factory, humming oddly and bright as a tele...it was like that for months until I elimintated all the variables I could (was even up to gauge 13+ strings to get some meat to the tone), when I got the courage to bring it back, and nearly was sent home with a "that's just the way it is" from the small shop I dealty with, till we tried one last thing and discovered the
obvious. The hum drove me nuts. I don't know what I'd do if I liked true single coils! Worst gig I ever played was with a guy who insisted I play my strat...which is, ironially, now in the shop getting 'humbuckered!' :D
My apologies and condolences to 'true' single coil tele and strat players here alike...
Does anyone else find it ironic that for all the crazy sounding crap we can build, there's no analog 'effect' way to transparently get rid of AC hum? Even R.G. hasn't come up with a satisfactory way, which means it quite simply doesn't exist. :(
We guitarist sure do use some old school, primitive electronic equipment for the sake of timbre when it comes down to it, don't we? :)
Look in the members forum. It's not an effect but a mod to the guitar. It exists.
Look for "Can't see clearly what is on this board...."
Use a good noise gate. That typically takes care of 60-cycle hum from single coil pickups. And of course, doing all of the things possible with shielding your guitar, etc. also helps. Sometimes quite a lot.
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php this sorted all noise on my strat, it's quieter than my les copy with hums, easy to do and it'll get rid of hum while helping to protect you from lethal shocks
I think it'd be a heckuva lot easier to try and make your humbucker sound like a single coil.
Quote from: Scruffie on July 10, 2009, 09:12:18 PM
http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php this sorted all noise on my strat, it's quieter than my les copy with hums, easy to do and it'll get rid of hum while helping to protect you from lethal shocks
Good point! I did this to my strat so many years ago I had forgotten. The difference is dramatic. This is probably the best place to start.
Quote from: liquids on July 10, 2009, 08:10:30 PM
Does anyone else find it ironic that for all the crazy sounding crap we can build, there's no analog 'effect' way to transparently get rid of AC hum? Even R.G. hasn't come up with a satisfactory way, which means it quite simply doesn't exist. :(
I wish it were that definitive, but it's not. :icon_lol:
Quote
We guitarist sure do use some old school, primitive electronic equipment for the sake of timbre when it comes down to it, don't we? :)
We do. But the world has changed. There was not a single high gain fuzz pedal when the Strat pickups were designed, and not for many years after that.
Quote from: Paul Marossy on July 10, 2009, 09:06:10 PM
Use a good noise gate. That typically takes care of 60-cycle hum from single coil pickups. And of course, doing all of the things possible with shielding your guitar, etc. also helps. Sometimes quite a lot.
Good advice. We put a very slight noise gate into the V2 series of pedals and made it switchable. The difference can be dramatic in some situations where you'd otherwise get hum and hiss. As for noise gate pedals, the Demeter one is quite good.
Yeah, noise gates help, but I find objectionable that when they open with the signal, the freq of the hum interacts with the notes, generating intermodulation freqs that muddy up the sound...
The shielding and everything sure helps. Done it.
Didn´t know about the Suhr thingie, looks like a nice addition to a single coil guitar.
About the relation between the fundamental and harmonics in the noise, in my experience is always the harmonics what bothers the most. You can get rid of the fundamental but that doesn't help too much reducing the audible noise. Sadly!
I've heard there are some designs that sound at least 95% of what a single coil sounds, but without the noise. I think that should be enough that anyone in the audience couldn't tell the difference (well, except for the fact that there's no noise!). There's dummy coils and stuff like that too. Maybe worth exploring those options, instead of butchering your audio with notch filters from 60 to 1200hz! :P
Regards
Miguel
Quote from: R.G. on July 10, 2009, 10:53:59 PM
Quote from: Paul Marossy on July 10, 2009, 09:06:10 PM
Use a good noise gate. That typically takes care of 60-cycle hum from single coil pickups. And of course, doing all of the things possible with shielding your guitar, etc. also helps. Sometimes quite a lot.
Good advice. We put a very slight noise gate into the V2 series of pedals and made it switchable. The difference can be dramatic in some situations where you'd otherwise get hum and hiss. As for noise gate pedals, the Demeter one is quite good.
I'm not too sure about noise gate pedals, but I have a built-in noise gate in one of my old ART multi-FX units that works quite well. Some of other ones I have used sucked. I had one from DOD that was especially lame. :icon_mad:
I did notice that the new Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde pedal has the built-in switchable noise gate. It actually works very well - kudos.
Anyhow, I'm sure that RG's suggestion is right on. My experience is from about fifteen years ago now, a lot has changed since then. I try to avoid using noise gates (and compressors - I hate them!), but sometimes they are the best solution to a noise problem.
Quote from: Morocotopo on July 11, 2009, 09:08:19 AM
Yeah, noise gates help, but I find objectionable that when they open with the signal, the freq of the hum interacts with the notes, generating intermodulation freqs that muddy up the sound...
The shielding and everything sure helps. Done it.
Didn´t know about the Suhr thingie, looks like a nice addition to a single coil guitar.
I never noticed that about a noise gate. The only thing I have really noticed is that some noise gate pedals are just not sensitive enough for my liking. I can't really use them, generally speaking.
I have heard that the Suhr method of shielding/grounding using a dummy coil at the back of the guitar works very well. Good shielding and proper grounding techniques will do wonders. But it's also only as good as your weakest link. On my SpankenStrat (http://www.diyguitarist.com/Guitars/SuperStrat.htm), I had to eventually change my single coils to some Fender "Hot Noiseless" types, because even though I shielded the heck out of the guitar and star grounded it, the hum was still there because of the cheap single coil pickups. And for the cost of a decent noise gate pedal, I
permanently fixed the problem by putting better pickups into the guitar. :icon_biggrin:
Quote from: Morocotopo on July 10, 2009, 09:50:09 AM
with one of these you could avoid those hum cancelling pickups that never really sound like a single coil, even if they have been trying for some years now, and with each new model they tell you "this one really, really works!"
IMO, the Fender "Hot Noiseless" pickups that are in my guitar sound very much like single coils, just without the hum.
I think people generally associate hum with single coils, and when they don't hear that hum, they don't think that it sounds right. That 50-60 cycle hum probably does have something to do with their characteristic "dry" sound, but I'll gladly take no noise and 95% of the single coil sound over being annoyed with incessant humming all the time. I get greatly annoyed by that.
If I insisted on having "real" single coils, I would go the noise gate route.
Speaking of noise gates, a friend gave me a MXR noise gate / line driver, must be 30 years old. Just a threshold control and a XLR out besides the usual out jack. No led. It´s the most unusable thing I´ve ever tried! Don´t know if it´s malfunctioning, but the gate part is awful! :icon_mrgreen:
Quote from: Morocotopo on July 11, 2009, 10:39:26 AM
Speaking of noise gates, a friend gave me a MXR noise gate / line driver, must be 30 years old. Just a threshold control and a XLR out besides the usual out jack. No led. It´s the most unusable thing I´ve ever tried! Don´t know if it´s malfunctioning, but the gate part is awful! :icon_mrgreen:
I rest my case. :icon_mrgreen:
EDIT: Yeah, the gate sensitivity is generally where most noise gates (that I have tried) fall down for me.
I use Kinman Pickups in my strat. They are the best noiseless strat repacement pickups out there IMHO! They sound just like the originals.
Does anyone even know what it is that the EHX Hum Debugger does? :P
Wow my MXR noise gate is great. Same one you have. As for the Suhr, it's almost exactly like that site on shielding - but that backplate silent single coil addition is great. The built in one is even better (larger).
I have heard the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage pickups are incredibly good. Never heard them.
Quote from: aron on July 11, 2009, 01:01:01 PM
Wow my MXR noise gate is great. Same one you have.
Really? This thing is grey, one 741 chip and some FEt inside, and not much else, if I don´t remember wrong. Mine must be working badly, I´ll have to check that.
Quote from: aron on July 11, 2009, 01:01:01 PM
Wow my MXR noise gate is great. Same one you have. As for the Suhr, it's almost exactly like that site on shielding - but that backplate silent single coil addition is great. The built in one is even better (larger).
I have heard the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage pickups are incredibly good. Never heard them.
Hey, Aron, didn't you get a Suhr guitar not too long ago?
In any case, from what I can see, all of these noiseless single coil designs rely upon some sort of dummy coil arrangement. On the Fender noiseless pickups, it's a dummy coil on the bottom of the pickup with the same coil pieces going thru both coils. It's essentially a humbucking single coil pickup.
We've been through this before.
1) Noise gates are often applied at the end of a pedal chain, rather than the beginning because noise accumulates over pedals. Of course, at that point the gate-on threshold has to be set so high to contend with the accumulated noise that it dramatically interferes with decent sound, lopping the start and decay off of notes. People blame the gate itself, but the blame really lies in expecting miracles of the gate under adverse circumstances. Gate or downward-expansion control of noise should really be applied near the start AND end of a pedal chain such that neither application has to be drastic. If you can trim off the minimal hiss at the start, then all the pedals that apply gain, whether compressors or distortions or EQ, aren't boosting that hiss. If you have more gating at the end, to supplement that, there will be very little hiss to cut out and controls can be set less aggressively.
2) Don't think of noise control as something that is either there or not, it is a matter of degrees, and every little bit of attempted control over extraneous noise is useful. That can be, better shielding on the guitar, pickups that provide some (though not necessarily complete) hum-reduction, a bit of boost in the guitar to provide a better S/N ratio at the other end of the cable, a bit of gating or downward expansion before the pedal chain, some trimming back of treble or even low bass cut to keep hiss and hum from accumulating, and so on. A db here and there, and pretty soon you have yourself a decent-quality signal.
I've been following this and wonder if anyone has used the boss NS2. A lot of people seem to like it, but I have never tried one myself, and I don't want to fork out $100 just to try. It seems like it might not be your run of the mill noise gate.
>Really? This thing is grey, one 741 chip and some FEt inside, and not much else, if I don´t remember wrong. Mine must be working badly, I´ll have to check that.
Yep. I still remember hitting a small shop in San Jose. This was right before the big "effects pedals" came back. I got the MXR noise gate, DOD Bi-FET and some other pedals .... $10 each. What a bummer I did not buy that bi-phase for $100!!!!!!!
>I use Kinman Pickups in my strat. They are the best noiseless strat repacement pickups out there IMHO! They sound just like the originals.
I like Kinmans - still have some. I've gone through a bunch of strat pickups - Kinmans, Lace Sensor, Duncan, Bill Lawrence, etc.... For my money, I go with Bill Lawrence pickups for noiseless. I haven't tried the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage yet.
The best single coils I have heard are my V60LP Suhr pickups but maybe they are matched to the guitar. I guess I would go with the BPSSC for myself if I ever went all single coils. The reason why I still stick with Bill Lawrence is that when I played my friends 1960 strat, the stock pickups sounded just like the Bill Lawrence pickups I had. I was shocked.
My friend got a Suhr strat and for him, the Suhr clarity and dynamics are unbelievable especially with the Carr amp. But you have to be really good to play with that extreme clarity that the singles and the Carr gives you. I couldn't do it.
Quote from: Mark Hammer on July 11, 2009, 02:41:02 PM
Don't think of noise control as something that is either there or not, it is a matter of degrees, and every little bit of attempted control over extraneous noise is useful.
I agree. But people seem to speak of shielding their guitars *better* as the end all solution to noisy guitars. It helps a lot, but its not a magic bullet. It's a cumulative effect, but still only as good as the weakest link. :icon_confused:
Quote from: aron on July 11, 2009, 04:45:52 PM
>I use Kinman Pickups in my strat. They are the best noiseless strat repacement pickups out there IMHO! They sound just like the originals.
I like Kinmans - still have some. I've gone through a bunch of strat pickups - Kinmans, Lace Sensor, Duncan, Bill Lawrence, etc.... For my money, I go with Bill Lawrence pickups for noiseless. I haven't tried the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage yet.
I was going to get some Bill Lawrence noiseless pickups, but I decided to go with the Fender "Hot Noiseless" pickups because they were designed for Jeff Beck, and I really like the tones he extracts from his Strats. I'm very happy with them. To each his own. :icon_cool:
Yeah, everyone has their favorite pickups, that's what makes it great!
Quote from: aron on July 11, 2009, 05:34:46 PM
Yeah, everyone has their favorite pickups, that's what makes it great!
Yep. I guess it's a good thing that there's not only vanilla ice cream, eh? :icon_mrgreen:
Quote from: Mark Hammer on July 11, 2009, 02:41:02 PM
1) Noise gates are often applied at the end of a pedal chain, rather than the beginning because noise accumulates over pedals. Of course, at that point the gate-on threshold has to be set so high to contend with the accumulated noise that it dramatically interferes with decent sound, lopping the start and decay off of notes. People blame the gate itself, but the blame really lies in expecting miracles of the gate under adverse circumstances. Gate or downward-expansion control of noise should really be applied near the start AND end of a pedal chain such that neither application has to be drastic. If you can trim off the minimal hiss at the start, then all the pedals that apply gain, whether compressors or distortions or EQ, aren't boosting that hiss. If you have more gating at the end, to supplement that, there will be very little hiss to cut out and controls can be set less aggressively
Is this why the Boss NS-2 has an Effects loop? It's intended to cut out noise when you put your straight signal in, then also when it leaves the NS-2?