Dummy Coils and noise reduction

[Will]

This was a happy little mod I made to my '57 Dano a couple days ago; just thought I'd share.

I've been having noise problems with it for months now, mostly due to crappy old wiring in all the places I usually play. I had been using an EHX Hum Debugger that works great, but I wanted something a bit more permanent that would let me plug directly into the amp. After a little research, I settled on a dummy coil.

For anyone who doesn't know, a dummy coil is just like a regular pickup but with no magnet. It's wired out-of-phase (in series or parallel) with your existing pickup(s) and stuck inside the guitar body. Any RF, LF, or AF interference that would normally be picked up by you regular pickup (acting as an antenna) is also picked up by the dummy coil, but 180 degrees out of phase. The noise signal is canceled out just like a humbucker. Provided you get the physical placement of it correct, it works extremely well. A "stacked" single coil is just a regular SC with a built-in dummy coil.

It's possible to make your own by getting a cheap ceramic Strat pup and breaking the magnet off the bottom. To be most effective, though, it has to match the specs and geometry of the pickup as close as possible. For the Dano this was a problem, and nothing I could home-brew really worked. After searching, I found Vintage Vibe Guitars. I emailed Pete, and $45 + 1 week later I had a custom-wound dummy coil. I used foam to wedge it inside my Dano, wired it up in series, and the noise was gone. Not perfect, but a solid 70-80% reduction in buzz and hum. Side-by-side, it actually has less buzz now than my 335. The tone was darkened a bit, but adjusting the EQ fixed that no problem.

I can't recommend Pete and VVG enough. The coil works perfectly, is extremely well-made, and got here in 8 days even with Christmas in the middle. I asked for a coil that would match my lipstick at 3.66k, and the final product was 3.73k. That's a 1.9% margin of error!

Even if you don't use VVG (yes, I promised him a plug), it's a great mod if you have some extra room inside your guitar.

[gaybear]

neat idea! i never even thought of that.

[DGNR8]

Good to know. Wow, they have a Charlie Christian for a decent price.

[Bacchus]

Why haven't I heard of these? Why aren't they more common?

[Will]

Why haven't I heard of these? Why aren't they more common?

To that, I have no good answer. Gibson used them in the Nighthawk, but I can't think of any other major model. Suhr started including them as a custom option for this model year. They also offer a strat back-plate with a coil built-in, though it's stupid expensive.

My guess is that for the longest time in the 70s and 80s humbuckers were the major trend. By the 90s and 2000s, the whole tone-snob trend started to take hold and they were resistant to look into it because of the tone change. A tone-snob is, by definition, a purist. Most makers were content with humbuckers. Fender has never seemed particularly concerned with reducing noise. They do have their line of silent single coils, though, which include a built-in dummy coil. Other makers interested in reducing noise, like Nat Daniels, tended to focus on shielding rather than cancellation. That doesn't answer the question, though, because the concept of a dummy coil has been around since the 20s.

An add-on dummy coil is usually still noisier than a humbucker, though not necessarily. Careful consideration has to be paid to placement. There is a tone change. If you put the coil in parallel, the tone thins and becomes quieter. If you put in in series, it dulls slightly. Series is the less drastic change by far. Specifically, series increases the PUP's DC resistance which magnifies the effect of coil and cable capacitance. It's equivalent to turning the tone control down a minute amount. Thus, to compensate all I had to do was turn my tone up a touch. I know my Dano's sound very intimately, and the change was negligible compared to the massive improvement in the noise floor. YMMV. I know my Dano's pickup is extremely inductive, and it tends to respond to resistance/capacitance changes less drastically than my Mustang for example.

Still, if you have a noise problem, extra room in your guitar, and some know how I think it's an amazing mod.

[Bacchus]

Still, if you have a noise problem, extra room in your guitar, and some know how I think it's an amazing mod.

Absolutely.

I can see how guitarists would turn their back on this, we are a fairly polar bunch, I suppose, and this sort of represents some sort of middle ground.

I think that, by and large, guitarists when presented with a solution to a problem, we tend to see the worst of both worlds rather than the best of both worlds.

[Will]

Still, if you have a noise problem, extra room in your guitar, and some know how I think it's an amazing mod.

Absolutely.

I can see how guitarists would turn their back on this, we are a fairly polar bunch, I suppose, and this sort of represents some sort of middle ground.

I think that, by and large, guitarists when presented with a solution to a problem, we tend to see the worst of both worlds rather than the best of both worlds.

The whole zeitgeist of guitar-dom has become extremely originalist in the last few years especially. Often it's forgotten that the industry moved forward for very good reasons. TGPers and snobs can raise as many pseudo-scientific arguments as they like about the merits of a single tone control or single volume on an amp, but it doesn't change the fact that a 3 or more band tone stack works better 99% of the time. Alnico speakers are period correct, but they distort nastily if you play close-voiced harmonies Digital is more versatile than analog. Old single coils sound great, but they buzz like bees.

The average listener doesn't care if my '57 Dano is bone-stock, but they do care if there's an off-key buzz coming from my amp.

[Bacchus]

I think that with guitarists it goes beyond just gear and tech stuff, though, or that the gear and tech stuff isn't what's making them hold the opinions they have. I think there's often something that aspires to be part what they see as a tradition (that probably doesn't exist) that maybe includes Jimi Hendrix, SRV et al (or whatever other couple of guitarists they are copying, or whatever other type of setup they are copying).

I think that pseudo-science is used to justify the gear that they think puts them in the same group as people they admire. "I can't play blues on a BC Rich, a Strat was played by Hendrix, now a Strat must be played by me." It's like the gear is more important than the player. It's why I love showing up to gigs with a Jag-Stang and playing fairly sleazy blues. People don't expect it.

I think that guitarists buy into an image thing that they attach to the gear too, despite the fact that most people in the crowd don't care or notice what the guitar looks like. I think that there's a part of that image in not having a dummy coil under your scratchplate.

This is one of the reasons I love reading bass forums. Bassists don't seem to do this. It's odd. Somebody in a bass forum asks what's a good bass for metal, and someone will mention the Marcus Miller signature Jazz Bass. Someone will ask what's a good bass for jazz or funk, and someone will mention that they own a BC Rich or s Steinberger or something that they've used at gigs before.

No-one ever mentions that the Tele bridge pickup sounds great for metal, or that an Ibanez RG neck pickup will do well for jazz.

[Will]

Exactly. In fact, I played a buddy's old Ibanez S-series from the 80s. Thing was hair-metal to the bone, but the sound of the neck pickup was amazingly sweet. It was a great jazz guitar!

I have a Silvertone 1448 that I keep strung with cheap 9s or 10s and a Fender Champ 110. It's Cat Power's exact rig from the 1994-1997 period, and nails the sound perfectly. It's also a noisy and extremely flawed rig. It's fun to have all the right stuff, but it's not really useful to me. I suppose I'm guilty of some of that star-worship as well.

[stewart]

This is one of the reasons I love reading bass forums. Bassists don't seem to do this. It's odd.

many's the time i've been put off watching a band because the bassist has some sort of monstrosity that looks like les claypool's nightmare, and they're playing 60s style beat music or something. it's like someone having a ponytail playing rockabilly. it's kind of anachronistic. i think image is important to a degree, and most of the people here do too, or you wouldn't have someone turning up every week asking how they can make their jag sound like a les paul. depends on the situation though, if you're just in to jamming around in pubs i don't think it's such a big deal. i can see both sides of the snobbery argument.