ShortScale.org

Wondering if anyone has any experience with the humcancelled jazzmaster pickup being sold by Novak? Here is the link: http://curtisnovak.com/pickups/jm-hc.shtml

Specifically, the JM-HC which is claimed to retain the jazzmaster tone with no hum. I love my Jazzmaster and play it live in a cover band, but it is more difficult to control under gain than, say, my Les Paul for obvious reason.

Any experience? Any other options I should look into?

Thanks,

Joe

That pickup will suit you for higher gain stuff but it is a stacked humbucker, so I presume it'd sound different to a stock JM pickup. I'm guessing the Novak HC uses a dummy coil for the hum-cancelling so that it retains a lot of single coil character tonally. Gibson P100s were like this and are a bit smoother/less articulate than P90s, though not totally without a bit of single-coil chime.

I don't believe that pickup could sound just like a regular JM unit; it says "retains the most vintage JM tone" [meaning out of the 2 hum-cancelling JM options he offers] and then later he says it's "as close as you're going to get with a humbucker" to vintage JM tone. It's carefully worded to sound quite favorable to those looking for nothing but less hum, but the pickup must sound different in other ways too.

I should note I've had great results with a JB Jr minihum (a proper full-on HAWT bucker) in my Jaguar for years... it doesn't automatically rob a classic-spec offset of it's signature character to slap a bucker in it, surprisingly enough. As a sort of general rule I'd say tune-o-matic bridges (which I've also mucked with on the Jag) are far more intrusive on the sound and feel than a pickup change, they just don't jangle or chime nearly as much in my experience.

paul_ wrote:That pickup will suit you for higher gain stuff but it is a stacked humbucker, so I presume it'd sound different to a stock JM pickup. I'm guessing the Novak HC uses a dummy coil for the hum-cancelling so that it retains a lot of single coil character tonally. Gibson P100s were like this and are a bit smoother/less articulate than P90s, though not totally without a bit of single-coil chime.

I don't believe that pickup could sound just like a regular JM unit; it says "retains the most vintage JM tone" [meaning out of the 2 hum-cancelling JM options he offers] and then later he says it's "as close as you're going to get with a humbucker" to vintage JM tone. It's carefully worded to sound quite favorable to those looking for nothing but less hum, but the pickup must sound different in other ways too.

I should note I've had great results with a JB Jr minihum (a proper full-on HAWT bucker) in my Jaguar for years... it doesn't automatically rob a classic-spec offset of it's signature character to slap a bucker in it, surprisingly enough. As a sort of general rule I'd say tune-o-matic bridges (which I've also mucked with on the Jag) are far more intrusive on the sound and feel than a pickup change, they just don't jangle or chime nearly as much in my experience.

Would a regular roller bridge help with character? Or does it need to be a Jag or Mustang bridge? If you had a Classic Player for example how would you go about getting a more jangly tone?

Medicine Melancholy wrote:
Would a regular roller bridge help with character? Or does it need to be a Jag or Mustang bridge? If you had a Classic Player for example how would you go about getting a more jangly tone?

I'm speaking mainly of classic spec Jags that have had TOMs slapped on, have no experience with CPs yet. I think the CP Jag is supposed to do a way better job (with the Jag-character + TOM aspect), so I've read on here anyway. My TOM wasn't even threaded into cups or anything, just slipped into the existing jag/jazz bridge post cups (which the large posts of an import TOM will fill out nicely).