Jazz pickups vs. fluourescent lights

[Mark Zeger]

I was auditioning a MIM Active 5 str. Jazz in a store and the individual pickup hum was louder than I expected. The store employee said it was the fluourescent lights above me, and held the bass closer to the light fixture to prove the point. It was a room in the store with a low ceiling. The store employee suggested replacing the pickups with EMGs @ $125/pr.

 

My home studio is in a finished basement with fluourescent lights and a low ceiling, so I'm concerned about this potential noise source. I can get a 48 hour at home trial for the bass.

 

What are other solutions are there to the fluourescent lighting hum problem? OK, other than playing in the dark or getting an incandescent lamp. Grounding? Other hum cancelling pickup recommendations?

[jeremy c]

Jazz basses have single coil pickups.

They will hum when the pickups are soloed.

When both pickups are all the way up, they act like one big humbucker and they won't hum.

I always have both pickups all the way up on my jazz. In fact, I never use the dials, one of these days I'll just remove them.

 

Two possible solutions:

1)Get stacked jazz bass pickups. Several companies make them, including Fender which calls them noiseless pickups...they're still stacked pickups.

2)Use a noise gate. I played once on a stage that had neon lights all over the place and the spotlights were on the same circuit as the stage power....the hum and buzz was unbearable. A gate was the only thing that worked.

[fantasticsound]

Jeremy is on the money.

 

You'll have much better hum rejection with potted humbuckers. If you want the single coil sound, you'll need to see how they react with your home fluorescent lights. I've worked in several music stores where fluorescent lights were problematic. Mostly because they were on the same circuits as the outlets instrument amps were plugged in to.

 

Modern, high quality fixtures shouldn't cause this problem. A lot depends on the wiring in the walls.

[_Sweet Willie_]

Originally posted by jeremyc:

Two possible solutions:

1)Get stacked jazz bass pickups. Several companies make them, including Fender which calls them noiseless pickups...they're still stacked pickups.

2)Use a noise gate. I played once on a stage that had neon lights all over the place and the spotlights were on the same circuit as the stage power....the hum and buzz was unbearable. A gate was the only thing that worked.

There is another option to stacked humbucking jazz p'ups -- side by side dual-coil humbucking p'ups. These are sort of like having a P-bass p'up arranged in a straight line -- DiMarzio, Bartolini, and others make them. They tend to sound not as compressed as stacked humbuckers, but not as "open" as single coils. However, sometimes the 5-string versions aren't quite as quiet as the 4-string versions -- I'm not gonna explain why right now, but will try to if someone asks for more detail later.

 

Peace.