# 60 Cycle Hum eliminator



## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Anyone have any experiences with these in their guitar rigs? http://www.thomann.de/gb/ebtech_by_morley_hum_eliminator_2.htm

They seem to be pretty cheap and if they work as advertised might be a great thing for us single coil players.


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## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

...while this device does help to quell single-coil hum somewhat (i'd estimate about 5%), the purpose of it is to eliminate ground loop hum when you have a lot of devices routed through your effects loop.

in that context, it is a life saver.

some folks use noise gates to solve single coil buzz but, in my experience, they mess with your tone, kill your dynamics and chop off your sustain.

for single coil hum, you have three options:

1. drastically reduce the amount of gain/distortion
2. install noiseless pickups
3. install the suhr silent backplate system
4. learn to live with the hum

i've tried all four options - the only one that left me unsatisfied was noiseless pickups.

-dh


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

david henman said:


> ...while this device does help to quell single-coil hum somewhat (i'd estimate about 5%), the purpose of it is to eliminate ground loop hum when you have a lot of devices routed through your effects loop.
> 
> in that context, it is a life saver.
> 
> ...


I tried the noisless pup system route. Not for me. I talked to Seppo at Frankenstien guitars about the possibliity of shielding the cavities of the guitar. He said in his experiences it is ineffective.
I don't know what the suhr silent back plate system is.
I am content to live with the single coil hum if there is no workable alternative.


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## Samsquantch (Mar 5, 2009)

guitarman2 said:


> I don't know what the suhr silent back plate system is.


I have it installed on my guitar and it eliminates about 90% of 60-cycle hum. It's a more effective option than noiseless single coils IMO, as there is no change in your tone whatsoever.

http://www.suhrguitars.com/pickups.aspx#bpssc

http://www.suhrguitars.com/downloads/pdf/BPSSC_Flyer.pdf

http://www.suhrguitars.com/downloads/reviews/Suhr_BPSSC_Review_G1.pdf


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## 4345567 (Jun 26, 2008)

__________


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

Samsquantch said:


> I have it installed on my guitar and it eliminates about 90% of 60-cycle hum. It's a more effective option than noiseless single coils IMO, as there is no change in your tone whatsoever.
> 
> http://www.suhrguitars.com/pickups.aspx#bpssc
> 
> ...


I see it advertised with strats only. Can you get this for Tele's? Would a cavity have to be routed?


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## Samsquantch (Mar 5, 2009)

I don't know a whole lot about Teles, but I think you can get it installed on any guitar with single coils. I think your question would be better directed to John Suhr. He is pretty quick to respond, but keep your e-mail brief and to the point if you are going to contact him, as he gets many e-mails a day. [email protected]. You could also contact Cosmo Music in Richmond Hill. They sell and service Suhr guitars and products.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

guitarman2 said:


> I see it advertised with strats only. Can you get this for Tele's? Would a cavity have to be routed?


The Suhr backplate system is one of many different versions of what is called a "dummy coil". Since the Strat is probably the single most common single-coil-based guitars in the world, and since it has that humungous plastic back cover over the springs, it was the perfect starting point for his venture.

So what is a dummy coil and why is it on the backplate? All pickups act like antennae to one degree or another. The "station" they pick up is 60hz electromagnetic hum from transformers, motors, and anything else that takes 60hz AC from the wall and does something with it. Like ANY antenna, the reception can be poor or good, depending on how one is oriented to the source.

Humbucker pickups work by providing two coils, wired out of phase with each other. Since those two coils are side by side, they tend to pick up the source of hum equally. And when those out-of-phase hums are combined, they cancel. Since the stuff that the polepieces pick up is actually electronically* in-*phase, it sums rather than cancels. Ta-da! Great guitar sound without hum.

So-called dummy coils work just like a two-coil humbucker, with one major difference: the two coils both pick up hum, but only one of them picks up string. The challenge of using them is two-fold:
- As noted, the two coils have to sense the hum equally. If the actual pickup senses more hum than the dummy, or vice versa, you get minimal hum-cancelling. Also as noted, generally speaking, they need to be near each other to sense equal amounts of hum.
- If the dummy coil is placed in parallel or series with the sensing coil, it contributes to the inductance of the overall assembly, which changes the tone. Indeed, it is the change in inductance, relative to true single-coil PUs that leads so many to reject many of the various "noiseless" SC units out there which stack one coil on top of another.

The Suhr system is extremely clever by virtue of how it handles both of these challenges. First, if I stuck a dummy coil beside my neck pickup, it might produce hum cancelling for that one, but the same coil would not do as much for the bridge or middle pickup, because the distance alters the sensitivity to the same source of hum. Suhr designed a low profile coil that skirts the perimeter of the backplate, which ends up being equally sensitive to the hum source by virtue of its large circumference, regardless of whether it is merged with the neck, middle or bridge PU.

Second, the coil contributes minimally to the overall inductance, such that the original pickups sound like they should. I tried one of the uits out at the Montreal Guitar Expo a few years ago, and was quite impressed with it. Even leaned that sucker up against the power transformer of a big 100W head and very very little hum came through.

So, to address your question, "Could there be a Suhr dummy coil for a Tele?" Not really certain. First, there IS no comparable backplate that would permit easily installed coils that surround both pickups. Second, that bridge pickup on a Tele is a different sort of beast, compared to a Strat bridge PU, so I don't know if it would be possible to tune a single dummy coil to work equally optimally for both PUs. Having said that, years ago I made a dummy coil for a friend's Tele and simply stuck it in the control cavity. It didn't cancel ALL hum, but it cut it by half, and that made a helluva difference. I went to see him gig with it, and it didn't seem to make a whit of difference in tone.


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