simple pickup question

[antispatula]

My guitar is noisey. Someone said it was my crappy pickups. If I buy new pickups, will it help with the noise? I know it isn't my amp. Which should I get for a nice clean sound? (for under 200 bucks preferibly......)

I don't know anything about this kind of stuff!

Thanks!

 

[Outlaws]

My guitar is noisey. Someone said it was my crappy pickups. If I buy new pickups, will it help with the noise? I know it isn't my amp. Which should I get for a nice clean sound? (for under 200 bucks preferibly......)

I don't know anything about this kind of stuff!

Thanks!

What kind of pickups are in there now?

 

[antispatula]

no clue. It's just a cheap silvertone guitar I got new for like 99 bucks with a crappy amp.

 

[Dani Pace]

Sounds like a shielding issue. Is the inside of the cavity (the hole where the controls and the hole(s) for the pickups) either lined with foil or painted with different paint? If not then you may be getting a lot of noise from interference. Linning the cavities with foil is the best way of shielding. The paint on type of shielding works fairly well if you apply several coats (I suggest three.) Even if you decide to change pickups, shielding would be a beneficial thing to do, it's not very expensive and not too hard to do and might surprise you by the difference it will make.

 

[antispatula]

hey, thanks, I'll try lining the inside of the cavity with a layer of foil! But would getting new pickups be a good idea for an overall better sound?

 

[antispatula]

I just layerd the inside with a few layers of tinfoil, it didn't do anything.....

 

[ggunn]

I just layerd the inside with a few layers of tinfoil, it didn't do anything.....

Did you ground the foil?

 

[Audiocave]

I just layerd the inside with a few layers of tinfoil, it didn't do anything.....

Make sure to ground the foil and include the pick guard as part of the shield. If you have multiple cavities you need to shield them as well and provide a connection to ground. While shielding will reduce the hum in a noticable way from a non-shielded guitar you might want to investigate some of the noisless pickups out on the market. I have an American Deluxe tele with SCN pickups and they are very quiet but there are other pickups available and I'm sure you will find many knowledgable opinions on this site as to which ones are better. Good luck to you.

 

[antispatula]

can you tell me how to ground the tinfoil? I get the concept of grounding, but am pretty new to this kind of stuff. Thanks.

 

[ggunn]

can you tell me how to ground the tinfoil? I get the concept of grounding, but am pretty new to this kind of stuff. Thanks.

Connect a wire from the foil to something that is grounded, like the back of a pot.

 

[Fade]

Are they single coil pickups or humbuckers? Single coils are always a bit noisey. I just put a Seymour Duncan in my Strat and it has helped a bunch it terms of noise and tone. That said, if your guitar was $99 with an amp I wouldn't spend a dime on upgrading it. There is no sense putting a $110 pickup in a $99 guitar. I suggest you just deal with it for now, save your pennies, and when you can afford it upgrade the whole guitar with a shiney new one. I guarantee you will be way happier in the end with a better all around guitar.

 

[antispatula]

actaully, I thought of that, but it has sentimental value and a bunch of cool stickers on it.

Wait, so I connect a wire to the back of one of the pots.....ok, but how do I connect a wire to tinfoil?

 

[ggunn]

actaully, I thought of that, but it has sentimental value and a bunch of cool stickers on it.

Wait, so I connect a wire to the back of one of the pots.....ok, but how do I connect a wire to tinfoil?

I dunno; improvise. Solder? Electrical tape? Thumbtack? Chewing gum?

 

[ez_willis]

Dude, there's a site called Guitar Nuts that will give you a few more details that are essential to shielding a strat, or other guitar having single coil pickups.

You do have single coil pickups, right?

 

[ez_willis]

That said, if your guitar was $99 with an amp I wouldn't spend a dime on upgrading it.

I disagree, completely. I have a $99 Squire Strat that I shielded and put a humbucker in the bridge position and I think it rocks, for the most part. It's got jumbo frets that are perfect for my sausage like bass player fingers. With the proper shielding it's real quiet in each of the 5 positions.

If you don't have money for a higher quality instrument, make the best of the one you have to keep you interested in playing it.

 

[Dani Pace]

Something else just occured to me, inexpensive guitar, inexpensive amp, is there a cheap cable conecting the two? You might want to check the solder joints too, a bad conection can cause noise and hum. Not only are the pickups on inexpensive guitars of a lower quality, so are the rest of the electronics, in other words you could have a noisy pot or a bad cap on a tone control. If you decide to upgrade the pickups, I also recomend you also upgrade the rest of the electronics while you are at it. It can only sound as good as the weakest link in the conectivity chain will allow it to.