Recommendations?

[Fretless]

I have a Squier VM fretless Jazz bass. Love it to death, but the single-coil buzz is drivin' me nutz! My favorite tone is the bridge pup, but with the dodgy wiring in my house, I have to roll the tone pot half off to kill the dynamo hum. Can y'all recommend a noiseless set that sounds good and won't break the bank(prolly have to wait til tax time next year any way)? any suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance!

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Before you spend any money, just pull the pickups and do a thorough shielding job.  Aluminum foil works fine. No need to go for copper. New pickups (single coils anyway) would just hum too!

[nofi]

i have the same bass and mine is dead quiet. it could be the good fender/bad fender syndrome instead of your house wiring.

[Pilgrim]

I'd try it in different rooms, standing at least 8 feet away from the amp.

Amps can cause RF interference, and it's not unusual for a specific room to have RF problems because of lighting or wiring.  If you are in a room with fluorescent lights, that's a common RF problem.

Shielding is also in your future, as noted above.

[Fretless]

Before you spend any money, just pull the pickups and do a thorough shielding job.  Aluminum foil works fine. No need to go for copper. New pickups (single coils anyway) would just hum too!

How would the self-adhesive aluminum tape that is used on ac ducts work? No fluorescents in the music room, and if I stand at an angle to the amp about 6 feet from it, the buzz goes away. It does show up at various distances regardless of my position relative to the amp. House is over a century old and has been rewired, though not by me. It has Romex wiring replacing the original, cloth-wrapped wiring. Not a major thing-I'm not playing out anymore, just not crazy about 60hz buzz. Not enough room for 2 dummy coils(rw/rp pups), and even linear buckers lose that 'something' that makes single coils so sweet. I'll try the shielding and get back to y'all! Thanks again!

[Dave W]

How would the self-adhesive aluminum tape that is used on ac ducts work? No fluorescents in the music room, and if I stand at an angle to the amp about 6 feet from it, the buzz goes away. It does show up at various distances regardless of my position relative to the amp. House is over a century old and has been rewired, though not by me. It has Romex wiring replacing the original, cloth-wrapped wiring. Not a major thing-I'm not playing out anymore, just not crazy about 60hz buzz. Not enough room for 2 dummy coils(rw/rp pups), and even linear buckers lose that 'something' that makes single coils so sweet. I'll try the shielding and get back to y'all! Thanks again!

There's no way around at least some 60 cycle hum with single coil pickups. Interference from house wiring, if that's what you have, is different.

There are self-adhesive tapes for shielding but they have conductive adhesive.

i have the same bass and mine is dead quiet. it could be the good fender/bad fender syndrome instead of your house wiring.

The Squier VM Jazz bass comes standard with two single coil pickups. If yours has no 60 cycle hum, then yours must have different pickups.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I just use plain old kitchen foil, no adhesive necessary. It's not something a manufacturer would do, but it works fine. Never had a single problem out of any of the dozen or so I used it on, including my own basses. Remember, you're not trying to hermetically seal off the wood, you're electrically shielding it. Under the pickguard, if your shielding is done right, it will never move anyway. Just press the foil into the wood to the point that it forms to the shape and make sure all your grounds terminate to it directly. If the hum changes relative to your amp, it's the amp, not your house wiring giving off the RFI anyway. Some noise at very close distances is normal, but not at more than a foot or two away. I'll bet money your bass probably has a cold bridge ground. The pickups are grounding through the amp circuit, but the shielding/grounding is not tied to them well, making your bass hum.

[Fretless]

Thanks for your insight. I'll take a look in the control cavity for that possible cold bridge ground(wonder why I didn't think of that?), and see what I can do to make this rascal a bit more housebroken. It has Designed by Duncan pups and they do sound great. Wish I had room for a pair of dummy coils.

[nofi]

my bass has stock pickups. i'm well aware of the noise problem from squiers up to american made jazz basses. however, i have never had this problem with any jazz i've owned. roughly one bass from each decade starting with my 1966 on up  to now. go figure. i owe it all to clean living and fancy footwork.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Another very easy fix is to check for shielding on the bottom of the pickguard. Stock Fenders have it installed, but I could easily see a Chinese Squier contract factory leaving it off to cut costs.

My money is still on the bridge ground and you probably can't visually verify that, though you could plug an instrument cable into the output jack and use a volt meter to check continuity between the shield on the cable and the bridge; wouldn't even have to open the bass up. Modern Fender Jazz Basses have a hole from the output jack that physically leads to the bridge. This terminates to the electronics in the bass through the jack ground and keeps the strings, hardware, and everything else metal connected to them from being antennas for RF. If the connection to the bridge is not soldered well or the bridge has some non-conductive slag where the wire terminates underneath (which is not uncommon, especially in budget models) or the ground wire is broken or missing then the metal parts of the bass are going to pick up RF and induce that noise through the wiring. New pickups, even humbuckers, won't fix it.

[Fretless]

No pickguard. it is Squier's budget Jaco model. Haven't had a chance to look at it yet-gotta keep Mama happy, lol. Stay tuned!

[Highlander]

... i owe it all to clean living and fancy footwork.

[Fretless]

Control cavity is nicely shielded(conductive paint, ground wires attached to cavity wall). Have not removed bridge to see if ground wire is touching. The hum is faint, but (to me)noticeable. tried backing tone control halfway off and got an interesting tone-not sure if I'm in love with it yet, but it ain't bad at all, and no buzz. Looks like I'm stuck with this option or get a set of Model J's

[Dave W]

No matter how good your shielding job is, it can't eliminate 60 cycle hum from single coil pickups.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

If rolling off the tone knob cures it for real and not just masks the harmonics, it's almost certainly a grounding issue. You will never be fully free of hum with single coils but I've played single coil pickups in front of big tube amps throwing out major RF for many years and never had any problems outside of a foot from the amp (neon signs are seriously evil for noise, but costs and LED's have pretty much wiped them out).