single coil pup hum

[copacetic]

I have an old ‘55 Precision with a single coil Seymour Duncan. Now this was done 20 years ago and I forget all the details, however it has that hum. I’m thinking start with shielding and see how that goes and if still there replace the pup, maybe a Lindy Fralin ‘51 which supposedly would drop right in. Any one here have any suggestions for a better procedure or parts? Thanks

[FrankieTbird]

I have an old ‘55 Precision with a single coil Seymour Duncan. Now this was done 20 years ago and I forget all the details, however it has that hum. I’m thinking start with shielding and see how that goes and if still there replace the pup, maybe a Lindy Fralin ‘51 which supposedly would drop right in. Any one here have any suggestions for a better procedure or parts? Thanks

As you probably know, the pickup itself does not generate the hum, it derives from external sources.  I can usually just turn 90 degrees or so, and find a physical position where the hum goes away.  If it's there ALL the time, then most likely a grounding issue.

[Basvarken]

Single coils will always have that problem if the shielding is not done properly.

[Dave W]

Even with shielding, you'll still have single coil hum.

The Fralin Split '51 is hum cancelling, not his regular '51. Nordstrand and Aguilar offer split '51 size versions too. If you had the original pickup, I'd say find a way to live with the hum, but since you don't...

[amptech]

Agree to all above. First establish what hum it is (natural because of the relative distance to amp/gain/angle etc. or unnatural because of bad wiring/loose soldering or lack of shielding). With one single coil you can have good results with normal twisted wires and cavity shielding. I recall Rick Turner saying 'too much shielding is probably just enough' 

[Basvarken]

Jess Loureiro (from Spain) makes a great pickup that has the 51P dimensions but can be used in series or parallel

https://www.jlguitars.com/index.php?id_product=30&id_product_attribute=0&rewrite=p-bass-51-coil-split-tele-bass&controller=product&id_lang=8






I used one in the Telebird