Fulltone1989 Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Hy everyone, I've been playing my ES339 and LOVING IT for the past 3 years, awesome guitar. However, I have recently noticed that there is a noticeable hum when either at the neck or bridge pickup, but never in the middle position. I don't really know a lot about pickups, so could this could be a normal thing, or something to get checked out? It's still got the stock Classic 57's in there. What could this problem be, if there is one? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Watsky Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 FWIW, Thats typical and likely has to do with the coils of the individual pickups being intentionally slightly mismatched in ohms to allow for a good high frequency response. When you switch to middle position you have 2 sets of matched coils in proximity to each other and the noise is canceled. I by way of confession am no electrical expert, this is just such a common observation that I've had to hatch a theory. Usually the bit of hum is at such a low volume that its what I call a "practice room problem" you will not hear it under normal circumstances , say for instance when you are actually playing the instrument. You hear this with most humbuckers that don't have matched coils, which is a standard practice these days as players complain of the humbuckers being to "dark" sounding or "muddy" if the coils are perfectly matched. Cheers ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fulltone1989 Posted February 6, 2012 Author Share Posted February 6, 2012 FWIW, Thats typical and likely has to do with the coils of the individual pickups being intentionally slightly mismatched in ohms to allow for a good high frequency response. When you switch to middle position you have 2 sets of matched coils in proximity to each other and the noise is canceled. I by way of confession am no electrical expert, this is just such a common observation that I've had to hatch a theory. Usually the bit of hum is at such a low volume that its what I call a "practice room problem" you will not hear it under normal circumstances , say for instance when you are actually playing the instrument. You hear this with most humbuckers that don't have matched coils, which is a standard practice these days as players complain of the humbuckers being to "dark" sounding or "muddy" if the coils are perfectly matched. Cheers ! This makes a lot of sense, and the "practice room hum" you described sounds a lot like what I've been experiencing. Thanks for the response! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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