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Topic: New device that removes noise from single coil pickups |
Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 29 Oct 2022 9:18 am |
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I have developed a new circuit that removes the noise from single coil pickups. The new device even improves the clarity of humbucking pickups. I am planning on offering the new circuit as an add on special purchase to the 3 different pedals I build. The market is loaded down with hum eliminating devices. Most of these devices do nothing when it comes to eliminating hum. People go to Amazon, and buy a hum eliminating box without knowing anything about the noise they are trying to eliminate. They also know nothing about the box they are buying on Amazon. There are many causes of hum, to name just a few: Common Mode noise, differential mode noise, EMI, RFI--- ETC. A good 80% of noise comes from dirty power in 120 volt AC wall receptacles. The remaining 20% comes from the equipment a person is using, and how the equipment is hooked together. Single coil pickups act like a antenna picking up noise, and that is only one aspect of the 20% of noise in equipment.
Stay tuned, and understand my new circuit is not just another hum eliminating circuit, it is new and revolutionary. If I include the circuit as a add on to my pedals, I will again have raised the technical advancement of controlling sound with a volume pedal. |
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Brooks Montgomery
From:
Idaho, USA
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Posted 29 Oct 2022 10:31 am
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Teasing up a lot of fish here! When do we get to see and learn more?
_________________
A banjo, like a pet monkey, seems like a good idea at first. |
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Chris Boyd
From:
Leonia,N.J./Charlestown,R.I.
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Jack Hanson
From:
San Luis Valley, USA
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Posted 29 Oct 2022 5:23 pm
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| How much do you anticipate the device will add to the cost of a $350 pedal? |
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Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 29 Oct 2022 11:39 pm
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| Interesting. I carry one of those “devices” in my seat in my gig bag for other gigs. It is essentially to remove a ground loop hum and it has a literally saved multiple shows. But obviously that’s different than you were talking about. Look forward to hearing about it more. |
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Dale Rottacker
From:
Walla Walla Washington, USA
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Per Berner
From:
Skövde, Sweden
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 7:28 am
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Would be very interesting as a stand-alone unit if it works! My Telecaster really needs something like that.
Is it optimized to take care of 60 Hz hum, or will it work on the other side of the big pond as well? |
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ajm
From:
Los Angeles
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 9:09 am
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Just my own $0.02 here.............
"Hum" and "noise" are often intermixed and jumbled together and confused.
IMO they are NOT the same. They come from different sources.
In general:
Hum has to do with the AC line and power supply filtering and ground loops and bad electrical outlets and such. It is usually the frequency of your AC power source.
Noise is what your pickups introduce into the signal. It usually comes from lights, beer signs, and in general just "hash" floating around in the air. It can be one or multiple frequencies.
If you turn down the tone control on your guitar, and the problem goes away, that is a noise problem, not a hum problem. The offending signal is above 60 Hz and is therefore in the range of the tone control.
If you have a guitar with single coil pickups, and you hold it out in front of you and rotate it and the problem goes away or gets worse/better, that is a noise problem and not hum.
Shielding a single coil guitar like a Strat can help to reduce the noise (I have personally seen it). However, it won't get rid of it entirely.
Therefore, I believe that what most players usually have issues with are noise, and not hum.
I have gone to noise cancelling/HB pickups in almost all of my guitars.
It's nice to strum a clean shimmering chord with lots of reverb/chorus/delay and listen to it fade away, without this BZZZZZZT in the background.
These noise issues can really kill a recording session.
I read a quote one time that said that noise is not music, it's noise.
Note that PGS players probably have less of an issue with noise than six stringers for a couple of reasons.
a) Fading a volume pedal in and out also fades the noise.
b) Overdrive/distortion/fuzz is used more on sixers, and those effects will also amplify the noise that is being originated at the guitar.
I am only aware of two fixes for a noise problem (aside from using a noise gate/suppressor and/or a volume pedal):
a) Noise cancelling a.k.a. "Humbucking" pickups.
b) There is a circuit that is used in some Music Man guitars that is also available separately. I think that it was designed by a company called Ilitch. It is built in to the trem/vibrato cover back plate and is wired in with the pickups to cancel out noise.
Maybe Keith has a new trick up his sleeve. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with. |
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 11:15 am
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ajm, your ideas and work on noise, and hum, are great. The cutting edge electronic development is like it has always been. Meaning, the break throughs have not come from the guitar industry, but from the telephone and computer industries. If you were researching a new electronic concept, where would your research lead you? For me, it is researching new integrated circuits developed for the telephone and computer industries. I then experiment trying to see how these integrated circuits might apply to the music industry.
I do have some concerns before bringing my new product to market. There are different kinds of noise, and different kinds of hum. I see people going on Amazon and dropping money in a dark hole, and the noise, or hum, still be there. I don't want people to think my new device is a noise, and hum, cure all. As I stated in my first post: 80% of the noise, and hum, issues come from the AC wall plug, and 20% from the musical equipment and connections. I don't know of any device that guarantees total elimination of noise and hum in every situation-- all the time. I would hate to sell a electronic device only to have a customer disappointed.
Conventional power conditioners will not solve noise and hum, they only keep the voltage at 120VAC. I am now running a power line AC filter called a "PG-P" made by Black Lion. I played a show last night in Branson, Missouri with my new "PG-P". Maybe it is my imagination, but I felt like the clean AC made the tone, and clearness, of my steel guitar much better. The "PG-P" deals with the 80% of hum and noise I have been talking about.
One other thing I need to mention is correct terminology: For example: The term "ground loop". A ground loop can be found in the dirty AC wall power, or in the signal chain of the equipment being used. Usually, the term ground loop is correctly associated with what is known in the industry as common mode noise. Just remember, there are many types of hum and noise: Common mode, differential mode, EMI, RFI, --and many more. |
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Jack Wilson
From:
Marshfield, MO
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 11:56 am noise
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| Keith has been working on this for a while. He showed me five different circuits mounted on a piece of board with different components. I'm sure he will be testing the final prototype before he offers it. The additional cost over his current volume pedal would depend on cost of components and man hours to add it. He did talk about a stomp box version, which would let players buy his current pedal and the stomp pedal seprate. |
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 1:48 pm
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| I suppose some people oppose any kind of change. There is a need for inventors. Think of it this way: If Thomas Edison had not invented the light bulb, we would all be watching television in the dark. |
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Josh Yenne
From:
Sonoma California
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 1:51 pm
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Well said an interesting discussion! Even the ground hum or loop you get from running amplifiers and stereo tends to be completely inconsistent. I won’t go into it, but I’ve talked with other super high and electrical engineers about this and it’s sort of just a shrug, the shoulder and keep trying different combinations until you kill the hum.
I know that a venue that I played very consistently like two times a month for a long time had dirty sound, and no matter what I did, I could not solve it. It was definitely ac noise.
It was an old building out in the country. And no matter what, no matter what amplifier I brought. No matter how I placed the steel guitar. No matter if I brought the hummer X. Or a power conditioner. Or an extension cable, and plugged into a completely different circuit. None of it helped. It was just inherent to the room. I’m not sure if any device exists. It would’ve solved this. But there’s so many things on the market now it wouldn’t surprise me. |
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Scott Denniston
From:
Hahns Peak, Colorado, USA
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 2:24 pm
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| I'm not presently using single coils but Alumitones. I don't know if they'd be classified as single coils or what. Anyway the other night I had this rapid tat-tat-tat-tat-tat coming through the speakers. Not real loud but it bothered me. I was thinking I needed to dump the Kemper. In a final effort to track it down I moved an internet router relay (booster) that was about three feet away to the other side of the room and it all went quiet. Just shows the kind of weird variables one might encounter. Now I don't know if it was the pickup or the Kemper picking that up but Keith you might know. Would your circuit address something like that? |
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John McClung
From:
Olympia WA, USA
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 3:40 pm
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Following.
In my early days of teaching via Skype, I had a pretty loud hum I couldn't trace to a source. Had the electric company come out to evaluate the home's power, it was a 1950's non-grounded tract home in Lakewood, CA. Nothing was found.
Finally discovered it was my laptop being too close to my Mullen pickup. Moved it about a foot away, problem solved!
_________________
E9 INSTRUCTION
▪️ If you want to have an ongoing discussion, please email me, don't use the Forum messaging which I detest! steelguitarlessons@earthlink.net |
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Scott Denniston
From:
Hahns Peak, Colorado, USA
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 3:54 pm
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| John that coincides so much I'd think it's something going on in those higher frequencies that either the amp or the pickup are hearing. |
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 30 Oct 2022 6:08 pm
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| Scott and John, the answer is yes, it could have been RFI-- radio frequency interference. Normally computers operate at very high frequencies, well above the human hearing range of 20K. The problem is these high frequencies in computer operating systems can create reflective frequencies. The reflected frequencies can sometimes wind up in the hearing range of 20 to 20K. The other most likely situation is EMI electro- magnetic interference. There are transformers inside equipment that have coils, and these coils generate a magnetic field. Even the power cord plugged into 120VAC, running to your computer, has a magnetic field around it. RFI is not Common mode noise, but EMI can be Common mode noise. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 31 Oct 2022 5:21 pm
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| As others have said, "noise" covers an awful lot of territory. Mostly, I believe it's the 60-Hz line frequencies (or a harmonic) that cause the biggest problems. Maybe a set of good, sharply-tuned (P/M 2-3 Hz.) notch filters could put the offending frequencies of 60, 120, and 240 Hz. down by 40db-50db without affecting the music too much? |
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 31 Oct 2022 9:00 pm
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Donny, about 30 years ago I built a notch filter that eliminated all 60 cycle hum and multiples. Hooked it up to my steel guitar and the sound was awful. The hum was totally gone, but everything else about the sound was terrible. The important thing about noise, or hum, elimination is not losing anything. What have you gained if you lose, especially if you lose a lot.
Donny, you love going back to the early recordings of the late 50's and early 1960s. In the late 50's I remember going to a house in the country that still had a telephone hung on the wall. In the 60's we had rotary dial telephones that sit on a desk. Today we have cell phones.
Donny, I agree with you the good old days were wonderful. Look at how telephone technology has advanced. Audio technology has not stood still.
Donny a friend of mine, Jack Wilson, told me something that was interesting. Jack said this: "You are working on circuits that make a guitar sound clean, clear, and transparent. Young players don't care about hum, and noise, because they have distortion pedals." These young players even have distortion built into their amps. Noise and hum is not a problem for most young players, the noise and hum is buried in distortion and high volume. It seems there are a lot of younger people who prefer distortion over clean and clear. Donny, you and I like the good old days. I am just trying to make the good old days noise and hum free--without losing anything in tone. |
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Larry Dering
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 1 Nov 2022 4:57 pm
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| And I have all the faith in the world that Keith will develop a clever device that can deliver clean tones with improved performance. You got this Keith. 👍 |
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Jeff Blankenship
From:
South Carolina, USA
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Posted 3 Nov 2022 5:57 am
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Hey everybody...new guy here and this is my first post.
My Sho-Bud has a single coil and it is subject to the vagaries of EMF noise. I play through a Line6 Helix which, in and of itself, does nothing to stop the noise. However, one of the blocks that I always use in my signal chain is a noise gate. I use the Helix for my 6 stringers as well and have noise gates on all my presets since I mostly play Teles and Strats with single coils. It doesn't affect the tone or at least if it does, I can't tell it. Have y'all tried a pedal like the Boss NS-2 or the MXR M135? They're relatively inexpensive on the used market and readily available. |
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 3 Nov 2022 11:00 am
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I looked up the MXR M135 Jeff also suggested. Saw one listed used for $39.00. Here is what it says it does.
Noise gate pedal
Trigger level control with switchable trigger range
Three-position frequency range switch
Gate-on LED indicator
Buffered bypass switching.
Looks to me like it is all the other noise gate pedals, with an adjustment that suppresses signal. By definition, it has to mess with the signal.
I can't see how this is much different than any other suppression pedal. Notes below a certain range are cut off. Hearing the pedal messing with your tone would depend on what kind of music you are playing, volume level, and amount of distortion used. I think steel players would notice any kind of noise gate pedal suppressing their range of frequency.
Seems to me the Boss NS-2 and MXR are old technology. The more modern technology does not mess with a person's tone.
As for me, I am not selling anything yet. Just make sure you know what kind of noise you are trying to eliminate, and know exactly what type of noise a suppression box eliminates. |
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Jerry Overstreet
From:
Louisville Ky
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Posted 3 Nov 2022 11:13 am
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Not a huge experience with noise reducers but the ones I've tried, including those built in the Boss and Roland units, which is basically the NS2, I believe, behave thusly:
They tend to cancel noise while you're playing, I guess, but at idle, they don't seem to do anything to reduce the noise. Seems in the reverse to me 'cause that's when you hear it.
The exception is Roland/Boss 50/60 Hz circuit. Those do remove the hum from those frequencies, but they also do alter the tone.
The noise issues I'm currently experiencing are with a std. 6 string guiar w/single coils into a TubeWorks amp. The noise can be really annoying with the vol. control around the usual middle positions where you use it the most, and only seem to quieten down at nearly off or wide open.
Those would be the type of noise issues I'd like to deal with. |
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Keith Hilton
From:
248 Laurel Road Ozark, Missouri 65721
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Posted 3 Nov 2022 2:32 pm
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| Jerry--exactly! Yes they are--Compressors, that cut off frequencies while you are playing. Meaning you lose. When I get some samples built I need some people to test my new units. |
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David Ball
From:
North Carolina High Country
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Posted 3 Nov 2022 4:13 pm
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The best experience I've had is with the "Hum Debugger." It doesn't alter the tone, at least to my ears, except right at the 60 Hz and its multiples frequencies. There's a definite very narrow dead spot when you hit one of those. It does get rid of 60Hz and associated hum though, and those narrow spots are very narrow. It's a notch filter, but one that is well tuned in. All in all, I've found it to be fine, and a definite improvement over the alternative in really hum-centric venues.
But, there's also definitely room for improvement. Hopefully Keith has figured that one out!
Dave |
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