Fralin noiseless JM pickups

[mackerelmint]

Well, here's a thing I did, and that I sometimes talk about when the subject of noise comes up.

Like many, I shielded my jazzmaster quite a bit. And I installed new pickups in it while it was apart, or I should say that I shielded it while I was installing new pickups, maybe. In any case, I was feeling pretty lazy about cutting the pickup leads, and since they were cloth braided, I really didn't feel like digging around for a better tool to cut it and not make a mess than I had on hand. So I just took up the slack by twisting the leads together. I'd heard that amp manufacturers do that in their amps to help reject noise, so I knew it wouldn't hurt and might actually help.

What I got was a completely noiseless jazzmaster using normal single coils. And it is noiseless in front of computers. And in an old house with absolutely terrible wiring. And by noiseless, I mean it just doesn't pick up hum no matter what I do. My humbucker guitars were never that quiet, even. It's fantastic! I had no expectation of such, but that's what I got.

So whatever you end up doing for new pickups, you really should twist the leads together to shorten them instead of cutting them to length, because it's bound to be some sort of improvement over what you'd otherwise be getting, and the amount of extra work required is basically zero.

[Kent]

http://youtu.be/0fjB5ztEtlM

https://youtu.be/-WJB6IUfehk

You may find these videos to be of interest. The first one compares Kinman noiseless variants to stock Fender AVRI p’ups in a 2015 Fender 65 reissue JM.

[RIORIO]

Well, here's a thing I did, and that I sometimes talk about when the subject of noise comes up.

Like many, I shielded my jazzmaster quite a bit. And I installed new pickups in it while it was apart, or I should say that I shielded it while I was installing new pickups, maybe. In any case, I was feeling pretty lazy about cutting the pickup leads, and since they were cloth braided, I really didn't feel like digging around for a better tool to cut it and not make a mess than I had on hand. So I just took up the slack by twisting the leads together. I'd heard that amp manufacturers do that in their amps to help reject noise, so I knew it wouldn't hurt and might actually help.

What I got was a completely noiseless jazzmaster using normal single coils. And it is noiseless in front of computers. And in an old house with absolutely terrible wiring. And by noiseless, I mean it just doesn't pick up hum no matter what I do. My humbucker guitars were never that quiet, even. It's fantastic! I had no expectation of such, but that's what I got.

So whatever you end up doing for new pickups, you really should twist the leads together to shorten them instead of cutting them to length, because it's bound to be some sort of improvement over what you'd otherwise be getting, and the amount of extra work required is basically zero.

That’s super interesting......might give this a shot

[mcatano]

I have the Fralin noiseless JM pickups and, while they don't sound exactly like 'real' JM pickups they do sound subjectively good to my ears. Compared to vintage/traditional PUs they have a bit less frequency range, hotter output, and are a little more compressed sounding as far as I can tell. I haven't tried the kinman or novak options so I have no basis for comparison there, but the Fralins sort of work as you'd expect and I don't have any complaints.

[mcbrandt]

I bought a set of the Novak JM-HC noiseless pickups, and they are indeed noiseless. My notes are at the end of this thread:

http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... 5&start=30

Here's a good sound comparison video I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt-8V2O8VzA

I didn't do the coil-split wiring, so can't personally comment on that.

[Embenny]

I bought a set of the Novak JM-HC noiseless pickups, and they are indeed noiseless. My notes are at the end of this thread:

http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... 5&start=30

Here's a good sound comparison video I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt-8V2O8VzA

I didn't do the coil-split wiring, so can't personally comment on that.

That clip pretty clearly demonstrates how the Novaks sound like humbuckers (albeit alnico-poled ones). Hotter, bassier, boosted midrange, lower cutoff frequency without the glassy singlecoil highs. All the trappings of higher inductance humbuckers.

They're nice pickups. They're just nice humbuckers, is all.

There are some pretty convincing noiseless strat/tele pickups, but I haven't yet heard anyone pull off authentic JM tone without a true single coil.

[Larry Mal]

I am pretty sure that the pickups in my Bullet are not working, so my next pickups are going to be Bill Lawrence noiseless pickups for that one.

That would not easily help in a Jazzmaster format, though.

[maxoche]

Thanks for your replies.

I play an AV65 Jag & AV65 Jazzmaster next to my Nord 5D73 Keyboard & have no hum noise issues.... Are you sure it's not something else causing the problem? What kind of trouble shooting have you done for both Keyboard, Guitar & Amp?

I often play guitars and keyboards at the same time. Noise is tolerable when playing clean through my deluxe reverb but when I push a fuzz pedal and it gets uncontrollable ..
I don't think my guitar has a specific problem. My telecaster has the same noise issue, to a lesser extent.
and all the hum gets cancelled while in the middle position on both guitars .. so I don't think It's a grounding / wiring issue.

the clips are interesting. and your comments are too.
sure there's a trade off when using noiseless pickups; but the clips are nice sounding nevertheless. the Novak is very different to a single coil JM pickup for sure. it sounds like a thick single coil pickup.

My JM is noisy as all get out in my house. I do a ton of recording and I've been wanting to try some other hum cancelling JM pickups for awhile now (I had Kinmans in an old build). I just ordered some from CME with their 15% off sale....under $250 shipped is a risk I'm willing to take- esp for my #1 and ESP if they're as good as everyone is saying. Will report back in a few weeks

Riorio, please tell us what you think when the pickups reach your house, ok ?

an other possibility is to have Fralin wind a underwound pickups set for more clarity.
it seems that common pickup designers' practise is to build replacement pickups hotter than the pickup they try to replicate..

[alexpigment]

So the reason the middle pickup position is silent on both of your guitars is that the noise coming into the pickups is the exact same, and that noise is cancelled by RWRP pickups in parallel. Humbuckers work by effectively creating a middle position with two closely-spaced pickups and then wiring them in series so that the output is not severely diminished by the cancellation of both the hum and the frequencies from the strings. Cancelling the frequencies of the *strings* is what makes them lose that single coil sound.

All you really need to do to get rid of the hum is to place a RWRP pickup somewhere in the cavity of the guitar (i.e. not under the strings), making sure that it's pointed in the same direction (up or down) compared to the other pickups. This way, it cancels out the hum, but none of the string vibration - thereby not suffering from the tone change you would find with a humbucker. Technically, you lose a little bit of high end, but I assure you, it's minimal. It's smaller than the difference of changing your pots from 500k to 250k.

Here's the basic workflow. Say you have two AV65 pickups that are RWRP. They are both wound the same amount and will sound identical in either position. Buy another AV65 bridge pickup (reverb, ebay, etc), then put it in the neck position. Now you have the exact same sound, but it's not hum cancelling in the middle position. Next, move the original neck pickup into the lower cavity facing upward (wrap some bubble wrap around it to keep it from touching anything). Lastly, solder the ground wire of the pickup to the output of the 3-way selector, and the hot wire of the pickup to the input of the volume pot. You don't need that original wire that connected the two points anymore.

And you're guitar is now as quiet in all positions as it was in the middle position before. Now, if you really want to make it quieter, I find that a tele neck pickup works even better for hum cancelling. It also happens to fit in quite well in the rhythm circuit route. I think it has to do with the taller magnets. Just make sure and get something that's a similar output rating (DC resistance) as your original pickups.

All of this will save you hundreds of dollars, and you'll have the exact same tone that you already love.

[RIORIO]

Wellp. I have them in my JM now. I absolutely adore them. To my ear, they're Really true sounding, full Jazzmaster pickups without the hum. highly recommend them so far!

[maxoche]

Thanks for your post riorio

I think I am going pull the trigger on a set of these too.