Guitar pickups are excellent when it comes to boosting the vibrations of guitar strings to audible volumes, so the instrument can be heard over drums and across a club, concert hall, or stadium. Unfortunately, a noisy pickup can cause humming or buzzing that can ruin the sound of a guitar and, along with it, the listening and playing experience for the musician and the crowd. Luckily, there are a few approaches you can try to solve this issue.
Here are the seven best ways to deal with noisy guitar pickups:
- Shield your guitar and the pickups.
- Use a hum eliminator pedal.
- Invest in a high-quality noiseless pickup.
- Adjust your power source.
- Eliminate ground loops with a transformer.
- Change the location of the pickup.
- Use an equalizer pedal.
In the rest of this article, I’ll explain each of these methods in more detail to help you fix a noisy guitar pickup in no time. Therefore, if you’re tired of dealing with the hums and unwanted noises of some guitar pickups and are looking for ideas on how to achieve a better and more consistent sound, keep reading until the end.
Related: 5 obvious signs your guitar neck is warped or bowed, should an acoustic guitar be kept in its case, and stickered guitar. For the full overview, see our guitar maintenance basics.
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- Fender Cutaway Acoustic-Electric Guitar Bundle (MY FAVORITE GUITAR)
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1. Shield Your Guitar and the Pickups
Alternating the sound current in power wiring generates electric and magnetic fields that oscillate at 60 Hz. These magnetic fields can couple to the guitar wiring and cut the conductors in the pickup, at which point the humming is amplified by the amp.
Single-coil pickups are prone to picking up unwanted hums and noises, which can be extremely distracting for both the player and the crowd. One way to deal with this is to create a shield for the pickups.
Before you can create a shield for the pickups, you’ll need the following materials:
- Conductive, self-adhesive copper tape
- Self-adhesive pickup-coil tape
- Solid-core wire
- Naphtha
My favorite copper tape is Eyech 3 Sizes Copper Foil Tape Conductive Self Adhesive Copper Tape from Amazon.com. It’s waterproof, cold-resistant, and extremely sticky, so you don’t have to worry about the tape peeling off. Additionally, it is suitable for guitar repairs, shielding, and electrical repairs, so you can use it for more than just your pickup shield.
As for pickup-coil tape, I like the EZlifego Double Sided Tape on Amazon. This tape is made from the latest acrylic-gel material, and it is extremely strong and durable. The tape sticks well in temperatures from zero degrees Fahrenheit up to two-hundred degrees Fahrenheit (-18 to 93 degrees Celsius).
Once you have all the necessary materials, you’re ready to build your shield around the pickup. First, protect the windings by wrapping pickup-coil tape around them. If you leave the windings unprotected, you’ll be putting copper tape directly on them. This can be dangerous because the back of the copper tape is conductive, so any damage will result in the pickup shorting out.
After covering the windings, wrap the copper tape around the pickup. You should be careful not to have any overlap, so leave a little gap between the ends of the tape, so your pickup doesn’t lose its highs. This gap is best located on the opposite side from where the two tires are attached.
If the two ends of the copper tape touch each other, your pickup will lose all of its high ends. The gap breaks the eddy currents in the film, which means you won’t lose any of the high end.
Then, you need to connect the copper tape to the pickup’s ground. To do this, use solid core wire and put it in the spot where the pickup wire connects to the base.
Finally, use naphtha to clean part of the copper tape, so it is easier to solder the wire to the tape. Wait for the naphtha to dry, and then affix the wire to the tape. I recommend the Klean-Strip VM&P Naphtha Thins Enamels & Varnish from Amazon. This is a strong solvent that is sufficient for cleaning all kinds of oily and waxy surfaces. I also like that this naphtha is low-odor since some varieties have an extreme distracting odor.
This shield is an effective way to reduce the exposure the single-coil pickup has to unwanted noise sources. The copper tape is conductive and will harness any external noise so it doesn’t reach the pickup.
Alternatively, you can use aluminum tape instead of copper tape, or you can use shielding paint. I recommend this MG Chemicals 843WB Super Shield Water Based Silver Coated Copper Paint from Amazon. This paint provides EMI shielding over many frequencies and is a ready-to-use system, so you don’t have to worry about diluting the solution before using it to shield your pickup.
Shielding a pickup helps reduce unwanted interference and humming sounds, especially for single-coil pickups.
2. Use a Hum Eliminator Pedal
Another excellent way to deal with a noisy guitar pickup is to get a hum eliminator pedal. This is a good option for those who don’t want to acquire the materials for a shield and create the shield itself.
Hum eliminator pedals balance the signal and give the sound a more potent and clear tone. They also effectively disrupt hum and buzz, especially 60Hz cycle hums. These pedals work with a variety of pickups and help clean up the signal so the hum cannot overtake the guitar’s sound.
My favorite hum eliminator is the Ebtech Hum Eliminator from Amazon.com. This tool uses 1:1 isolation transformers to balance audio lines and