Noiseless/humbucking pickups for a cheap Strat?

[tomteriffic]

OK, here's the story:

I got a $40 (new!) strat-type pack (gig bag, tuner, etc.) a while ago, just on a whim. $60 of fretwork and setup turned it into a pretty nice playing guitar. Looks cool too. Black/rosewood, black plastic on a mirror pickguard.

These days it's my couch guitar. But we have those "daylight" type flourescent end table lamps and when one or both is on, this thing hums like crazy, making only the 2 and 4 positions usable.

I've used the GFS Li'l Puncher rail pickups in a similar situation before and was very pleased with the results. But they say that you may have to hog out the bridge pickup hole in the pickguard a little,and they're right. But I'm not too goony about doing this on a mirror pickguard.

The GFS ones are hard to beat especially at the price. The the extra chug is nice, since I'm playing through a Roland Micro Cube most of the time.

Any other cheapo suggestions? This is a $100 guitar and I don't see any sense getting too crazy on it price-wise.

[Duplex Dave]

I'm not an expert on this issue by any means, but, it might be cheaper to change some other things first. Your electrical scenario could have a phasing issue. Try pluggin your amp in with the ground lifted, or if the lamps have 3 prong plugs lift their ground. Or change the bulbs back to incandescent if possible. Obviously you're gonna have the usual 60 cycle hum from single coils, but is should not be unusable in those positions.

Also, since you really like the guitar get some good pickups. But don't forget to upgrade the pots, switch, jack and have it all sheilded and properly grounded.

[tomteriffic]

Nope, not going to change the lighting, I'm 61 and have 61 year old eyes. They need all the help they can get when I'm reading. And there's no ground lift on the wall wart power supply for the amp.

[Carl.B]

Does the mirror pick guard have to stay? I see where GFS has this Humbucker Equipped HSS Guard- Slick White on White single ply Assembly for $30.

[Duplex Dave]

Nope, not going to change the lighting, I'm 61 and have 61 year old eyes. They need all the help they can get when I'm reading. And there's no ground lift on the wall wart power supply for the amp.

Do you have one of those 3 prong to 2 prong adapters? Those things one would use in old houses where all the outlets are 2 prong. That will lift the ground on any device. You can try it in different outlets in the room to see if there are any changes. If one outlet decreases the cycle hum then there is a phase difference in the wiring. Which is not a bad thing, it happens all the time.

Also, if there is a dimmer for a light or a fan anywhere in the circuit it will cause lots of noise through your amp.

My eyes are 41, and I see glasses in the near future......

[tomteriffic]

Dave, thanks for the thoughts. As it is though, this is one of those older houses that is still mostly two-prong, and I never upgraded this circuit, so it's all floating ground. I'm 99.999% sure that the gremlin is the transformers in the bases of the lamps. I'm just not going to jump through a bunch of hoops for a $40 guitar.

Oh, and Carl, yeah the mirror guard has to stay. That and the unusually flat fingerboard radius are what attracted me to the thing in the first place. Most Esteemed redhead has been doing some jewelry making lately and has put together the Dremel rig from hell. I've done the pickup hole hogging out before myself, but with the better tool set and her superior patience and detail-fussiness, maybe I can talk her into doing that bit and I'll change and tune some drum heads for her or something.

[backinit]

If you want to keep the investment low, you can purchase similar rail style humbuckers from an Asian distributor. You still might have to modify the pickguard.

[Punkavenger]

Maybe you could find some Area 61's used for cheap?

[Stike]

Hard to beat the GFS price but yeah the Lil Punchers are a lil bigger than other singles. A Dremel with a sander bit might make short work of enlarging the pickguard routs. Other than that a set of Noise Free Wilde Pickups by Bill Lawrence can be had new for under $150 and they sound great.

[murkat]

ebay, charvel / Jackson pickups.

stupid cheap used.

and they actually sound pretty good.

like in Carfish's charvel strat in the FS section.