Shielding Guitar Cavities to Reduce p90 Noise?

[tonaldeath]

I have a Gibson Les Paul Double-Cut w/ dual P90s. Anyone know just how well sheilding the cavities will work to reduce noise? I love my p90s...even on a very high-gain setting, if it weren't for the excessive noise.

 

Will shielding the pickup and control cavities really do that much to reduce the noise? Also any links to helpful information on how to do this effectively would be very much appreciated.

 

I'd rather not use a noise gate, so I may have put a mini bucker in the bridge if I can't tame the noise enough elsewhere, but I'd rather keep the p90s in both positions.

[Armitage]

Shielding the control cavities won't help at all, shielding behind the pickups may help a tiny bit depending on how you're standing. Noise is why they came up with humbuckers.

[Kevman]

bummer huh? To bad there have not been any hum cancelling versions of the P-90 that sound like a P-90 to my ears. At least not that I have played. I wonder if the ghost coil thing would work.

[natasmi]

I here you, 5 P-90 guitars here. I know some folks don't like them but I just got myself an E-H HumDebugger and It has solved all my noise issues. I can hear no tone loss, just no hum, My ears are 44 years old so YMMV.

[Metalrulez]

Welcome to the 1950's!!

[ashasha]

 

I here you, 5 P-90 guitars here. I know some folks don't like them but I just got myself an E-H HumDebugger and It has solved all my noise issues. I can hear no tone loss, just no hum, My ears are 44 years old so YMMV.

 

 

Glad to hear it worked for you. I bought one and it colored my sound to the point that I wanted to throw it and the guitar through a window. Perhaps I got a defective pedal.

 

The only noiseless P90 out there that I would consider would be the one that Fralin makes which aren't cheap. I personally just went with a pair of DiMarzio Virtual P90's which if you need that exact P90 sound with zero hum than I can't recommend them. They do sound really good to me, but they aren't P90's. More a mix between a PaF and P90.

 

But no hum which make it worthwhile to me.

[tonaldeath]

I've heard good things about the ISP Decimator. The only thing is that I don't want to have to switch on and off another pedal, because I sing while I play live, and more tap dancing is never a desired outcome for any live situation.

[tonaldeath]

Alright, I'm a total novice at wiring, electricity, etc. But.... Most of the noise from a p90 is 60hz cycle noise, right? If that's the case what about if someone came up with an "eq" box with a 60hz knob or slider? Then you could just zero that out, and effectively kill all the noise without getting rid of any of the other tone. In theory this sounds so simple and obvious to me, that there has to be another reason why this isn't widely used.

[guitarman3001]

It all depends on the wiring in the room and any lights and stuff in there. The first gig I played with my new guitar with P90s, the thing was buzzing like crazy. I was worried that it wasn't going to work for me and if I couldn't find a way to tame the noise I might have to return it. The next weekend I played a different venue and had zero buzz, noise or anything else. I was able to crank it up and even with obscene amounts of gain it was completely quiet. Then I played a third venue and that one was quiet too. It was something in the wiring or lights in that first venue.

 

Now I'm not worried anymore. I always take two guitars to gigs so if I happen to play one where the P90s are noisy, I'll just use a guitar with humbuckers.

[ashasha]

 

Alright, I'm a total novice at wiring, electricity, etc. But.... Most of the noise from a p90 is 60hz cycle noise, right? If that's the case what about if someone came up with an "eq" box with a 60hz knob or slider? Then you could just zero that out, and effectively kill all the noise without getting rid of any of the other tone. In theory this sounds so simple and obvious to me, that there has to be another reason why this isn't widely used.

 

 

You would think that's the case, but an EQ isn't just one specific frequency, there's rolloff on both sides and it will impact the tone. How much it bothers you is subjective.

 

For me, I would think that you could just get a pedal that's powered from AC so that you would have the exact same frequency that's interfering with it and then just put it out of phase and cancel out the noise.

 

The ISP Decimator is pretty good, but at lower volume levels it gets some granulation noise (meaning it's like low volume aliasing). If I had to choose between the ISP and the EHX it would be the ISP. You just leave the thing on all the time, there's no need to do tap dance.

[tonaldeath]

Ahhh I knew there had to be something.

 

Speaking about the "pedal that's powered from AC" can you be more specific? Is there a pedal out there that has ac power with phasing capabilities for specific frequencies, or is this more of like a design idea that you had? It sounds like a really good idea.

 

P.S. - cracking up at your avatar, dude! That's the funniest scene from that entire series, imo.