I use a little Fender Frontman 15W practice amp, and it has a very audible buzz on my Strat's 1-3-5 pickup settings. It's quiet on the 2 and 4 positions. The amp doesn't buzz at all when my Epiphone SG (with humbuckers) is plugged in. Is this the famous "60-cycle hum" I've heard so much about, or is it just because I'm using a cheaper amp? I plugged into my nephew's Line 6 amp a few days ago, a significantly larger, more expensive amp, and there was no buzz that I could hear.
It's the 60 cycle hum. When in positions 2 and 4 you are using 2 pick ups at once. But 1, 3 and 5 you are only using 1 pick up. That's when you will here the hum. It only happens in single coils, so that's why you don't hear it with your SG.
I'm currently using the cable Fender included with my Amcn Standard Strat, which seems pretty good quality (to me, at least). I also have a Peavey cable that shows the same symptoms. I just noticed that if I stand here as opposed to there, sometimes the buzz stops, kind of like what my radio occasionally does. Not really sure what that means.
It's the 60 cycle hum and it gets better or worse depending on what electrical current is around it. If you happen to have a battery powered amp...plug in your guitar the next time there is a power failure...all of a sudden you will have silent pickups...and then when the power comes back on....buzzzzzzzzzzz
Hi Fingers,
If you look through the forum here you will find lengthy discussions on shielding your guitars pickup and control cavities, as well as discussions on various noiseless pickup options. Any guitar with singlecoil pickups is prone to 60 cycle hum, inexpensive amps seem to exacerbate the problem as well. There are several products on the market (Hum-X is one) that claim to eliminate hum, though I haven't been able to try them to test their claims.
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Sometimes plugging into either a ground fault receptica (GFCI)l, or using a computer grade surge protector will work.
I have the same workhorse amp. Other than the hum, it is perfect.
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are there flourescent or compact flourescent lamps near by? they amplifiy hum on single coils like a bastard
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