Mustang 60 cycle hum

Sausage

I just bought a Jap '69 reissue Mustang, my first guitar with single coils. I like the tone, but the 60 cycle hum is very annoying! I looked under the control plate, and there is what appears to be black shielding paint. However, there is no ground wire connected to this shielding. Furthermore, there is no ground wire soldered from the body of the pots to the output jack. Is this normal for a Mustang?

I really want to do all that I can to kill the hum, but I'm not exactly sure what I should do. Would copper shielding tape in the cavities and proper grounding get rid of all, or most of the hum? Would different pots or some kind of shielded wiring make an improvement? I know it's not the amp, because when both pickups are on together, the hum disappears. But I'd really like to have the option of using the pickups individually without the hiss.

Both of my other guitars are Gibsons sporting powerful humbuckers, so I'd rather keep single coil pickups in this one. I really want an authentic single coil sound (well, authentic minus the hum!), so I'm reluctant to put in singles with dummy coils like the Lace or Fender Noiseless, because I've heard that the tone is not exactly the same with these (although I haven't actually heard these types of pickups in person, so I could be mistaken on this.)

Any advice?

Gavin

singles are just noisy, there isn't much you can do. You could get some AV Jag p/ups, they're reverse wound so when you have them both on they have a hum cancelling effect.

Sausage

someone said: singles are just noisy, there isn't much you can do. You could get some AV Jag p/ups, they're reverse wound so when you have them both on they have a hum cancelling effect.

I think the Mustang I have might have reverse wound pickups, because the noise is gone when both pickups are on. Are the Jag pickups less noisy than the Mustang ones?

Gavin

No. Singles are just noisy by nature, that's why humbuckers were invented.

Tweez

someone said: singles are just noisy, there isn't much you can do. You could get some AV Jag p/ups, they're reverse wound so when you have them both on they have a hum cancelling effect.

I think with single coils it's all very much of a muchness, wax potted ones are a bit more resistant to feedback. Lace sensors and noiseless pickups won't hum as much as a normal single coil though.

Bob_the_godly_dude

Like Gavin said, that's why humbuckers where invented, singles make noise, there's no way of getting rid of it if you want a real single coil on it's own! You want the real thing, the real thing makes noise!

robertoriginal

once thing that i can almost garetnee that it is.

re set your amp, you probly have it set for a guitar with humbuckers. try moving the knobs around a bit.

i put a lace sensor in the bridge of my tele and its not that bad at all. i do prefer the p-90 over the lace sensor tho.

Aug

mustangs don't have a ground wire to the input jack because the pots and jack are being grounded to one another by the control plate. Also, if the hum goes away when both the pups are engaged, then the guys are right...it's completely normal.

Sausage

Thanks for all the replies.

Is it worth it to put in better shielding in the cavities? All I've got right now is the stock shielding paint.

Gavin

Probably wouldn't make any difference.