Stopping buzz from single coil pick ups

[alanday1975]

any thoughts on the buzzing from my rick 4003.......local guitar tech thinks the pups may be the problem.

[paul_5]

Check your wiring and that the earth wires are all attached where they should be. An instrument of that calibre shouldn't suffer from buzz.

[BigRedX]

They are single coil pickups. If you play the bass in an electrically noisy environment (fluorescent lights, dimmer switches, computer monitors and pretty much anything sticking out RF) it will pick up noise.

Good screening of the pickup and control cavities and proper earthing of the strings and the screen will help.

[fingerz]

Hi there mate,

I'm not too familiar with the Ric 4003 set up. If you balance single coil pickups (i.e. set the pickups so as they are 50/50 or both up full) this should go a long long way to making the bass quiet. Does this effect the noise? Also, if the bass acts as an aerial, so the noise level changes as you manoeuvre the position of the bass, then this would also suggest noise or RF is getting in to the system from outside - i.e. a screening or insulation problem. This can be improved by adding copper shielding or conductive silver paint etc ..

If these things don't effect the noise then it is likely to be an earth or other electrical problem. It can be a pain as often instruments suffer in high activity environments but then behave themselves on the bench when the tech is looking at it!

If it occurs when you select one pickup or the other (as in my first suggestion), and this is how you like running the sound - I'm afraid single coil pickups just do this and it's something you will have to live with or change the pickups. Just like all jazz basses. I love singles, and nothing else sounds like them, but this is in their character. Single coils should be wired in Parallel so as when they are both turned up full they have hum cancelling ability, if you bias one pickup over the other you unbalance the pickups and this allows hum and interference to get in if it's hanging around. Saying that, if I've ever had problems in a noisy venue, I just run my jazz bass with both Pups at the same volume and it's quiet as you'd ever need, especially for live playing.
Good luck, message me if you need any more info. HOpe that wasn't too patronising !! Thought it may be useful background..

[sirmuppet]

Hi.

I just played a couple of gigs with my new 4003 and it was really noisy. The issue persisted even when both pickups were on. Upon reading into it more I discovered that the pickups on the Ric 4003's aren't wired to cancel hum when both are selected together, totally unlike a Jazz Bass or similar. I don't know why Ric do this but they do. If you use each pickup on it's own then the above posts are right, you can't eliminate it. A noise suppressor pedal will help a great deal. However if you use both pickups together you can fix this.

As I said I looked into ways of reducing the buzz/hum and found a tutorial on how to reverse the polarity of the bridge pickup. I did this (as scary as it was) and it worked.

Here's the thread: http://www.talkbass.com/threads/rickenbacker-4003-rwrp-bridge-pickup-mod-tutorial.761909/

Apart from being a bit scary, just take your time and do it right. It's actually really easy once you get into it, just don't cut the wires short like I did (Took me forever to fix it). That said the bass plays great, sounds no different and fixed the problem.

If you wanna ask any questions about then feel free to PM me.

Grant.

[BigRedX]

Wiring both pickups in a hum cancelling configuration only works with both of them on at the same level and it will also make the sound of the same different than in non-hum cancelling mode.

[sirmuppet]

BigRedX is right about having them at the same volume. That's another reason I also use a noise suppressor.

Can't say I noticed any difference in sound after doing the mod. If there is a difference then it's subtle.