Fender Custom Shop 60's vs. Samarium Cobalt Noiseless

thatpaxguy · #1 09-26-2010, 08:33 PM

A question for my fellow TBers.

I have a Fender Geddy Lee Jazz, i've played a few others also and I noticed this same issue. With the stock pickups, when they are not both set to the same volume there is a nasty hum. So, I have decided to upgrade and narrowed down my options to the Fender Custom Shop 60's, or Fender Samarium Cobalt Noiseless jazz pickups.

My question goes out to anyone who has experience with these. I play with flats, and a variety of styles ranging from Ska to Indie, Hardcore to Jazz.

I will be recording in the near future and need something that doesn't have that nasty hum when the pickup levels aren't matched.

Craig_S · #2 09-26-2010, 08:48 PM

The pickups you currently use sound great. The Custom Shop '60's pickups will hum, as well. They are also single coils. You could use a gate to stop the hum when you aren't playing. I like the sound of single coils better.

walterw · #3 09-26-2010, 10:31 PM

SCNs will not have the liveliness of what you have now (which are already pretty similar to the CS '60s pickups).

i recommend the new dimarzio area J set; they sound really close to the geddy pickups (i directly compared them after an install with a geddy i had on hand), but are dead-quiet.

bongomania · #4 09-26-2010, 11:03 PM

Those DiMarzios are a great choice.

What you need to do is look for pups that say they are humbucking or hum-canceling or dual-coil. The hum comes from single-coil pups, which is what traditional Jazz pups are.

But as noted above, hum-canceling pups often don't have the lively, "raw" tone of single-coils. The SCN's have that problem. OTOH, if you like a darker, fatter tone anyway, and don't care if you lose some high-frequency zing, then you will probably fine with the SCN's or any other dual-coil pups.

thatpaxguy · #5 09-27-2010, 08:26 AM

I'll have to look into the DiMarzio's, the DP249 set?

Really, i'm pretty happy with the overall sound i'm getting, it's just that I don't have that flexibility of switching to the neck pickup to get any Jaco tones.

blackba · #6 03-23-2011, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thatpaxguy

I'll have to look into the DiMarzio's, the DP249 set?

Really, i'm pretty happy with the overall sound i'm getting, it's just that I don't have that flexibility of switching to the neck pickup to get any Jaco tones.

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but just wondered if you ended up getting the Dimarzio Area J pickups and if so how do you like them?