EMG J-Set Hum

[Funkinthetrunk]

I'm sorry to once again dig up an old thread. I'm planning to get the EMG J-Set but I hear stories here where the pickups seem to pick up on 'noisy' areas. I live pretty close to train tracks with high voltage power lines. I suppose that makes this place the definition of noisy.

However, am I not right in assuming that these pickups are humcancelling in the same way humbuckers or two single coils on equal volume are? I have no issues with either of the above anywhere in the house. The only problem that ever occured was a lot of interference when I tried to use flat EBS patch cables due to them not being a coaxial design.

My other thought is that EMG pickups are used by a lot of big artists playing big shows where there would be a lot of interference and you don't hear them complain.

I'd suggest people with problems here simply had faulty pickups but that seems to contradict the problems remaining when getting new sets. Unless of course they got another faulty bunch.

I guess I'll just have to try and see. Being able to dial in different pickup volumes without hum is one of the reason I'm interested in the EMGs in the first place.

I use lots of EMGs and only once had an noise issue. It had a crackling noise on 1 pickup, which turned out to be faulty. Other than that, they've been the most quietest pickups I've ever used. I wonder if anybody got their noise issues resolved?

 

[LeoTender]

Yeah the vast majority of people say that in their experience they are dead silent as they should be according to the design.

I highly doubt that all those people have only ever played in 'quiet' places.

 

[GlassToMouth]

I concur with what appears to be the majority of active EMG users being satisfied with how dead quiet their pups are. I own or have owned several different EMG configurations. 40J/40DC, 40DC set, JX set and a 45TWX set. Every time I perform the change to EMG, I wonder why I didn't do it sooner. Through many rehearsal spaces, gigs at questionable venues, and in all kinds of recording environments, I never get any hum. One of my basses that has the JX set installed has practically zero shielding of any kind and it was the only one that was installed by myself without the assistance of a local tech. I've been gigging these basses exclusively for the past 20 years. EMG has a customer for life with this guy. I'm looking forward to eventually having a PX/TWX combination in the future.