Is this noise normal?

[paparoof]

hey folks. I'm reassembling my Matt Freeman P and when I got it all together the other night, it was considerably noisier than my main P bass so I started troubleshooting. I used copper tape to fully shield both basses cavities. The main P (the quiet one) has a Bill Lawrence (Wilde) P-46. The pickup I'm using for the Freeman is a Fender Original 62. Both basses have the same Bournes pots, same .0047 caps, both wired up by me.

I pulled the pickup from the Freeman and plugged just the wiring harness into my little Pignose amp and it was plenty quiet. I plugged just the pickup straight into the amp and it seemed pretty noisy. I noticed some of the pickup wires were a little frayed at the solder joints so I cut out the bad portion of wires and re-soldered them to the pickups and the noise is about the same.

Oh by the way, the Original 62 measures 11.25 ohms. That seems about right to me.

Question #1: is this amount of noise normal for a Fender Original 62 or do I have an issue here?
Question #2: do I have the pickup halves positioned correctly?

Here's a little video to demonstrate:


Whadya think? Am I making something out of nothing here or is there a problem with this pickup? Or am I testing it wrong?

 

[paparoof]

Here she sits, awaiting the verdict....

 

[line6man]

Firstly, the resistance should be about a thousand times what you stated. Did you mean 11k? You may want to see if the DC resistance of each coil matches, as well.

Second, the recording is not a valid assessment, because you have no resistive load from pots to emulate typical behavior. A passive bass with no pots will usually be noisier. In any case, that sounds like high frequency electrical noise that would benefit from proper shielding.

Typically, there is no orientation for split coil pickups unless the pole pieces are staggered. Those poles look flat, but I can't tell for sure.
It seems like you are getting noise when you touch the poles. This means they are not grounded. If you don't want to ground them, put clear nail polish over them to provide insulation. If you don't want to do that either, then and only then will the orientation become relevant. In this case, you would want the poles that you touch most frequently to be on the coil that is closest to the ground potential, because those poles will be quieter than the poles on the coil that is closer to the hot.

 

[paparoof]

yeah sorry, 11.25k ohms

so basically you're saying I need to throw it back in the bass and test it that way?

 

[LoveThatBass]

Just for grins, is it still noisy if you reverse the pickup leads (white to ground and black as signal)

 

[iiipopes]

Yeah, sorry: 11.25k ohms. So basically you're saying I need to throw it back in the bass and test it that way?

Yes.

 

[RobbieK]

You've got it wired correctly. That buzz is entirely normal.

You ask about which is the correct orientation of the coils. Well, you can install either bobbin on either side and pointing in either direction as they are wound the same and all magnets are the same. But for optimal noise performance, notice that the buzz goes away when you touch the magnets on one of the bobbins. And on the other bobbin the noise is slightly louder when you touch the top. Well, I like to install the "quiet" bobbin on the E/A side, as my thumb often touches the magnets here when I rest it on the E string. If your technique is different and somehow you tend to touch the G/D bobbin, then that's where you should put that "quiet" coil. (Pick players sometimes touch the G/D magnets with their little fingers.)

I'd also recommend replacing the black and white wire with a length of shielded single core.

 

[paparoof]

Well I threw it in the bass and strung it up last night and it's about as quiet as my P-46-equipped bass, so looks like redoing those joints was the cure. However I do still get noise if I touch the tops of the poles and that does not happen with the P-46. Is that a difference in the construction of the pickups or do I perhaps still have something out of whack? I really don't want to put nail polish on them...

 

[RobbieK]

It's perfectly normal to get noise when you touch one of the bobbins. Touching the other should be nice and quiet as it was in your vid. If you get noise when you touch both bobbins, then you've wired it reverse phase from when you were filming. No biggy, the pickup will work just fine like this.

If you don't want to put nail polish on the magnets, and you want both bobbins to be quiet when you touch their magnets, the only way is to earth the magnets. To do this you need to remove the pickup, clean the bottom of each magnet, then put a strip of copper foil with conductive adhesive along the bottom. To get a good contact I also push a little screw driver onto the copper foil at each magnet. Then (carefully) solder a wire from this to earth.

Virtually all modern pickups made by reputable winders have earthed magnets. Even if the covers don't expose them, it improves the noise performance of the pickup.

Be aware, though, that vintage fender pickups often have shorts between the inner windings and the magnets. (This is another thing that shouldn't happen with modern pickups because they have an insulation of some sort over the magnets before they are wound.) They can work perfectly fine like this for many years, however if you go and earth the magnets in this situation, one of the bobbins (the one with the hot lead) will suddenly not work. You should test this with a multimeter, before you try to earth the magnets.