The noise reduction system should be (about) as effective on a bass with single coils. Just looked it up -- Zoom Noise Reduction appears to be a noise gate. With a noise gate, the noise will again be audible when you are playing. Noise gates can also affect your transients (attack) and cut notes you are holding short (sustain). Some will reduce these artifacts at the expense of a delay, but that is typically in the software world. Using a gate also means you cannot use the volume knob as much because the gate will modify a quieter signal differently -- ie the gate does not adapt to your volume changes. Lastly, a gate can make players play in bursts -- ie not hold notes or not stop playing because the noise becomes more evident. For the purpose of 60 cycle hum cancellation, noise gates are a band aid. With noise, keeping the problem out at the source is (almost) always more effective than removing it later. Hum-cancelling pickups (eg split singles and humbuckers) are superior for cancelling noise/hum introduced at the pickup. Using hum-cancelling pickups (and nothing more) works for most basses and guitars. A gate is a fine tool -- for other applications.
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