Hum Debugger...seems to really work

I've been scouring the interwebs lately trying to decide what pickup(s) to get to replace the P90 in my Gibson LP Jr., my bridge Tele pickup, and now the soapbar in my lap steel, because I just can't live with that much hum...and there are crazy/expensive options out there.

The Tele wasn't as bad as the two P90 axes but even so I found myself NOT grabbing the Tele because it is not hum cancelling.

I then decided to look into noise gates, etc...only to discover all the hum that I already had, plus (if the threshold was set high) a terribly un-musical clamp-down on the decay. I can't work with that.

Then I stumbled upon the EHX Hum Debugger. Simple design - seems to be a filter that cuts the 60 cycle band. There's a switch for some and more reduction, and that's it. You can hear a bit of an EQ shift when it's on, and a little bit more (akin to the middle-strat positions) when it's on "more" but to kill the hum, it's a no-brainer. I put mine back on my amp and just switch it on when I'm playing an offending guitar. :D

Yay! Now I can play my single coil guitars more!

You might want to see about getting some shielding paint for your guitars, I like it way better than the tape. It doesn't seem to affect the tone as much.

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Originally Posted by chuckocaster

You might want to see about getting some shielding paint for your guitars, I like it way better than the tape. It doesn't seem to affect the tone as much.

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You just brush it on in the pickup cavities and the control cavity?

Good to hear the Hum DeBugger works. I was looking into one for similar reasons and the reviews for it were all over the board. I watched some videos of it working great and other videos showed it not working so well. After feeling confused by the review videos I decided to call the company that makes them and a rep there said that the hum debugger does introduce a sound of its own into the signal so I decided not to buy one. I also looked into lining the cavities of the guitar with copper or paint and everyone I spoke to said I would be wasting my time and money. So reluctantly I looked into noise gates and tried a few "Boss, IPS Decimater" with the Decimater working better than the boss. The decimated didn't offer a control for decay so I tried and the TC Electronic Sentinal and found it to work very well. It has more adjustments than the others and possibly better circuitry. It can be set to allow the signal to decay naturally and then close once the signal stops. I think the ISP gstring may be similar but not sure since I didn't try one.

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Originally Posted by Rickenjangle

You just brush it on in the pickup cavities and the control cavity?

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I built a Tele with parts from Stewmac and used their copper foil tape to line the pickup and control cavities and it works really well.
I soldered a ground connection to it too and that helped a lot. I was thinking about a Decimator II for my P90 Lester Studio. I tried one out and and it didn't seem to hurt the tone much at all.
Here the Tele. http://i1104.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8a62e219.jpg

Thats good to know. I hope no one thought i was suggesting not to try those methods of hum suppression. I was just repeating what others with more experience said to me. I was told by a guitar tech and a sales guy at GC that because the tops of the pickups could not be covered with the foil or the paint the hum would still occur. Glad to hear it worked for you. Also your guitar is beautiful!

You're making a quasi Faraday cage. You're still going to get some hum, but it will be less than what you were getting.

And yeah, just brush it on.