Hi all,
Please could someone suggest better pickups (for about £80) to replace the 2 x Roswell JBA Alnico-5 style JB ? They continue to buzz and hum.
I’ve checked the continuity on the bass guitar components and they seem ok,
I recently contacted a Thomann rep and they suggested I buy a Set of pickups that actually cost more than the bass did… so instead I ordered some copper shielding in the hope that will reduce some of the hum and buzzing.
Thanks in advance
Paul
The humming is due to electrical interference in your environment so the bad news is that any single coil J-style pickup may be affected. Have you tried tracking down what’s causing the interference?
In my case it’s my PC and if I point any single-coil pickup at it at all it gets noise. Facing away from the PC fixes it. A lot of people also report problems with fluorescent lighting, dimmer switches, and microwaves, for example.
Yeah. This is a tough one.
All single coil pickups are going to have a hum. This is part of the trade off for getting the distinctive sound of the single coil pickup. You can lessen this by having both pickups in use. Since they are supposed to be wired in reverse of each other it creates a hum cancelling effect. Also, the hum should stop as soon as you play a note. Most people don’t worry about the hum since it disappears in the mix of a band.
I second everything @howard said.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of any jazz bass pickups that I would recommend for 80 pounds but let’s check with some others…
@Jamietashi @Korrigan can either of you recommend some pickups in this price range?
Very interesting. This happened with a sweet Squier Vintage 70’s PBass I had to bring back that would sound great while touching metal, but stop touching the metal, it was buzz city.
I have found this surge that is supposed to reduce EMI and RFI, but can’t be sure if it will do better than This guy.
I’m pretty sad, because the Squier P that I found was THE nicest Squier I had ever seen.
I did go with a SUB 4 Stingray Single H. Love it, but realllllly wanted the Fender sound.
I hope this helps!
Oh, you will need to click on the words this guy for the boss item.
From what I’ve read, they seem to be good pickups so I suspect you have a grounding problem. Which VT bass do you have @Paul4? Does it have a metal control plate?
Here’s some great info ya’ll should bookmark: Proper Guitar Grounding — How Do I Do This? - Humbucker Soup
Thanks, that’s a great article. I think we need a thread on just this topic to help folks when weird electrical issues start to crop up.
Hi there, thanks for all the advice. Here’s a photo 
I have this, just got recently.
I can’t say for certain but I’m pretty sure it helps. Things that buzz when I’m upstairs don’t buzz when downstairs and everything is running through this. But there are other factors so not very scientific.