Silencing the Hum: Adding a Cheap Dummy Coil to Your Fender Stratocaster for High-Gain Bliss

Unlock the secrets to transforming your Fender Stratocaster into a high-gain powerhouse with this simple and affordable mod! In this video, I'll guide you through the process of repurposing a cheap pickup as a dummy coil to eliminate hum, making your guitar hum-free even at high-gain settings. This non-invasive mod is easily switchable through a push-push tone pot, giving you ultimate control over your sound. Plus, I'll show you how to install a fraling base plate on the bridge pickup for added beefiness to your tone. Stay tuned for a play-through demonstration at the end to hear the incredible results!
Pickup used for dummy coil: amzn.to/48c0oSa (Affiliate Link)
Push-push pot: amzn.to/3SUtqkM (Affiliate Link)
Fralin pickup base plate: www.fralinpick...

[@sauletto1]

28 seconds in....great tone, clean technique , sharp Looking and sounding guitar. That, plus interesting topic in thumbnail all together earns my Instant subscribe button hit. 👍🎸🎸🎸

[@zoltansays]

I appreciate it and likewise, you have a super cool channel! Just subscribed. The best thing about YT is finding likeminded people who are as geeky about guitars as I am! :)

[@uticacrib1664]

I'm glad I chose the G&L Comanche. But you have a cool solution for Strats.

[@dangoldbach6570]

I believe what the dummy coil is is known as a choke in electronics terms… they are used all the time in tube amp power supplies to filter out ripple on the b+ rail. You are in effect making a high pass filter that clamps 60 hz frequency and eliminating the hum. Math nerds, can you verify me here? Also, is Zoltan says a reference to the fortune teller in the movie “big” with Tom hanks? That’s awesome 😂

[@zoltansays]

Thanks for your comment @dangoldbach6570! I think the theory on this one is simply based on the interference of two wave signals. If they are the inverse of each other, they cancel each other out. Where there is a crest in one, there is a trough in the other, so their sum is always zero. The fortune teller in Big is called Zoltar, but I will take it. Love that movie! Zoltan is a common first name in my old country. There is a funny character Zoltan in Dude, Where's My Car. :)

[@naazrael]

No, you're just creating a humbucker with a dummy coil

[@ranman58635]

Hmm, sounds good. My friend was picking up a radio station from India every time he turned on his amp. It was so funny. I sheilded it and the noise went away. He also has my 89 Squier stratocaster which has those covers on the bottom of each pickup. It spunds the most stratty.

[@zoltansays]

Thats happened to me too in the past, whether it was the guitar or a pedal turning into an antenna. lol always super funny. (Except when it’s a live show.) This Strat is turning into my go to for overdriven sounds. I love the overdriven single-coil bridge pup with the plate, without (most of) the noise.

[@ranman58635]

@@zoltansays , really want a awesome sound? Take some strat single coil pickup covers and line the inside of them with copper tape. You won't believe what you hear. Especially on some already low output pickups. You'll feel like you're in a time warp. Sometimes you geta warble. Lol

[@zoltansays]

@@ranman58635 Amazing. I gotta try this. Thanks for the tip!

[@ranman58635]

@@zoltansays , you may get some tremolo from it. A natural vibrato

[@Charles-Darwin]

I too am a huge fan of the soft 'V' neck

[@zoltansays]

They are so good! I went through a lot of Strats and this is the one that I kept. Since this video I sanded the back of the neck with 400 and then 1500 sand paper. Now I love it even more. I didn’t mind the glossy poly finish, but it could get a little sticky when my palm started sweating.

[@waynetoneseekerandersen2213]

So, I am experienced with this stuff… as long as coils are within 15%. You should get 90% cancelation if the coils is positioned well. I don’t know how much cancellation is in the room, but on KZbin it’s not great. Good luck

[@zoltansays]

Thanks for your comment. I did realize that you have to be pretty close. Like when you play a Jazz Bass, the moment you start rolling one of the pickups down, you get the hum. That is why I added the resistor, which made things better. Check my video at 46:50, I think it's working pretty well. Enough for my purposes for now. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ooa0mpSqm81kha8si=HxDkj4m6UBv-6SFN&t=2811

[@randyupchurch1899]

...Nice sounding Strat Sir...Is the pickguard aluminium?...I agree....Dummy coils are so smart for any Strat (...single coils...)...New "Sub"...Much love from a "True-Strat-Guy"!!!....Born in 1954 !...Peace..

[@zoltansays]

Thanks so much! It is an aluminum pickguard indeed. I love the look the added shielding. I understand that Leo used these early on, along with the single-ply white ones. Wasn't 1954 the first your for the Strat?! Nice birth-year, sir! :)

[@billoneill475]

If the Base plate is earthed in 3 spots , why solder if you can isolate one of the screws and the lead? Maybe remove the lead altogether.

[@zoltansays]

Great point. Would have been much easier and faster that way. Also, I’m still not 100% sure that 3 ground connections would have been a problem. Thanks for your comment!

[@antoniorinaldi784]

I have done the mod but our in series and switchable. However i confirm i ran into the tone pot coupling effect, i.e adding noise back when the tone pot is rolled. I will try to fix it by adding the tone pot circuit after the dummy

[@zoltansays]

Let me know how that works out for you. It worked on mine, although I have to admit that I don't fully understand why. :) Maybe someone reading this could explain.

[@Jonathan_Doe_]

If the dummy isn’t fed into the tone along with the pick up, the tone rolls off high end from the pick up, but doesn’t roll off high end from the dummy coils signal, so basically, you no longer have hum cancelling above the tone pots high pass roll off frequency when it’s rolled down, because you’re only hearing the dummy coil above that.

[@zoltansays]

@@Jonathan_Doe_ Thank you for the explanation! The noise produced by the two coils need to be identical but the inverse of each other for perfect cancellation. Letting the Tone pot only affect one coil, we get further and further away from that ideal scenario as we roll it down. Makes perfect sense.

[@antoniorinaldi784]

So you connected the dummy in parallel to the pickups?

[@zoltansays]

It's connected in series. What might be confusing is that it goes through the switch (that I incorrectly called out as SPDT when it's correctly: DPDT).

[@grabslide]

You didn't have to insulate the steel plate, ground loops in passive one is bs

[@zoltansays]

@@grabslide thanks for that info! Comments like yours make videos so much more valuable.

[@murfbass]

Hey, just for my own learning, is there a reason to leave the steel pole pieces in, or would it work just as well without them?

[@zoltansays]

Thanks for the comment @murfbass! I am not 100% sure of the science behind it, but I sensed a very small improvement in the noise-cancelling when I added the cores back in. It's easy enough to try both ways. When the cores are in, some of the energy (the noise signal) is converted into magnetic energy, creating an electromagnet. Maybe in my case this brought the dummy coil's noise signal closer to the noise signal from my actual pickup. I'm just guessing, maybe someone else can better answer this question.

[@murfbass]

@@zoltansays Thanks for the benefit of your experimenting. Much appreciated. That explanation sounded rational to me.