Removing a humbucker increases noise?

[Hallmar]

Hi there!

So my friend has a LTD TE-202 Telecaster wich has a humbucker for neck pickup and a singlecoil for the bridge pickup.

He removed the humbucker but only uses the singlecoil and intends to use only the singlecoil. Now he complains about noise. He asked some music store owner about it and the owner said that putting in the humbucker again(even though he wouldn't be using it) would remove the noise.

I seriously doubt this since humbuckers only remove the noise/hum that THEY produce not the noise from the other pickups in the guitar.

Or am i wrong?
I just can't imagine that putting a humbucker into a guitar and not even using it would remove the noise that the singlecoil produces.
Or i'm completely wrong! Who knows!

 

[boobtube]

My question is why remove the humbucker in the first place? Did he also remove the switch? If he didn't then when he accidentally bumps the switch to the neck position, there will be silence. At least with the humbucker there it would work if accidentally bumped to the neck position. I'd put it back in. If there was no hum before the removal and then hum after the removal, then it seems to favor putting it back. Maybe the shielding/grounding scheme was changed and something isn't connected properly. If he removed the neck pup for sound reasons, he could put in a different one, maybe a P-90. I was reading the neck pup could be a bit muddy.

 

[Hallmar]

I'm gonna solder it back in for him and see how it goes. I'll try to avoid grounding issues.

 

[benb]

There might be some wiring left over to the humbucker that picks up hum and noise. Putting the humbucker back in puts a 'load' on the wiring so it doesn't pick up as much noise.

 

[boobtube]

Yep, acts like an antenna, while connected to a 'bucker it won't. Good call!

 

[boobtube]

Just wondering, did putting the humbucker back in stop the noise? Did you figure out what caused it?

 

[Hallmar]

I haven't gotten the guitar yet. Busy at work. I will post here if it works!

 

[cyclecamper]

If the noise is a problem there's some weird things you can do. You can add another coil (out of phase from magnetically-induced hum) that doesn't pick up the guitar, put it in series with the single-coil, and put a cap across it. The idea is that it will cancel hum at the lower frequencies, but at the higher frequencies where the single-coil sound matters, the cap is making it act like a single-coil.