Hum problem with Dimarzio Fred

ry1633 — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 08:46:30 +0000

Hey all,

I'm new here and I need some help troubleshooting a weird and annoying hum in my rig. I have a Warmoth homemade Strat that I've used for years. It originally had a Dimarzio Virtual Solo in the bridge but I wanted something fatter so I switched it to a new Dimarzio FRED which is my favorite HB of theirs. But the FRED hummed a LOT when I played so I checked the wiring and even had two techs check it out and Dimarzio did also. They couldn't find anything wrong. But to me the hum was really bad - just like a stock single coil. I even had Dimarzio build me a brand-new FRED from scratch and I still think it hums too much. So this is the layout:

Bridge: Dimarzio FRED (<--THIS is the PU giving me the hum problems, worse than a stock single coil IMO)
Middle: Dimarzio Heavy Blues 2 (perfectly quiet)
Neck: Dimarzio HS3 (quiet and just fine)

When I kick on my crunch boxes the hum from the FRED gets really bad. I have to really dial in my noise gate to kill it, and it obviously hurts the sustain if I use the gate too much. But if I don't use the gate then the hum is really bad. Here's my board in order of signal path:

Line 6 G50 Wireless
Boss TU-3 Tuner
Crybaby Wah
MXR Phase 90
Barber Direct Drive custom
Barber Dirty Bomb
Xotic EP Booster
ISP Decimator II
BOSS DD6 Delay
BOSS CH-1 Chorus

I've had brand new pots, switching and wiring put in too. Double checked the circuit with my tech and we're sure it's right compared to the diagram for the FRED and similar Dimarzio units. I'm at a loss and really could use some advice. -ryan

Hum problem with Dimarzio Fred - Guitar Repair and Maintenance

Hum problem with Dimarzio Fred