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Been possibly pondering the idea of my first noise gate to use with my Jazzmaster. While I love the single coil sound, I'm really not used to the hum that comes with single coils anymore after having used aluminum guitars for over a year now.

Part of me wants to try adding more shielding to the guitar- I know that they make aluminum shields for jazzmasters that go under the normal pickguard. I've already shielded the entire cavity of the guitar, I just remember when I had an aluminum pickguard on my other Jazzmaster it helped a little, that was nearly silent.

Back to noise gates- first in chain? Do they kill dynamics? Should I stop being a bitch? (Leaning toward the latter but it does irk me).

All of my single coil guitars are dead silent. Copper shielded cavities and a shielded pickgiuard (I usually leave the stock materiel, just make sure the pickguard shield comes in contact with the copper once it's all put back together) does the trick.

I have a single coil jaguar that is dead silent, couldn't say why though.

I personally hate noise gates. I even hate them on mixes (I rather go through and manually cut everything up). That said, they can be very useful especially in live situations. I'd say investigate the source of the hum first. If you can't find it, noise gate it is.

hmm my jm doesn't hum either

ISP Decimator's are pretty sweet, I never had a problem with them messing with someone's tone, and I've heard them used with acoustic electrics, electric bass and baritone saxophone too. Too expensive though, I just shield and ground everything well. Thought about a Decimator today when I took my cigar box gear to my pal's record shop. It's got a wooden bridge so it's hard to ground the bridge on it. But it would be easier for me to rebuild that part of the guitar, and ground it, then it would be to afford a pedal. The wiring in his business it terrible, so it was a good test.

So, uh, my vote is ground + shield. That don't work, the ISP does!

Yeah I need to open it up again and take a look. Might invest in the aluminum pickguard shield cause I know there is zero shielding on it now, just the cavity

No one can hear your dynamics live as well as you can. If you need a gate after shielding your guitar just do it. I haven used a noise gate/suppressor since I had an NS-2 on my board to fight RF interference. I didn't notice a difference. And I was doing high volume, medium to high gain with a Dan Armstrong and an ESP Viper.

skullservant wrote:Yeah I need to open it up again and take a look. Might invest in the aluminum pickguard shield cause I know there is zero shielding on it now, just the cavity

That's probably the reason why it's not that effective. Make sure shielding is continuous between the guard and cavities too.

Noise gates rarely affect tone unless they are built poorly, imo. I just don't like the way they chop at the subtle dynamics or the way they take a bit to open on the attack. Unless you're doing it in post in a DAW where you can look ahead of time. That said, they are very useful live where it's less noticeable. In a studio, throw that thing out and let the engineer deal with it himself.

DRodriguez wrote:Noise gates rarely affect tone unless they are built poorly, imo. I just don't like the way they chop at the subtle dynamics or the way they take a bit to open on the attack. Unless you're doing it in post in a DAW where you can look ahead of time. That said, they are very useful live where it's less noticeable. In a studio, throw that thing out and let the engineer deal with it himself.

Good man.

I agree with redouble on shielding and hum then go for a decimator of it's still bothering you. I only use a gate to fight feedback not hum.

Do what me and Eivind do live, try to have something playing or feeding back at all times. Hum eliminated.