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Buzz with the Peche A La Mouche pickup

TheGarethJonesTheGarethJones Boston/ParisNew Altamira M20, Gitane D-370

Hey guys,


Love my Peche a la Mouche pickup, but the hum (60 cycle hum, buzz, noise?) is so loud. I’m running it straight into a Boss Cube Street 2 on battery power. In order to get close to that overdriven tone, I have to crank the pickup way up, but the buzz becomes overpowering. I’ve purchased an overdrive pedal to see if that will get me closer to the tone I want without the buzz, but I was shocked to have never read anything about the hum in all the reviews I read.


A few thoughts; I’m a fairly experienced musician, so yes it’s plugged all the way in, yes I understand gain vs volume, etc. i will also plug it into an outlet to see if the grounding will help.

The weird part for me is that the buzz goes away if I turn a certain way with the guitar, so is that a phase issue?


Really, any info or thoughts would help. i suspect the pedal will take care of it, but I’m waiting for that to arrive.


Thanks for reading!

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Comments

  • DoubleWhiskyDoubleWhisky Upper FranconiaNew Vit Cach, Dupont MD60, 1940s Castelluccia
    Posts: 174

    If i understand the situation correctly it's normal for singlecoils to behave like that. You would experience the same with a strat or a tele with singlecoils. You can minimise it by your and the amps placement in the room and by keeping distance to your amp.

  • JSantaJSanta NY✭✭✭ Duffell, Gaffiero, Dupont, AJL
    Posts: 289

    Sounds like you need a pedal like the MXR Hum Debugger. I use one when I use my pickup and it's a major help in eliminating the 60-cycle hum.

    TheGarethJoneswim
  • Posts: 349

    Yup. Welcome to single cool pickups. Embrace the Hum and turn your body.

    MondoslugTheGarethJonesDoubleWhisky
  • JasonSJasonS New
    Posts: 122

    That's what single coil pickups are supposed to sound like, the hum is part of the sound. If you're not beholden to using battery power I'd recommend trying a tube amp with the Peche. Running into a low wattage tweed style amp that will break up when hit hard is really where the Peche shines. It also sounds really good if you crank the amp up and get it screaming like those late period Django recordings.

    voutoreenieTheGarethJonesMikeK
  • wimwim ChicagoModerator Barault #503 replica
    Posts: 1,531

    Is MXR Hum Debugger actually EHX Hum Debugger? What on earth circuitry is in that little box to warrant a $160 price tag?

    TheGarethJones
  • DoubleWhiskyDoubleWhisky Upper FranconiaNew Vit Cach, Dupont MD60, 1940s Castelluccia
    Posts: 174

    You should be able to minimize it with the cheapest noise gates out there. The hum debugger is designed for exactly this problem and will get better results. The price is pretty normal for a "boutique" brand. At least EHX still lives from that image. That said ywa you pay for niche and for brand name but if you wanna use it for live it's worth the money. Had many bad experienced with boutique boutique pedals or cheaper knock offs.

    But that's for live action. For your use case you should be able to get a satisfying result without any tool by placement of yourself and the amp. I'm a singlecoil guy, 60 hz hum if it's not audible when you play is more like the comforting crackle of a open fire place.

    TheGarethJones
  • TheGarethJonesTheGarethJones Boston/ParisNew Altamira M20, Gitane D-370
    Posts: 55

    Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and suggestions. I haven’t received the OD pedal yet, but I plugged the amp into the wall and it reverted to “regular” single coil buzz, which is easily controlled by backing away a bit and turning properly; without the ground, it was 10x worse than what I expected regular hum to be.


    I was thinking thinking that a gate (or even an

    IQ) would be the next step, but it seemed there’s no need, which I am grateful for.


    The goal is finding a proper Peche A La Mouche amp, but will approximate the sound for now, as my audience really seems to be quite forgiving (it’s only me).


    Thanks, guys!

    JasonSMondoslug
  • Posts: 166

    @TheGarethJones Iirc, I'm pretty sure the Peche was designed to be less prone to breaking up than a Stimer?? I might be completely making that up...but I do know that my Peche is a lot cleaner than the Stimer I used to have.

    Also, completely with everyone saying try to get a tube amp - I've got an old Princeton Reverb and that thing's breaking up into overdrive no matter what I do after a certain point lol. Either way tho, it's more about the tubes than the pickup.

    TheGarethJones
  • DoubleWhiskyDoubleWhisky Upper FranconiaNew Vit Cach, Dupont MD60, 1940s Castelluccia
    Posts: 174

    I never had the pleasure to play a Peche A La Mouche but consider that the placement of the pickup does have a crucial effect on the overall sound, especially on the percusivness and on the harmonics they bring out. Also the amps that were available at Djangos time are perceived as bass heavy and muddy today, so your pickup sound would be very thin if you use modern voiced amps.

    If you look at old pictures they often had the pickups way closer to the bridge, sometimes by screws unfortunately, but i'm pretty positive this is at least as important as the output volume of the pickup itself.

    The modern Stimer variations seem to leave out the coil at the b string to influence the magentic field compensate for the overpronounciation when used with silver plated strings on selmacs.

    I wish there was something even sounding available like f.e. the Gabojo Kleio 47 (I think the peche has it too) but with possibilities to influence the exact position like with a Dearmond FHC for example or the magnetic clip on system the Yves Guen pickups use nowadays.

    TheGarethJones
  • JasonSJasonS New
    Posts: 122

    This is a great point about the amps of the day being bass heavy by modern standards. Similar to the Peche, you'll often see people online complaining about Charlie Christian style pickups sounding thin or trebly and they're almost invariably running into a non-modeling solid state amp or a modern voiced tube amp. Those pickups work best running into a vintage voiced tube amp IMO. Tweed style amps are easy enough to find and there are a few people making pre-Tweed style amps nowadays too.

    I have the Kleio 47 as well as the Peche. The unwound strings are a little hotter but it's not something I notice in the context of a mix.

    DoubleWhiskyTheGarethJones
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