quiet with single coils?

[scole]

my latest 5f4 is super quiet with humbuckers but a little noisy with single coil p-ups. what can i do to make the amp quiet with single coils as well?

[trevorus]

It's the nature of single coils. You could use what's called a phantom coil in the guitar with the singles, or shield it.

[ajeffcote]

I just shielded my Strat,when I changed the pick-ups.I have Fralin Blues single coils and the guitar is almost as quiet as my 2 humbucker Ibanez.And I didn't have any shielded wire for the output so it may not be as quiet as possible.

[scole]

the guy i built the amp for is a strat player, mexican i think. i know my custom shop 54 is dead quiet, i just hope this guys strat doesnt make the amp look bad.

[cminor9]

Anyone ever play a THD Univalve? A fine amp, that. It has a nifty noise suppressor built in. Know how it works? It puts a light bulb in parallel with the speaker! I came across a forum many years ago where Andy Marshall (Mr. THD) talked about it. He humbly gave credit for "his" innovation to the Radiotron Designer's Handbook 4th edition which is where he found it. He seems like a good guy. Anyhow, I don't have the book here at work to verify the page number, but it's on something like page 678? under limiters/expanders. Obviously, he probably has his own way of implementing this, but with a little bit of experimentation a guy could probably make it work well. In the RDH4 it's a very simple thing, and wouldn't cost more than a pilot lamp, a socket, and a jewel light cover.

A bonus (or negative if you hate too much "chrome" on an amp) is that when you play the light flickers. Either way, it's kind of a conversation piece when you are playing ("duuuude, why does that light flicker on your amp?")

When engaged it sucks a *little* bit of the punch out of your tone but it does quiet single coils down quite a bit.

I have been tinkering with the idea of putting one on my 5E3 just for kicks.