Dimarzio Tone Zone Loud Humming

[imnotnollynollynolly]

Hey guys,

Just installed a Dimarzio Tone Zone in the bridge position of my guitar and it hums louder than any single coil I have under high gain. The noise is especially bad if I point the guitar towards an electronic device i.e. my amp, but not quite as bad if I point it towards a wall or something (but still noticeable). I wired the pickup as per the Dimarzio instructions i.e. soldered the green and bare wires together and grounded them, taped off the bare wire so it doesn't touch anything, used red as the hot connection and soldered white to black and taped it off. The neck pickup on my guitar is completely silent as was my previous bridge pickup. What are the chances the pickup is defective? It hums way more than it should.

I measured the DC resistance of both coils at 17.7K which is pretty close to the spec on their website. The baseplate is connected to the ground wire (tested for continuity). My next step is to just solder it directly to my output jack and see what happens, any other ideas? I just want to make sure the pickup isn't defective, I'm not surprised that it hums under as much gain as I was using but it's strange that my other pickups are so much quieter.

Thanks!

 

[None More Black]

I got no answer about 6 months ago when I asked the same question, so I decided to try to read up on it. I bought the Ibanez prestige 655m with the Tone zone/air Norton/true velvet combo, mine did the same thing, loud hum under high gain, got louder toward the amp.
What I read on the dimarzio forum was it has something to do with the dual resonance design of the pickup, which increases the harmonics, but makes the pickup somewhat noisy, which made sense, because mine sounded great when playing. My deactivator 7 pickup also has this, and it produces some noise, but not as bad as the tone zone. By comparison, my Duncan distortion and full shred are much quieter.

 

[bostjan]

The bare wire is soldered to ground, though, right?

 

[Pav]

Step 1 is to grab your multimeter and check the continuity of your ground connection(s) to make sure they're good and solid. If the pickup itself giving a good measurement, it's more than likely a minor kink in your wiring somewhere. If you can (or already have) verify that everything is properly grounded and your solder joints are all kosher, then shoot an email to Dimarzio.

 

[None More Black]

I actually rewired mine with new cts pots and made sure all the grounds went to one location, mine still hums.

 

[GuitarBizarre]

It absolutely should not be humming that loudly under any circumstances.

Yes, the dual resonance coils Dimarzio uses do make those pickups more susceptible to a little outside noise, but it should be VERY minor.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

The ToneZone is a very noisy pickup, mine hummed a lot even though the wiring was perfect and all cavities were shielded.

 

[bostjan]

Shouldn't hum louder than a single coil. Sounds like a grounding issue to me, just off the cuff.

 

[None More Black]

I'm not surprised that it hums under as much gain as I was using but it's strange that my other pickups are so much quieter.

This is what he said that made me think that we have had similar experiences with this pickup. I use a lot of gain, and have the treble up on my amp. When I reduce these, the hum drops about 90%. Its not like the hum is so loud it is unplayable, it hums when I am not playing, and like the OP, it is just more than my other pickups. If he checks his grounds and soldering and it is fine, there is a possibility he has a bad pickup, or this pickup just picks up more noise than his others.

 

[GuitarBizarre]

This is what he said that made me think that we have had similar experiences with this pickup. I use a lot of gain, and have the treble up on my amp. When I reduce these, the hum drops about 90%. Its not like the hum is so loud it is unplayable, it hums when I am not playing, and like the OP, it is just more than my other pickups. If he checks his grounds and soldering and it is fine, there is a possibility he has a bad pickup, or this pickup just picks up more noise than his others.

I was referring to this: "it hums louder than any single coil I have under high gain."

 

[None More Black]

I was referring to this: "it hums louder than any single coil I have under high gain."

yeah I hear ya, my noiseless Duncan is quieter than my Tone Zone....

 

[imnotnollynollynolly]

I ended up sending it back, the hum would go away if I wiggled the pickup around in the cavity but would come back shortly once the pickup moved a little bit. I assume something was wrong with it on the inside and didn't want to try troubleshooting it since it was brand new. From what I also read, asymmetrical coil windings would likely mean some small noise would come through but it shouldn't be quite that bad. I was also referring to just a plain single coil with no hum cancelling ha-ha, it got reeeeaaaalllly bad noise. Not even useable at that point.