Help please! Troubleshooting Noisy Fishman Fluence Tele Pickups

npx

npx

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Does anybody on the forum have experience with the (active) Fishman Fluence Greg Koch Tele pickups? Are they supposed to be this noisy? (I didn’t want to bury this question in @iaresee ’s Kinman thread since I’m requesting help, not do I wish to hijack that thread with my own issue!)

I recently replaced the first generation Fender SCN pickups in my Telecaster with a set of these as I was under the impression that they were designed to be quiet, but they are even more noisy than the only actual single coil I have - a Frailin Vintage Hot in the neck of my Strat.

Here’s some comparison clips of the noise, recorded one after the other using the same preset in the same way - volume up, strings muted and rotating on a chair to demonstrate the noise:

Frailin Vintage Hot Neck Single Coil:


Fishman Fluence Tele Neck


Fishman Fluence Tele Bridge


Fishman Fluence Tele Bridge + Neck



• Fender SCN pickups are dead quiet on this same patch.
• The cavities of the telecaster are shielded.
• The Fishman tele pickups have a switch to select a hotter “blackguard” voicing. This switch is OFF ( ie: it is on the quieter setting in the recordings.)


I’ve gone over the wiring multiple times trying to troubleshoot, there’s not much to it since the bulk of the connections are prefabricated out of the box. Does anyone here have a successfully quiet set of these??
 
I owned the Greg Koch signature Gristlemaster guitar with these exact pickups and I never experienced any significant noise with them; they are excellent pickups.

I'm sorry I can't help you, but I do think that something is not right with your current configuration.
 
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Exactly the same I got with my Koch Fluence set.
it is probalbly a faulty controlplate.
I had to get a new one from Thomann and had to pay double VAT on it because they shipped it incorectly.
Took forever and was such a bad experience.

I was lucky I had a friend with the same pickupset, so we exchanged part by part til we found out the issue was the controlplate.
 
Thanks for the replies and suggestions!

@Powers of Ten Sorry to hear that but I'm glad you got it sorted out eventually! My package came missing one neck pickup mounting screw - which happens to require a totally different thread to any other pickup screws that I had on hand or could source locally, so I had to wait for them to re-ship a single screw... which took 6 weeks to arrive! 🤦‍♂️

@Andy Eagle I unplugged the output socket from the control plate to check, but there is only one way that the connector plugs into the control plate, so you can't flip it from the factory spec.

Some good news: While the control plate was out I managed to stumble across what was causing a large amount of the buzz. The pots and switch under the control plate are housed in a plastic box that is deep enough to require routing on some guitars. It appeared to just fit in this 2007 American Deluxe Tele, although I did need to cut a small channel to enable a couple wires to pass under the plastic box. As it turns out, if I squeeze the top of the control plate and the bottom of the plastic pot/switch box together even lightly between my fingers, lo and behold it produces 18dB of buzz! The audio is low on this because it was 5am here, but here's a video:



The slight pressure of screwing the control plate over the cavity was all it took to press on the plastic box enough to make it buzz, so I had to remove some more material in the cavity for clearance. These Fishmans are are now 18 dB quieter than they were a few hours ago! They're still about 10 dB noisier than the SCN pickups though, which is a bummer, but perhaps how they are meant to be. I'll ask Fishman if the problem in that video is expected behaviour.

Thanks!
 
cole lewis said:
Pretty sure these don’t use an active preamp. Nor does the Classic humbucker set. The battery is powering the tech not a preamp.
Click to expand...
They are active pickups, as is the classic set. Why do you think there's no preamp? What tech would the battery be powering instead, in this case?

Not that preamp means there has to be more overall perceptible noise between rather different pickups. But there is preamp specific noise, in my experience. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, depending on the case, what the preamp is trying to accomplish, etc etc.

Now in this scenario, there was obviously an extra issue. But I wouldn't be surprised if even at their best, no defects, with a proper install, the OP finds many passive PU seem to have better noise performance in his environment. If this passive PU isn't even hum cancelling, more surprised, but still.

"Noise" being a little loaded, as there's different sources or kinds of noise, and people may be more sensitive to some than others, but yeah.
 
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Also, for the OP: the Fishman output signal may be much higher than your passive PU. I don't know, and I haven't compared these. But it's it's possible your amp or amp sim has to be adjusted accordingly, and by that point the perceived noise levels are more comparable/Fishman performs better.
 
npx said:
Thanks for the replies and suggestions!

@Powers of Ten Sorry to hear that but I'm glad you got it sorted out eventually! My package came missing one neck pickup mounting screw - which happens to require a totally different thread to any other pickup screws that I had on hand or could source locally, so I had to wait for them to re-ship a single screw... which took 6 weeks to arrive! 🤦‍♂️

@Andy Eagle I unplugged the output socket from the control plate to check, but there is only one way that the connector plugs into the control plate, so you can't flip it from the factory spec.

Some good news: While the control plate was out I managed to stumble across what was causing a large amount of the buzz. The pots and switch under the control plate are housed in a plastic box that is deep enough to require routing on some guitars. It appeared to just fit in this 2007 American Deluxe Tele, although I did need to cut a small channel to enable a couple wires to pass under the plastic box. As it turns out, if I squeeze the top of the control plate and the bottom of the plastic pot/switch box together even lightly between my fingers, lo and behold it produces 18dB of buzz! The audio is low on this because it was 5am here, but here's a video:



The slight pressure of screwing the control plate over the cavity was all it took to press on the plastic box enough to make it buzz, so I had to remove some more material in the cavity for clearance. These Fishmans are are now 18 dB quieter than they were a few hours ago! They're still about 10 dB noisier than the SCN pickups though, which is a bummer, but perhaps how they are meant to be. I'll ask Fishman if the problem in that video is expected behaviour.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I suggested it because it's possible with EMG parts and I haven't checked on the Fishman.
 
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Dimi Guitar said:
Now in this scenario, there was obviously an extra issue. But I wouldn't be surprised if even at their best, no defects, with a proper install, the OP finds many passive PU seem to have better noise performance in his environment. If this passive PU isn't even hum cancelling, more surprised, but still.
Click to expand...

That Fralin single coil is not hum cancelling. The Fender SCNs are.

it slipped my mind that I have Fishman Fluence Moderns in another guitar, so I just compared the (now quieter) Fluence Tele set to them. The Moderns are high output and their noise level is still substantially quieter than the Tele set. To the tune of 14dB quieter. I'll be contacting Fishman, something must be up.

Fluence Tele (Whiteguard mode) Bridge:


Fluence Modern Bridge:
 
Right, please reach out to Fishman CS. They are a little backed up with the time period, but someone will fix you up. The GC pickups are fairly quiet.
 
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npx said:
That Fralin single coil is not hum cancelling. The Fender SCNs are.

it slipped my mind that I have Fishman Fluence Moderns in another guitar, so I just compared the (now quieter) Fluence Tele set to them. The Moderns are high output and their noise level is still substantially quieter than the Tele set. To the tune of 14dB quieter. I'll be contacting Fishman, something must be up.

Fluence Tele (Whiteguard mode) Bridge:


Fluence Modern Bridge:
Click to expand...

Yes, but the moderns are very different compared to the Koch "single coil" style Fishman active PUs most likely. Several reasons why the moderns (especially the one usually used in the bridge) would be less noisy.

You can even compare the Fishman classics to the fishman moderns and see the noise difference, depending on the modes used. And if I compare the moderns to their single width PUs, I also see big differences in perceptible noise.

At least in my use, the single width fishmans never came close to the noise performance I got from some good stacked passives (but these were hum cancelling) provided proper shielding, all that jazz, good environment, etc etc.

But sure, contact them and see if they think this specific noise performance is normal for your Koch PUs. If you can, let us know what the conclusion is! Maybe something's off.
 
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My Koch Fishmans was quiet once I got the replacement controlplate.
something is up with yours.

i never used teles with much gain before, but these actually sound cool with higain!
They are in a Suhr custom T.
 

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Andy Eagle said:
I suggested it because it's possible with EMG parts and I haven't checked on the Fishman.
Click to expand...
Something in that control box is touching something else that it shouldn’t touch. If you can open it, it would be worth investigating.
 
Dimi Guitar said:
They are active pickups, as is the classic set. Why do you think there's no preamp? What tech would the battery be powering instead, in this case?

Not that preamp means there has to be more overall perceptible noise between rather different pickups. But there is preamp specific noise, in my experience. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, depending on the case, what the preamp is trying to accomplish, etc etc.

Now in this scenario, there was obviously an extra issue. But I wouldn't be surprised if even at their best, no defects, with a proper install, the OP finds many passive PU seem to have better noise performance in his environment. If this passive PU isn't even hum cancelling, more surprised, but still.

"Noise" being a little loaded, as there's different sources or kinds of noise, and people may be more sensitive to some than others, but yeah.
Click to expand...
I looked it up so I could understand how it works beyond the marketing terminology.

As far as I can tell the preamp is there and is used, you are correct. It boosts volume and is used to alter the frequency response. Fishman leaves a lot out when they explain how the pickups actually work.

I find the noise on my Classic humbucker set to be more than would be expected too. My Kiesel with their active polarity pickups is dead silent but my Carvin with the fishmans I put in, does seem to have a noise from it.
 
cole lewis said:
I looked it up so I could understand how it works beyond the marketing terminology.

As far as I can tell the preamp is there and is used, you are correct. It boosts volume and is used to alter the frequency response. Fishman leaves a lot out when they explain how the pickups actually work.

I find the noise on my Classic humbucker set to be more than would be expected too. My Kiesel with their active polarity pickups is dead silent but my Carvin with the fishmans I put in, does seem to have a noise from it.
Click to expand...
Agreed, can see how one gets the wrong impression about these PUs. Even just the so-called "passive voicing" of Fishman moderns, many people I've spoken to thought it's a legit passive mode that bypasses the preamp.
 
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