Loud hum in both channels of Renegade??

[Resonant Alien]

Guys,

I'm getting a loud hum/buzz in both channels of my Renegade. It sounds similar to a hum I had in my old VHT combo one time that turned out to be a bad preamp tube, BUT...the weird part is that it doesn't act like a bad tube - it acts like single coil-hum, but it is much louder than I think normal single coil hum should be.

When I had the hum in my VHT, it did it constantly, whether the guitar volume was up or not, and it did it with humbuckers and SCs. This hum happens only with SC guitars, and goes away when I am in the middle-hum cancelling positions on these guitars or if I turn the vol pot down. So, it def. acts like SC hum, but it is much louder than any 'normal' SC hum I've ever experienced.

And it just started recently - I don't remember hearing this before.

The only thing that changed is that last weekend I had a rehearsal, and I just took my head and used a house Carvin Legacy 4x12. The Legacy was 16 ohm, so I switched the head from 8 to 16, and then switched it back to 8 when I got home to my TM2x12. I didn't have (or at least didn't notice) this hum when I was playing through the Legacy.

Any ideas what it could be? I was going to open it up tonight and see if maybe I had some tubes crapping out, but I would think a bad tube would make noise constantly.

???

Thanks,
Rick

 

[guitarslinger]

ground lift switch?

 

[Resonant Alien]

ground lift switch?

Renegade doesn't have one. But I did try using one of those 3-prong to 2-prong adapters on the power cord, and I got even more noise without the ground..

 

[guitarslinger]

did you try it in another building yet? ther ecould be a fader somewhere in the house circuit that's causing the noise.

 

[RockStarNick]

Matt had this problem. The dimmers upstairs in his living room were causing MAJOR noise downstairs in his amp room.

 

[Resonant Alien]

Matt had this problem. The dimmers upstairs in his living room were causing MAJOR noise downstairs in his amp room.

did you try it in another building yet? ther ecould be a fader somewhere in the house circuit that's causing the noise.

I was kind of wondering this. I'll try killing everything in the house (electrically I mean ) and see what happens.

Thanks,

 

[Resonant Alien]

As Butthead used to say "Well damn"....

It took me about 3 hours to find the culprit, but I finally found that my kids had turned on some can lights in the attic that are on a dimmer. But, they had turned the dimmer all the way down, so the lights were barely on and not easily noticeable. I turned that switch off and it seems to have fixed the problem.

Weird b/c the attic lights are on a different circuit than my studio room....

Thanks for the brain jog Nick.

 

[muudrock]

Weird b/c the attic lights are on a different circuit than my studio room....

Thanks for the brain jog Nick.

Any dimmer in attached to the same power main can cause noise. Dimmers chop up the AC current and that creates line noise (simple explaination). Since every circuit terminates into the mains panel all the circuits are interconnected there AC, RF and AM interference can spread across all circuits. Simply buying a better quality dimmer (with an inductor choke and capacitor) will solve that problem. A good dimmer will run ya about $20-$40. Don't ask how much I had to spend to fix the 8 dimmers that were in my house.

 

[dfrattaroli]

I have this problem in my house too. Cheap ass dimmers. And stay away from those long-life green bulbs. They're not supposed to be used with dimmers and if you do, expect ass-loads of noise.

 

[muudrock]

And stay away from those long-life green bulbs. They're not supposed to be used with dimmers and if you do, expect ass-loads of noise.

+100. They are terrible for that. The ballasts in those bulbs can make some equipment unusable.