Noise/Hum: The Saga Continues

[FourT6and2]

I suspect your seeing dirty ACV and additional EMF RFI from nasty wiring in your complex. My brothers house is a wiring nightmare romex wires crisscrossing each other in the floor joist's creating an environment for noise.

I think this is the case, too. But what's weird is the static/crackling/pop when touching anything metal on the guitar. The other guitars did this at Guitar Center, except the Music Mans. The LPs did it more than the others. The PRS did it, but not as drastic. Plus my guitar makes noise if I rub the actual body of the guitar. I think shielding might help in this case. Hopefully.

Every amp he's owned is a lot noisier and hissy at his house than at mine, high gain amps( more than 2 gain stages) especially amplify this noise if not running DC heaters or elevated AC heaters.

My Peters has elevated heaters. The Fortin has DC. Diezel has DC (I'm pretty sure). I get the noise with all three.

The Joys of Alternating Current I am afraid, a furman power regulator may help but it won't do anything if your apartment complex is still using hot and neutral wiring with no ground lugs in the circuit. Actual the older neutral hot wiring acts kind of like a ground lift sometime eliminating ground loops, but having everything fully grounded is best.

Yeah, nothing I can do if this is the case. But the plugs I'm using in one room of the house are fully grounded and wired correctly with GFCI outlets. But the noise is still there.

 

[FourT6and2]

In this pic where does that black wire go?

That is the string ground. It goes to the bridge/tailpiece.

I would try this….grab a piece of wire, maybe a foot or two long and solder a set of alligator clips on both ends. Clip one of the ends on one of your strings between the bridge and tailpiece. Take the other end and clip it inside the control cavity to a ground. One of those braided wire shields would work fine, but anything in there would work.

Tried it. Didn't change anything because the string/bridge ground is already wired properly.

In those pics I'm just not seeing a bridge ground anywhere. See if that changes anything.

That black wire you asked about is the bridge ground. The other guitar (also pictured) has a bridge ground too. You just can't see it in the photo.

 

[harddriver]

Actually my house has the older Neutral Hot wiring I describe but it is wired neatly with single runs none crisscrossing each other in a rats nest like at my brothers house, his house is running Hot, Neutral and ground BTW yet its one noisy MOFO.

He has a four gain stager with elevated heaters and it is noisy. He also has a high gain three stage with standard AC heaters that is quieter than his four stager. All have a lot more noise at his house regardless.

Best of luck man ACV can be a real gremlin especially when it comes to grounding. Electricity usually complies with correct theoretical behavior when in the theoretically correct environment 99% of the time then you have that last 1% where anomalies roam that can be quite maddening.

 

[rgorke]

I have and have had similar problems. One is dealing with lights, CFLs in the house and noisy switches. The other was an amp that had a wire in the inputs that had a cold solder joint.

So, I only skimmed the other responses. You need to limit the variables in trying to find the issue. Taking your guitars to GC is NOT it. Take your amps and guitars to a completely different house and/or turn off everything, even the fridge and wifi in the house. Use the same amp(s) and guitars to find the problem. My amps hum and buzz if I have two specific lights on, they are the worst but some are culprits as well.

Good Luck.

 

[FourT6and2]

I have and have had similar problems. One is dealing with lights, CFLs in the house and noisy switches. The other was an amp that had a wire in the inputs that had a cold solder joint.

So, I only skimmed the other responses. You need to limit the variables in trying to find the issue. Taking your guitars to GC is NOT it. Take your amps and guitars to a completely different house and/or turn off everything, even the fridge and wifi in the house. Use the same amp(s) and guitars to find the problem. My amps hum and buzz if I have two specific lights on, they are the worst but some are culprits as well.

Good Luck.

I've addressed all this stuff already. Thanks, though

 

[FourT6and2]

Took a lead with alligator clips on each end and went poking around. Nothing. Clipped one end to the strings and one end to various other things. If I physically touched the clip, sure some of the hum goes away. But that's no different than me touching the strings directly. If I touched the clip to the pots, no change. Pickup leads? No change. Hot lugs on pots? Sound cuts out completely. But that's to be expected since I'm shorting the circuit.

 

[Greazygeo]

Took a lead with alligator clips on each end and went poking around. Nothing. Clipped one end to the strings and one end to various other things. If I physically touched the clip, sure some of the hum goes away. But that's no different than me touching the strings directly. If I touched the clip to the pots, no change. Pickup leads? No change. Hot lugs on pots? Sound cuts out completely. But that's to be expected since I'm shorting the circuit.

Cool. Thanks for trying that. I know this stuff is frustrating. Sounds like your guitar grounds are working as they should be.

Something else you can try is a three prong to two prong adapter on your amp's power cord. See if that changes anything.

Is there anything else plugged in your room? Any ac adapters close by?

 

[FourT6and2]

Took a lead with alligator clips on each end and went poking around. Nothing. Clipped one end to the strings and one end to various other things. If I physically touched the clip, sure some of the hum goes away. But that's no different than me touching the strings directly. If I touched the clip to the pots, no change. Pickup leads? No change. Hot lugs on pots? Sound cuts out completely. But that's to be expected since I'm shorting the circuit.

Cool. Thanks for trying that. I know this stuff is frustrating. Sounds like your guitar grounds are working as they should be.

Something else you can try is a three prong to two prong adapter on your amp's power cord. See if that changes anything.

Is there anything else plugged in your room? Any ac adapters close by?

Nah, I've tried unplugging everything. Turned off the WIFI. Turned off all the lights. Hell, I even turned off the refrigerator.

I might try grabbing one of those AC Detector pens that light/beep when an AC field is detected. It's kind of like a metal detector for AC. If there's AC flowing through a guitar due to bad ground or something, it will detect it. Could also detect other stray AC/EM/RF fields.

 

[MississippiMetal]

How is your continuity between the stopbar tailpiece and the ground buss on the pots?

 

[FourT6and2]

How is your continuity between the stopbar tailpiece and the ground buss on the pots?

Solid.

 

[FourT6and2]

Can someone please try this for me?

Turn your amp on.
Gain channel.
Not crazy high-gain. But just not a clean channel. I guess clean channel could probably work too.
Plug in an instrument cable. But don't plug in your guitar.
Take the amp out of standby.
Hold the instrument cable by the cable/insulation and not by the jack. Make sure you're not touching any metal on the cable or touching the amp.

Is there hum?

Now touch the metal sleeve of the cable's plug (not the tip). Hum go away?

At home, I get lots of hum if I'm just waving the instrument cable around. If I touch the metal of the plug, hum goes away. But not all of it. Exact same sound as with my guitars plugged in. At Guitar Center, there was NO hum when doing this.

If ya'll do this what happens?

 

[FourT6and2]

Plugged amp into UNGROUNDED outlet (GFCI socket). Put a meter to the sleeve and tip of a cable plugged into my amp. There are 70-80 volts AC on the instrument cable. And there is noise when holding cable in the air while not plugged into guitar.

Plugged amp into GROUNDED outlet (GFCI socket). Put meter to sleeve and tip of cable. 30mV AC. There's no noise when holding cable in the air while not plugged into guitar. But, there's still noise when the guitar is plugged in.

 

[Steinmetzify]

Tried it. Little bit of hum when not touching the jack; went away when I touched the jack. Marshall DSL on the Ultra channel. Less on lower gain channels.

 

[FourT6and2]

Tried it. Little bit of hum when not touching the jack; went away when I touched the jack. Marshall DSL on the Ultra channel. Less on lower gain channels.

And are your guitars quiet when plugged in, volume up, you not touching the guitar?

 

[Steinmetzify]

Harder to tell; all my guitars have unpotted pickups. Not noisy per se, but louder than normal for sure. If I hit the strap button or back of the neck it rings out loudly due to that. But yeah, generally speaking if I'm standing still volume up they're quiet.

 

[Mizati20]

Read through the entire thread and was going to suggest the "unplug everything in the house" thing... my old apartment in Miami was awful with this, was strange, but when I had certain things plugged in, even though they were in completely different rooms... it would cause my amps to hum... I thought for sure this would be the case as you said you have moved to different locations and still experience this... meaning some type of appliance or lamp or something you have brought with you through the multiple moves could be causing the issue... but damn man... I don't know what to say....

...I've seen your other threads and I apologize if this is completely silly, but have you not tried a decimator or anything like that? Haven't seen mention of it in the other threads, I would think I good power conditioner and a good gate should take care of a good amount... maybe even a pro rack G that runs a gate up front and through the loop, that coupled with clean power would have to help I'd think...

I know none of this helps, just feelin' the pain with ya brother, hope you get it worked out...

 

[FourT6and2]

Read through the entire thread and was going to suggest the "unplug everything in the house" thing... my old apartment in Miami was awful with this, was strange, but when I had certain things plugged in, even though they were in completely different rooms... it would cause my amps to hum... I thought for sure this would be the case as you said you have moved to different locations and still experience this... meaning some type of appliance or lamp or something you have brought with you through the multiple moves could be causing the issue... but damn man... I don't know what to say....

...I've seen your other threads and I apologize if this is completely silly, but have you not tried a decimator or anything like that? Haven't seen mention of it in the other threads, I would think I good power conditioner and a good gate should take care of a good amount... maybe even a pro rack G that runs a gate up front and through the loop, that coupled with clean power would have to help I'd think...

I know none of this helps, just feelin' the pain with ya brother, hope you get it worked out...

I am strongly against using noise gates. They kill playing dynamics. I roll the volume on my guitar down to clean up the sound when I play (my amp is single channel). And the hum is basically just as loud as my guitar when playing clean. So a gate would kill the noise and the guitar sound in one. Not good.

My next step is to try shielding. Then a Furman P-1800 PFR or a used AR-15. Not sure if I should try the copper foil tape or the black conductive paint. The tape is reversible but probably tends to cause more capacitance than the paint.

As far as something that I keep plugged in, I've tried turning off the power in the house. At the circuit breaker. Except for the power to the one room where I've plugged the amp in. And that hasn't helped. And I travel light The only piece of electronic gear I have that has traveled with me has been my laptop and my WIFI router. Both of which I've tried turning off.

But here's a video from a few years ago of me playing my PRS right next to a freakin' mini fridge and a neon bar sign. Notice how there's zero noise If I had unplugged the PRS and plugged in the Gibson, you'd hear hum.

https://youtu.be/DM4Y_ngjTyc?t=39s

 

[Greazygeo]

Took a lead with alligator clips on each end and went poking around. Nothing. Clipped one end to the strings and one end to various other things. If I physically touched the clip, sure some of the hum goes away. But that's no different than me touching the strings directly. If I touched the clip to the pots, no change. Pickup leads? No change. Hot lugs on pots? Sound cuts out completely. But that's to be expected since I'm shorting the circuit.

Cool. Thanks for trying that. I know this stuff is frustrating. Sounds like your guitar grounds are working as they should be.

Something else you can try is a three prong to two prong adapter on your amp's power cord. See if that changes anything.

Is there anything else plugged in your room? Any ac adapters close by?

Nah, I've tried unplugging everything. Turned off the WIFI. Turned off all the lights. Hell, I even turned off the refrigerator.

I might try grabbing one of those AC Detector pens that light/beep when an AC field is detected. It's kind of like a metal detector for AC. If there's AC flowing through a guitar due to bad ground or something, it will detect it. Could also detect other stray AC/EM/RF fields.

Well you got me....the only other thing would be to try another guitar just to see what happens. But you have two guitars and they both do it. Maybe for the heck of it, try a small practice amp and see if that does it?

Very odd to say the least.

 

[rgorke]

I did your unplug the guitar and wave the cable around, dead quiet. Touching the end of the cable (tip) I get noise, of course. As I said before, I had an issue with my new build. Last night the hum came back and it is gone this morning. Not sure why, other than noisy AC. Sounds like there may be an open circuit somewhere in the house, maybe an ungrounded plug is throwing out random noise that the pickups are picking up.

 

[jsp]

Nope. I don't know anybody else that plays guitar. But there is someone on here who said they might be able to drop by sometime and bring their guitars. But I feel like I did that test already at Guitar Center, no? But I guess it would make a difference because it would be in my building.

That was me. Are you free Saturday (a week from today)? I'm going to Meshuggah in SF, so I'll be in the city anyway.