eliminating noise!?

[Rex]

2. I used spray-on conductor paint in the cavity and under the pickguard. You need to use A LOT to make a difference. I measured it with an ohm-meter, and one or two sprays is not enough. Really need it thick.

The paint-on stuff works better. Two or three coats will get you there. Sticky-backed copper foil is best. Make sure there's electrical contact between the pickguard and the cavity.

Also replaced the 5-way selector switch. Turns out that made a substantial difference. I blew the soldering and destroyed the components the first time I tried.

Sounds like that might have been the major source of your problem.

I bought an expensive temperature-regulated soldering station, much better than cheap unit, but I still suck at soldering. Even the fancy iron heats up the pot too much before I can get the solder to melt.

The three rules for effective soldering: Clean tip, clean tip, and clean tip. The tip has to be shiny and tinned. Then your pot will heat up fast enough to melt the solder before it gets damaged. Unless you're using a tiny pencil tip. You need a mid-sized chisel tip to do it effectively.

I don't have any noise problems now, but I crave the pure strattiness I lost because of my pickup choice.

Now that you've replaced the damaged components, you might be able to get away with putting your old pickups back in.

 

[GuttaLaser]

No time for reading all the answers... but:
1) well shielded cables and guitar electronics
2) the right gain structure from input to output of the AxeFx (and all in between)... and then in the mixer/amp/monitor system you use
3) no more distortion than what you really need (real naked BIG guitar tracks are less distorted that you can think!)
4) play you guitar far from computer monitors, pc, laptop etc... and economy light bulb with electronic inside
5) don't use light dimmers in the room... the light you don't use... became noise in the electric circuitry
6) use a little bit of noise gate with the right threshold and attack/release

 

[yek]

ok, i might have somethig here...

i have noticed that on all my presets the "input trim" is at the default setting.
if i lower the input trim the noise almost goes away completely.

sure i lose some gain, but when adding gain back the noise stays fairly low.
this is interesting...

the input gain is also set at 100%, going down to 50% in combination with a low input trim setting
i am able to get heavy distorted tones without having too much noise.

not sure if this is a "legmtimate" solution but right now it seems to work...

What you're doing here is simply reducing the input signal level, so any noise in that signal is also reduced.

 

[Soultrash]

What you're doing here is simply reducing the input signal level, so any noise in that signal is also reduced.

yeah but shouldn't the noise rise again when i add more gain and volume to compensate for the lower input?
in this case it doesn's and that's what is confusing me...

 

[ThelmoRego]

the kids comments are not without merit. if I leave my same guitar and the same cable plugged into my axe fx and cycle thru the different high gain amps with out playing any notes, they all have a different amount of gain noise. some are dead quite and then when you strum a chord it rippin, I think he is looking for a way to make all of the high gain amps behave the way those do where they are dead silent when your not playing, and full blast when you are.

 

[Rex]

some are dead quite and then when you strum a chord it rippin, I think he is looking for a way to make all of the high gain amps behave the way those do where they are dead silent when your not playing, and full blast when you are.

It's all about the noise gate. That's the only way to make a high-gain preset dead quiet.

When you lower the input trim, you drop your guitar's resting signal below the noise gate threshold, so the noise gate cuts in. To get the same effect without reducing trim, just raise the threshold.

 

[Dizzy282]

Interference was killing my sound, making it unplayable... my remedies:

1. Swapped out my stock 1995 Fender Squire (Korean model) pickups for interference canceling Zexcoils. I wish I got the pure stratty sound ones, but I went for the splitbucker to get humbucker emulation. That tone is nice, but the loss of pure 100% strattiness leaves me envious when I hear others. Zexcoil had pickups that do sound good for that sound, but without the humbucker option.

2. I used spray-on conductor paint in the cavity and under the pickguard. You need to use A LOT to make a difference. I measured it with an ohm-meter, and one or two sprays is not enough. Really need it thick.

3. Replaced the stock pots with higher quality ones from Stu-Mac. Also replaced the 5-way selector switch. Turns out that made a substantial difference. I blew the soldering and destroyed the components the first time I tried.

4. I bought an expensive temperature-regulated soldering station, much better than cheap unit, but I still suck at soldering. Even the fancy iron heats up the pot too much before I can get the solder to melt. I even bought separate bottle of flux to make it work better. Maybe the problem is trying lead-free solder? Better for environment, but not better for soldering?

I don't have any noise problems now, but I crave the pure strattiness I lost because of my pickup choice. Zexcoils good, but be careful to get the option that matches the sound you really want.

When making the solder connection on the top of the pot, it helps to lightly sand it with some fine grit sand paper. Not much, but just a little. Then wipe the sanded spot down with a little rubbing alcohol. When it's dry, solder as normal, and the solder will flow nice and easy into the spot and on your wires. It goes without saying that you should also tin the ends of the wires that your soldering to make the connections easier too.

hope that helps.

 

[Soultrash]

the kids comments are not without merit. if I leave my same guitar and the same cable plugged into my axe fx and cycle thru the different high gain amps with out playing any notes, they all have a different amount of gain noise. some are dead quite and then when you strum a chord it rippin, I think he is looking for a way to make all of the high gain amps behave the way those do where they are dead silent when your not playing, and full blast when you are.

yes, some amps are fairly quiet, others again have an extreme noise floor,
even if the guitar is not plugged in, as soon as you load up certain amp models the noise gets unbearable!

the main problem is the consistency of this noise, usually if i play some chords the noise gets "masked" and is not
that much audible. however the noise i am talking about is constant and present, even if i play some really loud chugs,
i can clearly hear the noise "cutting through" the tone, which at least does not seem to be normal to me...

this noise is existent even if my guitar is not plugged in, so i can not blame it on the guitar electronics anymore.

my setup is also absolutely OK, when i bypass the axe and record the input of my interface i have no noise at all,
just when i add 40-50db og gain i can hear some slight noise, so i can not blame it on my interface/recording setup either.

my axe fx is acting very strangely in general, so i am starting to think that something might not be OK with my unit...

It's all about the noise gate. That's the only way to make a high-gain preset dead quiet.

When you lower the input trim, you drop your guitar's resting signal below the noise gate threshold, so the noise gate cuts in. To get the same effect without reducing trim, just raise the threshold.

usually a good noise gate can help a lot, however the noise i am dealing with is extremely penetrating and consistent,
even when i play some really hi gain riffs i can hear the noise cutting through all the time, a gate does not halp in this case...

 

[Soultrash]

btw, i am experiencing a few other strange things,
which may be a sign that the unit has some sort of error/fault.

when i turn the output knob (LEVELS) i am getting a strange digital noise. this happens even if
the axe is "clear" means no preset is loaded and even when the axe is in bypass mode...
it's clearly coming from the axe fx, it's not a problem with my interface, speakers etc. i've checked
all of this. here's a recording of the sound:

Axe-Fx II noise:
RME AIO input noise:
another problem is a difference in the output. if i load up a mono preset the sound on the right speaker is
much louder than on the left speaker. when i check the preset, routing etc. everything is balanced.
if i play back any other source the sound is perfectly balanced, so it'd not a problem with my interface/speakers. today this problem "shifted", now, when i use a mono preset the sound on the left and right speaker is identical, however when i bypass the axe fx the sound on the right speaker gets much louder again. this is really frustrating, and i can not tell if it's a software or a hardware problem.

mono preset:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2576909/axe fx.bmp

Axe-Fx II bypassed:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2576909/axe fx_02.bmp

any ideas?

 

[Rex]

usually a good noise gate can help a lot, however the noise i am dealing with is extremely penetrating and consistent,
even when i play some really hi gain riffs i can hear the noise cutting through all the time, a gate does not halp in this case...

Post a clip? "Extremely penetrating" and "unbearable" noise is not the norm.

 

[Soultrash]

must be the guitar/wiring!
when i load up an amp and disconnect the guitar/close the volume
pot there is only a slight "woosh" which seems pretty normal at this point.

as soon as i turn up the volume knob the noise is clearly audible, however it sounds not like
a standrd guitar noise, all that chirp and buzz sounds more like there is something wrong with the electronics?

i do not have that much experience with this kind of noise as all my prevoius
guitars were pretty silent, so it must be something wrong with the wiring, maybe even the pickups.

i recorded a few seconds with the volume pot closed, then opened the pot and touched the pot knob+pickups.
the resonanced seem quite odd and exaggerated to be honest, though it can be also "normal" noise, you can judge by the sound file...


also, when i select the bridge pickup, the neck pickup does react on touching jist ans intensely as the bridge pickup and vice versa. shouldn't the 3way selector actually "mute" the unselected pickup?

 

[Rex]

You've got something kicking out electromagnetic interference that's being picked up by your guitar.

The resonance when you tap the pickup sounds like your term springs. That sound will be picked up by whichever pickup is in use.

 

[rocket]

Depends on your definition of "noise". The correction definition of noise is a random signal caused by thermal agitation of the atoms in a conductor. Any atom higher than zero degrees Kelvin will experience electrons randomly switching in and out of valence states (IIRC). This causes random electron flow in the conductor. The higher the resistance of the conductor the more this random electron flow will induce voltage since V = I*R. This is known as Johnson noise. Johnson noise is proportional to resistance and temperature ( = sqrt(4*K*T*B*R) where K is Boltzman's constant, T is temperature in Kelvins, B is bandwidth in Hz and R is resistance).

Since Johnson noise is random and the signal from your guitar is also random then there is no way to separate the good from the bad.

Now "interference" is a different thing. Interference is not random. In our microcosm interference is typically electromagnetic interference from nearby radiators. In the old days it was predominately 60 cycle in nature but with the advent of computers and binary power supplies this interference now includes high frequency sources. However you can't predict what that interference will look like so removing it is nearly impossible. You can put notch filters in to remove 60 Hz interference but that still damages the desired signal.

The best way to remove interference is to shield against it. There are two possibilities: shield the source or shield the receiver (or both). Since you may have no control over shielding the source that leaves shielding the receiver, e.g. shielding your guitar and using well-shielded cables.

Welcome back...