Buzzing!

  • Take the III out of the rack.
  • Connect only power and your guitar.
  • Now listen with headphones, using factory presets.
  • Is there noise?
 
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I'd be curious to have you compare the front Instrument input to the rear one.
 
I suspect that the front input ribbon cable is partially out causing grounding issue.
1. Try a rear input and see if issue goes away.
2. If it does, pop the lid and check the ribbon cable. Might’ve popped in shipping.
 
Thanks for all of the latest replies. I am unable to tinker with it atm. Over the weekend I will try all of the new suggestions.

Thanks,

Gary
 
@Fatjac, as an example of how easy it is to create noise in rack rigs I want to share this tale.

On Friday I decided to reorganize my rack. No components were added. No components were removed. I was merely moving existing components in the rack. Once I got done, I powered everything up and find my noise floor had increased considerably. I pretty quickly figured out what I had done.

One of the rack spaces that I had started using had a a small deviation in the distance between the mounting holes. This had allowed the chassis of two components to come into contact, bonding their grounds. This created a ground loop that manifested as noise.

I separated the offending components and upon restarting the system, the noise floor returned to where it had been prior to moving components.
 
@Fatjac, as an example of how easy it is to create noise in rack rigs I want to share this tale.

On Friday I decided to reorganize my rack. No components were added. No components were removed. I was merely moving existing components in the rack. Once I got done, I powered everything up and find my noise floor had increased considerably. I pretty quickly figured out what I had done.

One of the rack spaces that I had started using had a a small deviation in the distance between the mounting holes. This had allowed the chassis of two components to come into contact, bonding their grounds. This created a ground loop that manifested as noise.

I separated the offending components and upon restarting the system, the noise floor returned to where it had been prior to moving components.
That's both totally believable and totally weird. Believable because ground loops start in surprising places. Weird because, in most racks, just screwing a box into the rack puts its chassis in electrical contact with every other chassis that's screwed into the same rack.

None of that would matter if all manufacturers adhered to good design standards, because chassis ground and signal ground would be two separate things.
 
That's both totally believable and totally weird. Believable because ground loops start in surprising places. Weird because, in most racks, just screwing a box into the rack puts its chassis in electrical contact with every other chassis that's screwed into the same rack.

None of that would matter if all manufacturers adhered to good design standards, because chassis ground and signal ground would be two separate things.
@Rex, you raise a great point. I use HumFrees on my rack which prevents the simple act of mounting from bonding grounds. In this case, a HumFree on one corner of a component was preventing me from getting a screw in. I rotated the offending HumFree, thus allowing the screw to seat and tighten, but this allowed the two chassis to come into contact and form the ground loop.

When I heard the noise, I immediately knew what I had done and corrected it.

The important thing to take away is how easy it easy to do things that add noise to a rig. Even seemingly simple changes like swapping an Axe II for an Axe III can easily create noise.
 
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Not sure if anyone has mentioned this or not, but also go to the the I/O menu and make sure that your Word Clock is set to 'Internal". It will cause noise if it isn't.

Scott A.
 
@Rex, you raise a great point. I use HumFrees on my rack which prevents the simple act of mounting from bonding grounds. In this case, a HumFree on one corner of a component was preventing me from getting a screw in. I rotated the offending HumFree, thus allowing the screw to seat and tighten, but this allowed the two chassis to come into contact and form the ground loop.

When I heard the noise, I immediately knew what I had done and corrected it.

The important thing to take away is how easy it easy to do things that add noise to a rig. Even seemingly simple changes like swapping an Axe II for an Axe III can easily create noise.
Ah-hah! HumFrees! That explains it.

I use them on all my rack gear, out of habit. My Fractal stuff doesn't care, but I still use them on all the gear anyway. That way, I never forget to use them on gear that needs them, thereby saving myself hours of troubleshooting.
 
A lot of good answers there. Having a silent rig when you roll of the volume is really good. Let’s dig into the items that you should look at to ensure they are not causing problems.

You indicate that you are using “XLR and humbuster where required”. I take it that you mean that you have tried both XLR and Humbusters on Output1? The SLA power amps I just looked at have an XLR and TRS input for each channel. Since the Axe 1/4” Ouptut 1 is balanced (TRS) and the SLA 1/4” input is balanced (TRS), you would use a TRS Cable if connecting via the 1/4” jack. But using XLR is equivalent, so if that did not help...

You indicate that the power amp and Axe are in a rack. The rack chassis is probably adding noise. If the screws contact any metal on the chassis, the screw will bond that chassis ground to the rack rails. If a second unit in the rack also gets its ground bonded to the rack rails, you have a ground loop. That will cause noise. Get you hands on some humfrees or similar type of rack isolation tabs. They are really cheap. https://www.guitarcenter.com/Humfre...MIzdXJvuDB4gIVDFqGCh3kHA8qEAQYAiABEgJf7fD_BwE

Hi everyone...I’ve been watching this thread and saw the post about the HumFrees..
So I purchased them from SweetWater... and Lo and Behold the ground noise I had in my Rack with the Axe FX is now completely gone...
Thank you Captain Nasty ..!!
 
Hi everyone...I’ve been watching this thread and saw the post about the HumFrees..
So I purchased them from SweetWater... and Lo and Behold the ground noise I had in my Rack with the Axe FX is now completely gone...
Thank you Captain Nasty ..!!
Glad it helped you out @Rain!
 
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