High pitched "ping" sound when playing loud

Zwiebelchen

Zwiebelchen

Fractal Fanatic
Whenever I play, no matter wether I record via USB and play the recorded piece from laptop or wether I play into the PA directly, I can hear a high pitched ringing noise which should not be part of the original signal.
Weird thing is, if I convert a recording to mp3, the ringing is gone somehow. I wouldn't bother in this case, but the ringing is also there when playing in the rehearsals.

Could it be a grounding issue? If so, can you recommend a good solution?

The Axe is plugged into the PA with the XLR outputs, Output 2 is connected to the PA aswell via ordinary guitar cables, but the input of the corresponding mixer channels was muted when I tested it. XLR ground lift had no effect on this. Unfortunately, I can't do a recording, because as soon as I convert it to mp3, the ringing magically disappears. I'm totally confused.

PS: The ringing is there with or without the laptop connected.
 
Have you tried a different guitar? The Axe-fx will amplify, cleanly, anything you give it. So, if your guitar is fretting out or anything like that, you WILL hear it a super loud volumes.
 
im not sure if this is your issue, but i've noticed a ping as well with high gain stuff. But, it was actually my pick hand randomly rubbing/touching on the other high strings while playing, causing ping noises.
 
I had some weird ping-ish noise, e.g. while strumming muted strings. Turned out the part of string between string locks and tunings posts was vibrating just enough to make the whole string vibrate a bit.
 
Might be too much gain in the preset? Getting stage volume through amp/speakers with a super high amp block gain preset made at low volume can cause problems such as a high pitched unharmonic sound which doesn't quite get time to evolve into a true microphonic whistle.
 
Vintage type saddles can be the source of some unexpected overtones which is why they are often changed to solid block type.
 
Mine does that too until I tweak the hi frequency cut to tame it a bit. It happens on the high E string at loud volumes.
 
Obvious stuff is to mute strings on headstock (GRUVGEAR Fret Wrap works great for this) and springs in tremolo. Maybe your pickups are microphonic (actually they all are to some extent). I'd also make sure that vibrations from guitar body are isolated from pickups. People for some reason like to install magnetic pickups stiff in body (putting wooden blocks or coins under pickups instead of some plastic foam or something similar) - this escalates pickups microphonic behaviour.
 
Cliff's right. It may be a pickup issue. At high gain, can you speak into the pickup like a microphone? It may be microphonic.
 
I had the same issue with all my parkers when I used them.
I think it had something to do with the magnetic pickups running through the piezo circuit.
 
I do get this too, high gain. I noticed even get touch of feedback with some guitars when palm muting, it seems much of the time its due to pressure bringing the strings closer to the bridge pickup, with my palm pressure.
 
I get this when I palm mute too hard. I end up pushing the strings too hard and they touch the pole pieces (Not a problem on my EMG equipped guitars though)

Solutions:
1) a couple of layers of well cut electrical tape across the pickup (not ideal but reduces the high pitch pop),

2) Lower your pickups slightly *note you're likely to lose some high end if you do this

3)or I could just learn to play less aggressively (but where's the fun in that!)

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Axe will reveal things that were always there but you may not have "picked up" (see what I did there!) on your previous setup.
 
PRS SE w/ EMG active Pickups

I notice a "ring" while playing "Limelight" using (what else) the Limelight preset. When I mute on the "A", I get a ring at the end that trails off. Not sure if this is the same thing we're talking about here though.


Edit: I was going to post a clip but after further investigation this is clearly operator induced. Like most high gain presets, Limelight is chock full of harmonic goodness. I just need to reduce my Slop Factor. ;)
 
Last edited:
As the general tone of the replies seems to be convinced it is something with my guitar, I'll better post what I use:

I'm using a Duesenberg Starplayer TV (which is a mid-to-high priced guitar), with original pickups, 2009 production. I adjusted the action to be a little bit higher compared to the factory setup (because of some buzzing issues when playing drop-D). The guitar has a Jazzguitar type of tremolo which actually works quite nice.
I'll try muting the strings between tuners and the string nut at the headstock and between the bridge and tremolo windings and see what happens.

It may be possible that this behaviour is really caused by my guitar, because I noticed this once aswell when playing unplugged at home (I thought I was just imagining things after a long rehearsal, so I didnt give it a second thought).

Just to go sure, what can I do if it is caused by overtones caused between tuners/nut or tremolo windings?


PS: It's not just on high gain settings, you can actually hear it on clean settings aswell, but it gets louder when playing highgain.


EDIT: Scrap all that! I just remembered also hearing this when our bass player recorded through the Axe, so it can't be the guitar!
 
Last edited:
Hollowbody+this kind of bridge+high gain will give you this kind of problems for sure. Try muting strings on bridge too, if you don't use it for bends...
 
Didejek said:
Hollowbody+this kind of bridge+high gain will give you this kind of problems for sure. Try muting strings on bridge too, if you don't use it for bends...
Click to expand...
As I edited in my last post: this also happened when we recorded our bass player via the Axe. It's not the guitar.

Also, as I said, the sound magically vanished when the recording was converted to MP3. THIS is actually what is most weird about this stuff. So I think it's a grounding/interference issue. I'll probably check the cables on the PA and Axe, spread them out all over the place and see if that helps.
 
I have the same type of guitar, DMC model, AND I have the same issue at loud volume levels.

It's the guitar because neither my Joe Perry Les Paul, Matthias Jabs Mastercaster, nor my Strat have that issue, only the DMC
 
Zwiebelchen said:
Also, as I said, the sound magically vanished when the recording was converted to MP3. THIS is actually what is most weird about this stuff.
Click to expand...

That's really not that weird. MP3 is a lossy format that by nature compresses data during the conversion process, removing high frequencies. If you were to convert it to FLAC or another lossless format, I imagine that the high pitched noise would remain.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom