Multiple Buzzing Sounds

[BaronVonGrim]

Going with higher amp gains. Since I hear tonal differences

 

[BrianJ]

Why does no one understand how guitar grounds work? I see this all the time on here.
The guitar gets grounded THROUGH YOUR BODY. If you aren’t touching the strings, its not grounded and it’s gonna buzz. If the buzzing stops when you touch the strings, jack, or other grounded hardware, then everything is functional.

But that’s only one type of grounding problem. The fight I’ve been having for years is that there seems to be something in the “area” outside my home that is generating emi and my guitar pickups are picking it up...and with high gain amps it’s LOUD. The internal noise gate in the AxeFX III will quiet it down, but always at the expense of sustain etc. if you set the gate a little softer you get the noise as soon as the signal starts to taper off. It’s a no win situation. I hear so many people on here with great AxeFX recordings and for the life of me I can’t figure out how they are so quiet.

 

[Rex]

But that’s only one type of grounding problem. The fight I’ve been having for years is that there seems to be something in the “area” outside my home that is generating emi and my guitar pickups are picking it up...and with high gain amps it’s LOUD. The internal noise gate in the AxeFX III will quiet it down, but always at the expense of sustain etc. if you set the gate a little softer you get the noise as soon as the signal starts to taper off. It’s a no win situation. I hear so many people on here with great AxeFX recordings and for the life of me I can’t figure out how they are so quiet.

That's not a grounding problem, though. It's electromagnetic interference.The only real way to tackle it is to minimize how much of it gets into your guitar in the first place.

Are your guitar's control and pickup cavities shielded? If not, there's room for improvement right there.

Try turning in a circle while you hold your guitar. There will probably be a position where the interference is minimized.

 

[BrianJ]

That's not a grounding problem, though. It's electromagnetic interference.The only real way to tackle it is to minimize how much of it gets into your guitar in the first place.

Are your guitar's control and pickup cavities shielded? If not, there's room for improvement right there.

Try turning in a circle while you hold your guitar. There will probably be a position where the interference is minimized.

Hey Rex!
Yes, there is a spot that’s better in the rotation, and when in that spot if I also lean towards the floor at about a 45 degree angle it’s even better, almost quiet. However, it’s very hard to play like that.

I’ve asked several people about getting my guitars shielded, and everyone seemed to think that it wouldn’t help as there would still be nothing to keep the emi from coming in through the front of the pickup, which is what seems to be the problem. I tried to pay a local shop to do the shielding, they said they could take my money, but it wouldn’t do any good...so I didn’t do it. I’ve got a Yamaha RGX custom with all emg’s, and a PRS Tremonti core and they both have this issue.

Believe me, I’d love to fix this issue...I even moved a few years ago and the problem just followed me across town.

I went to the Paul Reed Smith factory last week and had them set my Tremonti up and check everything out...everything was normal. While there I played some of the guitars in their store as well...noticed the same thing there.

How are artists who travel and play everywhere able to avoid emi?!? How do studios combat it in big cities? It doesn’t seem like it’s a problem for everyone...but for those of us who have the problem it’s devastating.

 

[Rex]

Hey Rex!
Yes, there is a spot that’s better in the rotation, and when in that spot if I also lean towards the floor at about a 45 degree angle it’s even better, almost quiet. However, it’s very hard to play like that.

No problem. Get a recliner, nail it to the floor, set it at the right angle, and you're golden!

I’ve asked several people about getting my guitars shielded, and everyone seemed to think that it wouldn’t help as there would still be nothing to keep the emi from coming in through the front of the pickup, which is what seems to be the problem. I tried to pay a local shop to do the shielding, they said they could take my money, but it wouldn’t do any good...so I didn’t do it.

Shielding just about always helps some. How much it helps depends. True, shielding doesn't cover the front of the pickups, but it does cover five of the six sides. And if it's done right, it covers the entire control cavity.

...I even moved a few years ago and the problem just followed me across town.

This might be a clue. What else followed you when you moved? Light dimmers? Fluorescent lights? Wi-Fi router?...

I went to the Paul Reed Smith factory last week...While there I played some of the guitars in their store as well...noticed the same thing there.

You mean you got the same crud and interference at the PRS factory that you get at home?

How are artists who travel and play everywhere able to avoid emi?!? How do studios combat it in big cities? It doesn’t seem like it’s a problem for everyone...but for those of us who have the problem it’s devastating.

The bigger venues have usually killed the major sources of EMI at the stage. As for the local bar, neon signs have ruined more than one gig. Studios are also careful to keep EMI sources at bay.[/QUOTE]

 

[unix-guy]

I recently switched over to using my MFC with my Axe Fx III. Since I can no longer power the MFC with FASLink or EtherCon, I am running phantom power over midi with an AC adapter in my rack.

Due to space constraints, I plugged the adapter into the front "courtesy" outlet.

Two days ago, I noticed I was getting a bad hum from my guitar and it was more pronounced with my humbucker, which is really odd. It sounded like a 60Hz hum, so I thought maybe a ground wire had come loose in my guitar.

However, I discovered by sheer luck that the hum got worse the closer the guitar was to the rack... And really bad when it was close to the adapter.

I moved the adapter to a pigtail connector in the back of the rack... Silence!

Last night during rehearsal, it started humming again although not as bad. In that case, I unplugged it and plugged it right back in and the problem vanished again.

So... Something is definitely up with that adapter. But I would have never suspected it.

 

[BrianJ]

No problem. Get a recliner, nail it to the floor, set it at the right angle, and you're golden!



Shielding just about always helps some. How much it helps depends. True, shielding doesn't cover the front of the pickups, but it does cover five of the six sides. And if it's done right, it covers the entire control cavity.



This might be a clue. What else followed you when you moved? Light dimmers? Fluorescent lights? Wi-Fi router?...

I’ve went to some extremes at times...One night I started turning off everything in the house...and while there were certain things that did have an effect (dimmers, thermostat, etc), nothing took away the bulk of the problem. I even ended up turning off every single breaker in the house, except the one that I had my AxeFX plugged into. I ran an extension cord outside and put the AxeFX on the hood of my car and I stood in the front yard while playing, listening on headphones. Same result. That’s when I knew for sure it had to be something “environmental” that my guitars are picking up.

And yes, to some degree I heard the same type of interference at the PRS factory playing their guitars.

 

[Rex]

I’ve went to some extremes at times...One night I started turning off everything in the house...and while there were certain things that did have an effect (dimmers, thermostat, etc), nothing took away the bulk of the problem. I even ended up turning off every single breaker in the house, except the one that I had my AxeFX plugged into. I ran an extension cord outside and put the AxeFX on the hood of my car and I stood in the front yard while playing, listening on headphones. Same result. That’s when I knew for sure it had to be something “environmental” that my guitars are picking up.

And yes, to some degree I heard the same type of interference at the PRS factory playing their guitars.

Do you have a cell phone/pacemaker/other gadget that's always with you when you play guitar?

 

[BrianJ]

Do you have a cell phone/pacemaker/other gadget that's always with you when you play guitar?

Turning off my cell doesn’t have any effect. Do me a favor...go to the 2 minute mark of this video...he’s advertising for the Rocktron hush pedal, but he shows what it sounds like normally as he moves the guitar around...



This is exactly what my AxeFX sounds like. He says that it is regular amp noise, and that it is even present when he turns down his guitar volume. Now, that is NOT my experience. What I mean is, if I turn my guitar volume knob all the way down the noise goes away...so I don’t believe it’s a problem with the AxeFX...it’s my guitars, they all pick up this noise.

 

[BrianJ]

We had a 5 page thread back in May about this...

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/background-noise.137456/page-4

 

[Rex]

Some noise with high-gain guitar is inevitable. Without hearing a clip of the noise with and without you playing, it's hard to get a feel for what you're hearing.

The fact that the noise seems to follow you around to other buildings and other guitars points to one of two things: either 1) there's something unique about what you have near you that's causing interference, or 2) the noise isn't as loud as you think it is.

 

[BaronVonGrim]

The pickups we are using, magnets...
Metallurgy and percentages of metals used.
Some require an adaptive style of playing,. Hot or hotter. And you need to have your hand in the bridge. And you get the option of better harmonics without contact..encorporating it into your playing.

I preorder a new guitar with noise canceling pickups coming sometime in the next few month.. will see what that does.

Things in the air...
The air is full of signals in the airwaves. It's hard to conceptualize how it works or if it exists. They told me they were terminating broadcasting airwaves because it was full... or were they just forcing me to buy cable. Old man across the street... a lifetime star gazer comes to me in puzzlement several nights a week. Tells me the stars are jumping around.. he looks thru a pair of binoculars. Says they never did that when he was a kid. I tell him his arm isn't as steady as it was, and think about old age... he insists no. This goes on for sometime. He gets me looking. Setting up tripods..etc. Yes, it appears the star hovers, zig, Zags. My thoughts are.. placebo effect...or busy airwaves distorting air molecules. Just a crazy idea? Hard not to think so.

Secondly.. family members works at Harris Communications. Working on military development..engineering. Also.. works with crime surveillance.. still somewhat secret, unbelievable even. He talks about the white van.
They can hear you in your house. Our houses are like low volume pickups. Wiring in the walls.. coiling around rooms, room to room.

White noise is all around us.

Sustain I'm not sure I'm willing to give that up, but need to see what the gate does.

I was really unhappy with a new guitar, until I changed the setup by tuning it a half step down. Stumbled onto it. Floating floyd rose. And no contact with the wood. Now when I hit open G and grab low end of body.. I feel the right amount of vibration you would expect out of a well built guitar.

While playing thru my Y..HS8. monitors... out 1 volume front dial... volume is sufficient for me between 9-10 o'clock. I bought headphones.. and the volume output level wasn't anywhere near sufficient. And then I had to increase our job to 3-4 o'clock. Increasing normal amp gain buzzing. Then your brain takes over and you go nuts. Then it gets out of your head and you don't focus on it.

 

[BrianJ]

Some noise with high-gain guitar is inevitable. Without hearing a clip of the noise with and without you playing, it's hard to get a feel for what you're hearing.

The fact that the noise seems to follow you around to other buildings and other guitars points to one of two things: either 1) there's something unique about what you have near you that's causing interference, or 2) the noise isn't as loud as you think it is.

Does this sound "normal" to you? I ran the L/R output 1 into my pc and recorded this with Reaper. I started on the factory preset 37 Das Metal...you can hear me moving the guitar around from the worst to the best angles in the first 40 seconds. Then I play a few chords, then scroll through some presets and finish on preset 66 Wrecked...These presets are all at the factory settings...the input noise gate is set from the factory somewhere around -80db, so it's not really doing anything here...but I wanted to show how bad the noise is.



The input meters in reaper were showing the noise peaking at about -18db, and when I play the chords it was around -8db...that's a ridiculous amount of noise. Yes, I can turn up the noise gate, but I'm trying to figure out why there's so much noise to begin with. If I turn the guitar volume knob down the axefx goes silent...so I'm sure it's the pickups. It's also better/worse depending on the preset as you can hear as I scroll through some presets in the clip. So, there has to be something that my guitars are picking up, AND there's something in the presets that amplify the noise depending on it's settings.

 

[Rex]

Does this sound "normal" to you? I ran the L/R output 1 into my pc and recorded this with Reaper. I started on the factory preset 37 Das Metal...you can hear me moving the guitar around from the worst to the best angles in the first 40 seconds. Then I play a few chords, then scroll through some presets and finish on preset 66 Wrecked...These presets are all at the factory settings...the input noise gate is set from the factory somewhere around -80db, so it's not really doing anything here...but I wanted to show how bad the noise is.



The input meters in reaper were showing the noise peaking at about -18db, and when I play the chords it was around -8db...that's a ridiculous amount of noise. Yes, I can turn up the noise gate, but I'm trying to figure out why there's so much noise to begin with. If I turn the guitar volume knob down the axefx goes silent...so I'm sure it's the pickups. It's also better/worse depending on the preset as you can hear as I scroll through some presets in the clip. So, there has to be something that my guitars are picking up, AND there's something in the presets that amplify the noise depending on it's settings.

Did you get that same level of noise when you were at the PRS factory?

 

[BaronVonGrim]

Does this sound "normal" to you? I ran the L/R output 1 into my pc and recorded this with Reaper. I started on the factory preset 37 Das Metal...you can hear me moving the guitar around from the worst to the best angles in the first 40 seconds. Then I play a few chords, then scroll through some presets and finish on preset 66 Wrecked...These presets are all at the factory settings...the input noise gate is set from the factory somewhere around -80db, so it's not really doing anything here...but I wanted to show how bad the noise is.



The input meters in reaper were showing the noise peaking at about -18db, and when I play the chords it was around -8db...that's a ridiculous amount of noise. Yes, I can turn up the noise gate, but I'm trying to figure out why there's so much noise to begin with. If I turn the guitar volume knob down the axefx goes silent...so I'm sure it's the pickups. It's also better/worse depending on the preset as you can hear as I scroll through some presets in the clip. So, there has to be something that my guitars are picking up, AND there's something in the presets that amplify the noise depending on it's settings.

Yes
That's what I am also hearing..
Das Metal is one of the worst ones..

 

[BaronVonGrim]

Does this sound "normal" to you? I ran the L/R output 1 into my pc and recorded this with Reaper. I started on the factory preset 37 Das Metal...you can hear me moving the guitar around from the worst to the best angles in the first 40 seconds. Then I play a few chords, then scroll through some presets and finish on preset 66 Wrecked...These presets are all at the factory settings...the input noise gate is set from the factory somewhere around -80db, so it's not really doing anything here...but I wanted to show how bad the noise is.



The input meters in reaper were showing the noise peaking at about -18db, and when I play the chords it was around -8db...that's a ridiculous amount of noise. Yes, I can turn up the noise gate, but I'm trying to figure out why there's so much noise to begin with. If I turn the guitar volume knob down the axefx goes silent...so I'm sure it's the pickups. It's also better/worse depending on the preset as you can hear as I scroll through some presets in the clip. So, there has to be something that my guitars are picking up, AND there's something in the presets that amplify the noise depending on it's settings.

Is that 1.13? I'm still at 1.12.

 

[BrianJ]

Did you get that same level of noise when you were at the PRS factory?

No...but there was noise present. Let me explain. At the factory they had about 8 guitars in the factory store that you could play, along with a couple of their PRS amps...but I didn’t have my AxeFX there. I played 3 or 4 of those guitars plugged into one of their amps...and I also played mine through that amp. Depending on the channel and settings I used on the amp the noise was more prevalent, just like it is on the AxeFX (on clean presets it’s quiet, on high gain ones it’s loud).

Their guitars had different pickups and what not, so they all had varying degrees of sensitivity to this noise...but it was there as well. Again, it wasn’t to this degree, but I didn’t have this kind of gain either.

 

[BrianJ]

Is that 1.13? I'm still at 1.12.

Yes, I’m on 1.13. I understand that there is always going to be some inherent noise in high gain amps...but it’s CLEARLY excessive here, especially when my guitar isn’t pointed in just the right direction. I’m just trying to understand what the possible cause is so I can play with as little noise as possible BEFORE applying the gate...the less gate I have to use the better.

 

[FractalAudio]

The more gain the more the EMI will be amplified. Simple physics. Hum and noise is a fact of life. All you can do is try to minimize it, you'll never completely eliminate it. Use less gain, shield your guitars, minimize the loop area of your power cords, etc.

 

[FractalAudio]

Yes, I’m on 1.13. I understand that there is always going to be some inherent noise in high gain amps...but it’s CLEARLY excessive here, especially when my guitar isn’t pointed in just the right direction. I’m just trying to understand what the possible cause is so I can play with as little noise as possible BEFORE applying the gate...the less gate I have to use the better.

The fact that the noise changes as you move your guitar should tell you that the noise is being picked up by your guitar. Your guitar is acting as an antenna. Computers and such are notorious for emitting EMI. Sit as far as away as possible from any of these sources.