BaronVonGrim
Power User
Going with higher amp gains. Since I hear tonal differences
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.
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.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.
No problem. Get a recliner, nail it to the floor, set it at the right angle, and you're golden!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.
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’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.
This might be a clue. What else followed you when you moved? Light dimmers? Fluorescent lights? Wi-Fi router?......I even moved a few years ago and the problem just followed me across town.
You mean you got the same crud and interference at the PRS factory that you get at home?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.
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]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.
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?...
Do you have a cell phone/pacemaker/other gadget that's always with you when you play guitar?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?
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.
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.
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?
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.