Noise and clicking sound from axe 2

not to burst any bubbles here, but i find it rare for people to play with the tone knob turned down to get rid of noise. with the tone knob at 10, nothing is changed. when you turn it down from there, it starts to attenuate the highs, so actually 10 is the "normal" state of the tone knob.

with the volume knob, sure many play with it lower than 10 to clean up the amp a bit, then turn it to 10 for a bit of drive.

but because you have the clicking noise in the Apollo, it's either the guitar or something in that room causing it. i bet it's the room, not the guitar. the clicking noise gets quieter when you turn down the guitar knobs only because you are taking away gain and/or frequencies away from it. i'm pretty sure you aren't directly controlling the clicking noise with those knobs.

i feel like most electric guitarists play with the volume and tone knobs at 10 and create their tones based on that. i'd hate for you to create all these patches with the tone at 3-4 etc. and later it becomes a problem. so don't go too far with the preset creation until you try the axe and your guitar in a different room/environment/power supply.
 
Cliff nailed it: the source of the crud is electromagnetic interference radiating through the air into your guitar. You should find the source of the interference. It's possible that your guitar isn't as well shielded as it might be, but the source of the noise is still there.

Turning down your guitar's controls helps, but if that's giving you the best sound, you may still be running with too much gain. As Chris said, dial in your sounds with the guitar's knobs all the way up. If there's still too much noise, you need to hunt it down and turn it off.

Imagine that the body of your guitar is huge plate, 1000 feet in diameter. Now twist and turn your guitar until the interference is as loud as it can get. The source of the interference is somewhere on that plate, and it's probably within the first ten or twenty feet.
 
Thanks guys! Dang, trying to rain on a guys parade...! I guess I wasn't as clear as I should've been in my last post...! I fully agree that there has to be some sort of EMI, but having moved all over the house and turning everything off but the axe it seems as it's maybe something in my "area"...? All the power lines are buried in my allotment, and I'm not near any towers, so I don't know ??? I will still try the axe in another location soon though.

Secondly, I don't HAVE to turn the volume and treble down to make the noise go away anymore, I seem to prefer them somewhat lower on alot of patches. Each patch is different though, and I found that if the levels are set correctly in the patch then I don't seem to have the noise problems like before. Can I make the noise return? Sure, but I have to set the levels out of whack to do it. Higher gain patches are more vulnerable, but again, manageable, before they weren't.

As a side note, if a noise gate isnt used, some of these patches have a good bit of noise/hiss on them even when nothing is plugged into the input...put a noise gate on and it goes away, but it does show that even the patch itself can generate noise/hiss on its own. As an example, I found one of these noisier patches, and unplugged my guitar from the input, and there was only a very slight change in the noise/hiss being heard, really just a "tone" change if i had the treble turned up on the guitar...this tells me that the guitar wasn't adding any noise to the patch...but that was only after my input and output levels were set properly for my guitar.

Obviously there's still some EMI in my area, and I'll continue to troubleshoot that, maybe line the control cavity with copper in the PRS as well. But the bottom line is that with the levels set better in the patches I feel it's not the issue it was two days ago! I could actually scroll through he presets and they sounded good, that wasn't the case before. A few still needed level tweaks, but not nearly like it had been.
 
Cliff nailed it: the source of the crud is electromagnetic interference radiating through the air into your guitar. You should find the source of the interference. It's possible that your guitar isn't as well shielded as it might be, but the source of the noise is still there.

Turning down your guitar's controls helps, but if that's giving you the best sound, you may still be running with too much gain. As Chris said, dial in your sounds with the guitar's knobs all the way up. If there's still too much noise, you need to hunt it down and turn it off.

Imagine that the body of your guitar is huge plate, 1000 feet in diameter. Now twist and turn your guitar until the interference is as loud as it can get. The source of the interference is somewhere on that plate, and it's probably within the first ten or twenty feet.

The noise is sitting on the plate? Or the plate is pointing toward the source...? Can you draw me a picture...lol?
 
At my previous house I used to get a clicking. I finally traced it to the ARB box which IIRC is a wireless interface to the water meter.
 
At my previous house I used to get a clicking. I finally traced it to the ARB box which IIRC is a wireless interface to the water meter.

Hmm, something I hadn't thought of...I don't think we have those, but the clicking noise does seem to be happening about once per second which is 60hz...I've checked the power with an oscilloscope and it looks clean...I think I'll also try turning off breakers one by one to see if it persists...
 
I fully agree that there has to be some sort of EMI, but having moved all over the house and turning everything off but the axe it seems as it's maybe something in my "area"...?
Make sure everything truly is off. That can be a bear, what with lights, timers, automatic outdoor lights, and such. Is there a common direction to the noise in different place in the house?

And you're right: it could be a distant source. Those are a bit more tricky to hunt down.


I don't HAVE to turn the volume and treble down to make the noise go away anymore, I seem to prefer them somewhat lower on alot of patches.
If your patches sound better with the volume turned down, you're running with too much gain. Drop the gain some more, and you'll have even less trouble with noise. And that will let you run with more guitar output, which will help your tone rise above the noise.


As a side note, if a noise gate isnt used, some of these patches have a good bit of noise/hiss on them even when nothing is plugged into the input...put a noise gate on and it goes away, but it does show that even the patch itself can generate noise/hiss on its own.
That's another indication that your gain might be too high.


Obviously there's still some EMI in my area, and I'll continue to troubleshoot that, maybe line the control cavity with copper in the PRS as well. But the bottom line is that with the levels set better in the patches I feel it's not the issue it was two days ago! I could actually scroll through he presets and they sounded good, that wasn't the case before.
That's the best news of the day.
 
It's on the plate, waiting to be stabbed with a fork and consumed. :)

Ok, I definitely noticed it the loudest when the guitar was facing the ceiling...I'll double check that though...

Also, in every case I can remember, it was the quietest (or completely gone altogether) when I was at a 45 degree to the axefx. So, for example, if I'm sitting facing the axe so my guitar is parallel to it it was pretty noisy...laying the guitar on its back to face the ceiling and the noise was terrible. Now, from the facing the axe position with the guitar on my leg in normal playing position, if I rotated counter-clockwise about 45 degrees so that the bottom of the guitar was now facing the axe is where it was the quietest. On some of the more noisy ones I'd have to get in that 45 degree position and also start to lean forward as if to touch my toes...this start to face the pickups toward the ground, and also make it very hard to play as I couldn't see the frets anymore.

I'll have to try all this again, and at different places in the house, or even sit at that 45 degree where it's quiet and then move the axe in front of me to see if it returns. The same position was true of the Apollo when I was testing it as well.

So if it was loudest when the guitar was facing the ceiling does that mean that the EMI would be coming from the ceiling?????
 
So if it was loudest when the guitar was facing the ceiling does that mean that the EMI would be coming from the ceiling?????
Nope. In that position, the ceiling is above the plate, not on it. If the noise is strongest in that position, then the source is horizontal to you, because the "plate" is extending out horizontally.

Next step: hold the guitar in normal playing position and turn in a circle. Stop where the interference is the loudest. Now look at where your "plate" would be. Where does that plate touch the horizontal plate you had earlier? Those places where they touch are the most likely directions to the source of the interference.

The fact that the worst noise occurs at 45° to the Axe-Fx means the Axe is not a likely cause of the interference.
 
Correction... The noise was quietest when I was at 45 degrees to the axe...

Ok, so the pickups are directly facing the source at its loudest point...? It's more coming from the side then?

I'll try to follow what you said tonight when I get home.

If I do find that facing the ceiling (parallel to the floor) is the loudest position...should I also move it from the floor to the ceiling to see where it's the loudest? That would give me a vertical height on my plane, yes? Then move to the playing position and spin in a circle to find the other line?
 
Correction... The noise was quietest when I was at 45 degrees to the axe...
Got it. My mistake. It still indicates that the Axe itself isn't the source of the problem.


Ok, so the pickups are directly facing the source at its loudest point...?
Not facing; they're edge-on to the source.


It's more coming from the side then?
Yes.


If I do find that facing the ceiling (parallel to the floor) is the loudest position...should I also move it from the floor to the ceiling to see where it's the loudest? That would give me a vertical height on my plane, yes? Then move to the playing position and spin in a circle to find the other line?
Skip the moving-from-floor-to-ceiling part, and go straight to spinning in a circle in playing position. That will give you a vertical "plate." The horizontal and vertical plates will intersect along two straight lines going out from your guitar in opposite directions. The interference source is probably somewhere along one of those lines.

Don't worry if all this doesn't sound completely obvious right away. Radio signal "fox hunting" is as much an art as a science. The more you do it, the better you'll get at it.
 
I'll be home from work in about 2 hrs...I'm going to give this a shot

I got the "normal playing position and spinning in a circle part", and if I understand you correctly, during this 360 degree circle there should actually be two points that are the loudest. For example, if I find that facing due east is where it's the loudest, then that would mean my vertical plane would be running north and south...which would also mean if I spun 180 degrees and was now facing west that it should be just as bad as the guitar is once again on that plane...yes? Or am I still confused?
 
Ok Rex...I did some more testing...I did like you said and did the whole "spinning in a circle" in normal playing position...the result is it seems that no matter what direction I face it doesn't seem to matter, what matters is the up/down angle of the guitar. I was a little more observant this time and I'm going to try my best to describe this. Ok, let's say I'm sitting normal with the guitar and you are sitting next to me looking at the bottom edge of the guitar (where the strap connects), the top of the guitar would be at your 12 o'clock and the bottom at your 6 o'clock. Now, straight upright isn't my normal guitar position...it's more angled back towards myself (around your 11 o'clock)f so I can see the fretboard. The clicking (which also has a distinct "ringing" along with it) starts to subside as I rotate through the 12 o'clock position and becomes inaudible/silent as I approach the 1 o'clock position...however, anything past about the 1 o'clock mark and it comes back.

So, it seems I have a very small window to work within. I also confirmed that it is in fact the loudest when the guitar is at 9 o'clock (pickups facing the ceiling) and at 3 o'clock (pickups facing the floor) there's no doubt about that...if it is laying flat it picks up the interference very loud. I hope this makes sense...lol! Still have no idea what it means though...!

I also turned off every single breaker at my fuse box in the basement, except for the one what the axe was plugged into...the noise persisted. I'm starting to feel like its just something in my neighborhood...
 
I have the exact same noise in my Axe-II running into a Matrix at my house. I have played maybe 20 shows since I got the Axe in December and never get the noise playing out. I don't record at home so i am not worried about it. Anyway it's just the nature of your homes grounding.
 
Ok Rex...I did some more testing...
Cool. You've found the positions where the interference is at its minimum (the "nulls"). We can work with that, too. When you're at a null, the face of your guitar is either pointing at, or directly opposite, the source of the interference.

Now we need to find out exactly what position gives you the deepest null. Go to that 1 o'clock position that gives you the least noise. Now rotate the guitar the other way (instead of top-to-bottom, rotate it side to side (let me know if that's not clear)). You're looking for the position that gives you the absolute minimum noise in any of the three spin directions.

Now move ten feet away (20 feet is even better if you can manage it) and do the same thing. If your results are different (if your guitar is in a different orientation when you find the null), then the source of the noise is probably fairly close.
 
Cool. You've found the positions where the interference is at its minimum (the "nulls"). We can work with that, too. When you're at a null, the face of your guitar is either pointing at, or directly opposite, the source of the interference.

Now we need to find out exactly what position gives you the deepest null. Go to that 1 o'clock position that gives you the least noise. Now rotate the guitar the other way (instead of top-to-bottom, rotate it side to side (let me know if that's not clear)). You're looking for the position that gives you the absolute minimum noise in any of the three spin directions.

Now move ten feet away (20 feet is even better if you can manage it) and do the same thing. If your results are different (if your guitar is in a different orientation when you find the null), then the source of the noise is probably fairly close.


LOL...what???!!!

Ok...I don't understand the side to side thing. I've just tried something else that may be of value in what you're speaking of.

Ok, follow me through this...I'm standing in my room, holding the guitar as if I had a guitar strap on it and was ready to play...I'm facing EAST, along with the pickups (I'm calling this the face of guitar). Guitar is against my body in the 12 o'clock position at this point. Noise is there but not terrible as if the face was pointing straight up or down. Now, if I start to tilt the guitar forward, the noise completely goes away at about 12:30-12:45...now, I turn counter-clockwise and face towards the NORTH...the guitar needs to be upright at 12:00 here to eliminate noise. I rotate another 90 degrees to face WEST, and again the guitar needs to be tilted forward (keep in mind that forward now is backwards from when I was facing EAST). Finally I turn to face SOUTH and again the guitar needs to be upright at 12:00.

Now as I turn between directions I also have to tilt the guitar in relation to that movement to keep it quiet. In other words if I'm facing NE the guitar would have to be at about 12:20. Another way to say it would be say I started facing NORTH, the guitar would be perfectly vertical at 12:00, as I started to rotate counter-clockwise towards WEST I'd have to start to tilt the guitar forward so that by the time I reached due WEST it was in that 12:45 position (as viewed from the bottom edge of the guitar where the strap lock is). Then as I continued on to face the SOUTH I'd have to start tilting it back towards me to the 12:00 position, then back to the 12:45 position for continuing on to the EAST.

I hope this makes sense...this is really weird. I don't know what to do next...but I do thank you for sticking with me on this...

Also, wouldn't turning off all the breakers seem to indicate that it's something outside of my control?
 
Are there other floors in the building below you? That seems to be what your results are suggesting. Try moving ten feet east or west and try the same experiment.

This is what I meant by the three different ways you can rotate your guitar: pitch, yaw and roll. Look at the picture below, and imagine the airplane is your guitar. These are the three ways it can turn.

yawpitchroll.jpg
 
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