Noise goes away when touching the AX8 with my hand

Chiguete

Experienced
Ok so today I was messing around with my AX8 and noticed that if I touch the chrome switches or the handle the noise that you hear on the background on high gain settings would go away... actually it made things more quieter than even when you touch the strings! So what's the deal with that and how to get that noise reduction permanently?
 
I have ground problems with my Ax8 as well. Really annoying and the ground lift switch doesn´t help at all.

Tried with severel guitars and both at home and in other studios. Used the Ax8 when doing a session at a studio and the producer ended up having to cut out/edit out the parts in between where I don´t play becasue of the noice/hum.
 
I have ground problems with my Ax8 as well. Really annoying and the ground lift switch doesn´t help at all.

Tried with severel guitars and both at home and in other studios. Used the Ax8 when doing a session at a studio and the producer ended up having to cut out/edit out the parts in between where I don´t play becasue of the noice/hum.
Yes that's the same with me.
 
hello guys, I'm writing to ask you if you have a solution to suggest me, this morning my AX8 that I use mainly at home for the moment, start to issue an annoying rustle and whistle that fades by touching the guitar strings or contacts of AX8, I tried to change cables and amps on which the machine is connected but the annoyance remains, it seems a ground problem but I do not know how to solve it. Can you help me? do I have to send back the AX8 to you for check? please let me know, I was hoping to use it for the next musical engagements but I'm afraid I can not use it with this problem, please let me know, thank you bye
 
It’s hard to tell what’s really going on here without hearing it. Post a video, etc. Maybe even post a preset and describe what type of guitar and pups you have as well as the guitar cable.

Honestly it almost sounds normal. What happens when you use the noise gate? Does that get rid of it? Too much gain is really easy to apply on the AX8, because you have it at bedroom levels. A real amp would probably be blowing your ears out and humming like crazy. ;)

The noise gate is your friend. There are meters built into the unit to help you dial it in perfectly and get rid of the noise coming in via your pups.
 
Noise from ground loops is something that guitarists have been struggling with since guitar amps were invented - most definitely not an AX8 specific issue.

It’s difficult to diagnose remotely. It could be a guitar cable, or your pickups, or even EMI from your computer monitor. The dimmer in my iMac screen causes noise that is reduced when I touch my strings or when I turn the brightness of the screen to full. That indicates to me that A) the dimmer is emitting tons of EMI and B) my pickups need better shielding.
 
Ground lift switch only affects the balanced XLR outs. Try Humbuster cables on the 1/4" outs. You can sometimes get ground loops with a computer through USB as well. Powering the AX8 from the same source as the computer can help minimize those loops. A laptop on battery power will break that loop as well.
 
Looks like many users have these noise issues that are hard to get rid off.

First things first. Are you grounded? ;) Yesterday, out of a sudden, I heard the hum/noise while playing; silent, but surely existing. Unplugged USB from the PC, plugged another guitar, another cables - nothing changed. Unplugged all except cable from poweramp in. Touched it, touched (stomp-box) poweramp. Ground! The noise disappeared. Plugged the guitar directly into poweramp - correct operation, touching the strings, bridge, etc - cancells the hum. So the issue is in AX8 I thought, damn! Unplugged AX8's power cord, plugged it into another socket (to be honest the same the poweramp was plugged in - thing you usually don't do). Noise went away...

Who was the murderer? Still don't know, I guess it was the shitty power extension cord / board, or, which could be more unfortunate, the wall socket itself. Allways check those little buggers, as they can kill the fun and lead you to think there is something wrong with the unit, the settings, noise gates and so on - which is usually just a waste of time.
 
Noise from ground loops is something that guitarists have been struggling with since guitar amps were invented - most definitely not an AX8 specific issue.

It’s difficult to diagnose remotely. It could be a guitar cable, or your pickups, or even EMI from your computer monitor. The dimmer in my iMac screen causes noise that is reduced when I touch my strings or when I turn the brightness of the screen to full. That indicates to me that A) the dimmer is emitting tons of EMI and B) my pickups need better shielding.

No, I would say it´s definitely an Ax8 specific issue. I have never had this problem before using the same equipment as far as the same guitars, same cables, same Apollo interface and so on. I recently changed to Ax8 from Kemper and in the same enviroment never had this issue before.

I mean, what´s the point of a ground loop switch if it does´nt work? I have read about other people who says the same thing but never have anyone from Fractal given an answer.
 
No, I would say it´s definitely an Ax8 specific issue. I have never had this problem before using the same equipment as far as the same guitars, same cables, same Apollo interface and so on. I recently changed to Ax8 from Kemper and in the same enviroment never had this issue before.

I mean, what´s the point of a ground loop switch if it does´nt work? I have read about other people who says the same thing but never have anyone from Fractal given an answer.

Goodness me. Ground loop problems are generic, not AX8 specific issue. I had it with Kemper, I had it with analog rigs, with AX8 as well - all were almost efortlessly solved by carefully analyzing the power and/or cable routing. For Kemper and analog rigs - separating power supply for various rig elements did the trick (it was Kemper plus real amp/cab rig, so you always have to separate power supplies for what is before an amp and what is inside the FX loop, that's absolute basics!). For AX8 and EVH5150 III 4cm method - humbuster cables were the solution.

Ignorance is your enemy. If you ingnore basic rules of power / signal routing - you'll run into ground loop problems. Always.

What is more shocking for me - people sometimes have ground loops issues in their rigs, and they think it's normal! :D They live with it. How - it's beyond me.
 
You are not getting my point. Why would groundloop ge generic? They happen for a reason. You always have to go through the chain and see were it´s coming from. And to me, the only thing that has changed is that now I´m using the Ax8. With the exact chain with other equipment except the Ax8 there isn´t the same groundloop problem. For exemple if a use Kemper instead.
 
And btw, using Ax8 straight to your interface shoudn´t cause any problem. If it does, the groundloop switch should be able to solve it.

It would be a diffrent story if I had problem with 4cm when using it with my pedalboard and mesa amp. But that´s not the case.
I mean you should be able to show up the a studio with the ax8, plug it straight in and don´t have problem.

Before when I used the Kemper when I got called for a recording session (as I do those kind of jobs) I never had that problem. But now I have to worry about those thing because the Ax8 seems much more sensitive to ground loops. I mean the last session I did with a producer and showed up with ax8 instead of kemper and it was embarrassing becasue of the hum/noise/groundloop whatever.
 
First things first. Are you grounded? ;) Yesterday, out of a sudden, I heard the hum/noise while playing; silent, but surely existing. Unplugged USB from the PC, plugged another guitar, another cables - nothing changed. Unplugged all except cable from poweramp in. Touched it, touched (stomp-box) poweramp. Ground! The noise disappeared. Plugged the guitar directly into poweramp - correct operation, touching the strings, bridge, etc - cancells the hum. So the issue is in AX8 I thought, damn! Unplugged AX8's power cord, plugged it into another socket (to be honest the same the poweramp was plugged in - thing you usually don't do). Noise went away...

Who was the murderer? Still don't know, I guess it was the shitty power extension cord / board, or, which could be more unfortunate, the wall socket itself. Allways check those little buggers, as they can kill the fun and lead you to think there is something wrong with the unit, the settings, noise gates and so on - which is usually just a waste of time.

This. I've had the contacts in old powerboards fatigue so that they are no longer making a good connection. Another symptom of this is getting a shock on your lips off the microphone.
 
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