Noise Noise Noise!

[dressner]

OK some of you may have read my PRS thread:
guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1202284203

But basically I had a noise issue I blamed on the guitar and returned it, got a Schecter and I still have the problem. I like the Schecter a lot better, it has 24 frets and a push/pull pot for coil tapping and it looks cool as hell... but I digress .

But I've narrowed the noise making culprit to the power in this room. Last night I lugged 2 amps and 5 guitars all over the house, up and down stairs, plugging in and testing, rinse, repeat.

Now there is one guitar among the bunch that I can play in this room with absolutely no noise at all, its the strat with samarium cobalt noiseless pickups you guys walked me through rewiring a little bit ago.
guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1197877828

Now I don't know if its just the shielded pick guard on that guitar, or the expensive noiseless pickups, or the superior wiring advice given by you guys or a more probable combination of all three, but I find it funny that all these humbuckers are still humming when those single coils are completely quiet.

One more note on the noise, it goes away and comes back depending on how I move the guitar, tilt it etc. Apparently with no rhyme or reason, but I haven't played with it that much.

Ok the stewmac article stickied here is not working at all at the moment, but advice I've read before regarding noise falls into two categories: fixing the wiring in the house and/or conditioning it before it gets to the amp, or shielding the guitar/pickups. Personally I'd rather have guitars I can play anywhere with the worst power supply like (apparently) my strat so shielding is the direction I'm betting I need to go.

On to the questions:

This guitar though has no pick guard to shield, all the wiring is accessed on the back side like a les paul. Do I shield the pickups like the one stickied thread posted here or the cavity in the back or both?

All of the info I can find is on shielding single coil pickups, is this not supposed to be a problem at all with humbuckers? This is RF interference not EMI right?

Do these "Duncan Designed" pickups just suck? Would new pickups fix it? Is this a problem caused by the coil tapping? Or caused by the coil tapping done poorly?

Anyway I think thats it. Thanks for reading my long winded post and any response will be appreciated even more.

PS, I don't just have the coil tapping set to single coil either. Set to single coil, its just more noise rather than less noise.

[bentfender]

read and re-read QTB Quiting the beast. that will help alot. yes do the cavities. shield them. but I want to ask what may seem like a pretty dunba$$ question, but have you tried a different cable? I have had more than one crappy guitar cable mess me up. I bought one from fleabay not to long back, Gets this killer Mexican radio station in my house. Really love it. Hours of un-enjoyment to be had by all

.»º©º« Bent »º©º«.

[dressner]

I figured if the cable was quiet downstairs then that wasn't it, but ill go borrow my roommate's cable real quick.

[dressner]

nope, no dice. Even with the monster cable it hums.

[dressner]

Actually on a side note, with both humbuckers on, the noise is way less, and if i turn down the bridge volume knob a tiny little bit the hum all but goes away (separate volume knobs for each PU).

Can anyone explain why this is?

[newey]

Dressner-

But I've narrowed the noise making culprit to the power in this room. Last night I lugged 2 amps and 5 guitars all over the house, up and down stairs, plugging in and testing, rinse, repeat.

Ok, so is the new one noisy everywhere, or just in the room where you usually keep the amp, guitar, etc.? Is your noiseless Strat noiseless all over, or just in the one room?

If the amp/cable/guitar combination is quiet elsewhere, then you need to look at the circuit it's plugged into in the room where you play. And also to the electrical environment of the room itself, regardless of whether everything is on the same circuit or not.

If the Strat is quiet no matter where you plug the amp in, while the new guitar is noisy everywhere, then the problem lies in the guitar.

Humbuckers are not Hum-eliminators. The original G-nutz site does discuss the need to shield humbuckers, while not as critical as with SCs, it still can help.

[dressner]

Ok, so is the new one noisy everywhere, or just in the room where you usually keep the amp, guitar, etc.? Is your noiseless Strat noiseless all over, or just in the one room?

The new guitar is only noisy in the room I keep the amp. The noiseless strat is noiseless everywhere.

If the amp/cable/guitar combination is quiet elsewhere, then you need to look at the circuit it's plugged into in the room where you play. And also to the electrical environment of the room itself, regardless of whether everything is on the same circuit or not.

Uh there is a PC, 5.1 speakers, a guitar amp and some lamps in the room. Not sure what else I need to know/do here.

Humbuckers are not Hum-eliminators. The original G-nutz site does discuss the need to shield humbuckers, while not as critical as with SCs, it still can help.

I am going to shield the rear cavity as per the quieting the beast page, but should I do anything with the pickups themselves? As stated before they are wired to be used as coil tapped single coils too, and I can't shield the face of the cavity where the pickups are because there pretty much isn't one. No pickguard to add the foil to.

I suppose I'll shield the rear cavity and see what effect that has and go from there.

[newey]

Well, shielding certainly can't hurt, And you may want to look at shielding the HBs themselves, it may be a more elegant a solution with the rear-rout.

But I'd first look to eliminate the source of this, if possible. Selectively unplug everything on the same circuit as the amp, one item at a time. Then do the same for the room. If you're not sure what all is on that circuit, you may need to test by flipping that breaker off and figuring out what gets de-powered. As you unplug each item, check for noise with the guitar.

I say "unplug" rather than "turn off" because so many items of electronic equipment these days have "phantom loads" that are always drawing a bit of current even when the unit is off- certainly anything with a remote control has such a load.

If you get to the point where the only thing on the circuit and/or in the room is your amp, and the noise is still there, scratch yer noggin and shield the guitar.

[dressner]

Yeah newey what you said gave me a "oh yeah duh!" moment. I can't believe I didn't make the connection before.

The power outlet in my bathroom hasn't worked since I moved in Jan 1st. Its one of those GFI outlets with the test and reset buttons. The reset button is stuck down and I just found out why.

My bedroom and bathroom are the only two rooms on the second floor of my apartment, and the only two rooms on the circuit. After shutting the circuit off and unscrewing the outlet, the damn thing wasn't connected, completely bypassed. The hot and cold wires coming in and out of the box were connected directly.

So unsure as to why that would be (but having a pretty good idea), i wired up the GFI to see what would happen, and I got no power to the entire upstairs. So either the GFI is faulty or something is wrong with the ground in this circuit making the GFI cut the power.

I'm betting its the second option but I have no idea what to do to fix it...

[newey]

I can't believe I didn't make the connection before.

And neither did your GFI! ;D

Seriously, the old "two heads are better than one" philosophy is what this board (and boards in general) are all about.

You may be right about a grounding problem on the circuit itself, but your first option is easily testable. A new GFI is probably about $10 at Lowe's, swap one in and see if the problem disappears. If not, then it's time to call an electrician (if you own the place) or your landlord (if you rent). If you rent, your landlord should be "Johnny on the spot" to get this fixed as it's not up to code and wouldn't pass a housing inspection.

Actually, the age of your building could give a clue as to which of your 2 possibilities is more likely. If it's a newer building that has 3-phase wiring throughout (i.e., is there a third wire to the GFI's grounding prong) then it's probably just a bad GFI. If it's an older building with just the two-wire, then your option #2 is more likely.

My previous place, which I sold 6 months ago, was a 90 year old house that still had the old "knob-and-tube" wiring to the upstairs (someone had rewired the ground floor at some point but not the upstairs). You wanna talk about noise through a guitar amp? I had it in spades.