Help - guitar amp/headphones/multifx hum driving me insane

thecolourbox

Mmm well every 2nd hand Line 6 item ive had has either been faulty or developed a fault, plus the 300 i had was like playing a bulbous broom aside from its technical issues. Plus I'm not very good anyway and need to get a better hobby, where I'm not wasting hundreds of pounds haha
thank you all though for your kindly offered help

PolarityMan

take up drums, no interference problems there

I must have missed it in the thread but how did you eliminate the mains wiring. Sounds like the most likely cause to me.

Id def take your gear to a rehearsal studio and have a try there or even hir out a village hall or something similar if transport's an issue.

thecolourbox

After being persuaded by my girlfriend of all people to not give up ive been to a guitar tech today who has offered to test my guitar then shield it internally if it looks like it might help. I'm taking it in tomorrow. Do you fine fellows think this may help? Failing that he has also done Variax transplants though obviously cost is a factor for that

thecolourbox

Ooh you posted same time as me. It cant be the mains as the same happens on battery powered units.
if i ever do decide to give up music though i will consider your drumming suggestion!

ICBM

thecolourbox said:

After being persuaded by my girlfriend of all people to not give up ive been to a guitar tech today who has offered to test my guitar then shield it internally if it looks like it might help. I'm taking it in tomorrow. Do you fine fellows think this may help? Failing that he has also done Variax transplants though obviously cost is a factor for that

Before you pay for shielding, do the turning-round-with-guitar test. If the noise doesn't change, shielding may help or cure it. If it does, either getting quieter or disappearing when the guitar is in a particular orientation, save your money - shielding won't help because the problem is magnetic field interference, and shielding only helps with electrostatic interference.

My guess would be that it will change - the reason the Variax was immune is probably because it doesn't use magnetic pickups. (Which would also make buying the better Variax with magnetic pickups a bit pointless.) A Variax transplant into a nicer guitar is definitely worth thinking about.

thecolourbox

Hi, thanks for your help. Think i misread your comment before. Well i walked all around the house last night with my headphone amp thing and the noise was always there but at different levels depending where i was stood. Never really went away though. Through my amp, the noise does go away enough if i constantly touch something metal on the guitar (strings, knobs), which apparently is me physically grounding the guitar (may have got this wrong). Wouldn't shielding ground the guitar or is it literally just the equivalent of putting a coat on to avoid the cold?
the new Variax is still piezo, but also has proper pickups to use as a normal guitar i think. They said at the repair place today the minimum starting price for a transplant would be £220 for the work, depending on difficulty if the body donor, then I'd have to buy a donor body (£150 for a new Squier, maybe £200 for second hand Mex if lucky?), plus Variax donor, probably another £150 say, so its looking like £600 probably giving them a bit of leeway for labour. Hmm

thecolourbox

Oops pressed post rather than new line, fiddly mobile.
or get a 500 or 700 model, but it would have to be local i think as i don't trust line 6 second hand at all, I'd need to get it somewhere i can take it back to if it doesn't work. Been burned with my last Variax and a pod x3 before like that
would have to sell my Tele though in this scenario, also sure what I'd do with the pups if i used it for a transplant. Purely from a money view, if i had to lose the Tele, id get nothing for it compared to the money ive spent on it as its only a squier

ICBM

Just stand still, with the headphone amp, and turn round slowly while holding the guitar with the volume control turned up and your hands on the strings. If the noise varies in level - and especially if there is any point where it goes away completely, then the noise is electromagnetic.

If it doesn't change, then it's electrostatic. Given that taking your hand off the guitar makes it worse, it may in fact be electrostatic after all... in which case extra shielding may help. You're not grounding the guitar - your body is acting as a shield and a bit of a 'drain' for the noise. Keeping one hand on the strings at all times is something that old-timers learn to do, by the way! If the solution is as simple as that then there's really no problem with your gear at all, that kind of noise is entirely normal with all standard electric guitars to one degree or another. The Variax does use an entirely different system of sound generation though.

If you're going to get a Variax transplant I would start with a new blank body. No point in having to get rid of a whole lot of stuff you don't need.

thecolourbox

I'll try the turning round thing again to make sure, thanks.
keeping my thumb in the string all the time causes all kind of pain though, not sure I'd agree that the amount of noise i get is normal just because its less if i touch the strings. Touching strings interestingly didn't make that much difference if any on the headphone amp, only through the proper amp, which I thought odd. The buzzing through the headphones was painful to my ears and seemed as loud as the guitar tone when strummed it around the house.
Where sells blank bodies? I don't want to have to fanny about finishing one with paint and stuff. I'd use the Pacifica i picked up cheap but I'm not sure if i have a dud or not as it doesn't seem as good an instrument as id heard talk of!

thecolourbox

The noise changes when turning 360 degrees, seems to go either and higher or louder and lower.
if anybody wants a squier butterscotch Tele with upgraded pickups, you'll need to be able to catch as I'm about to throw mine out of the window

Misterg

You haven't got solar panels on the house, have you?

thecolourbox

Misterg said:

You haven't got solar panels on the house, have you?

Aha no I do seem to like wasting money but not to that extent. I live in the Black Country, the "sun" thing would never get through the smog!

thecolourbox

EXCITEMENT. I seem to have found a way to kill the noise. A couple of years back, I went to PMT when they had a big clearance event and bought an old wireless system thing (sender and receiver) for about £30. I've been scouring google for some of the words people have mentioned whilst helping me out with this and came across a longish discussion on an American (i think) forum that contained elements of my problem. Apart from one person suggesting something that seemed dangerous (wiring themselves to the guitar bridge?!) somebody else suggested a wireless system. I remembered this and got mine out of the wardrobe where it's sat unused since I bought it, and bazinga it works. practically no noise!!!!!!! I got to We Will Rock You style gain on the Blackstar without anything noticable at all. I also now seem to have the freedom of the house as I was walking about playing and it was still blasting beautifully out of the amp.

I cannot even say how happy I am that this works. Thank you to everybody here for helping out with this, it is so much appreciated.

Now, somebody's going to say that radio based wireless systems are not allowed or something aren't they? Would the newer sytle ones do the same do you reckon?

ICBM

If the radio system kills the noise, of course you're allowed to use it . In that case it sounds like it might be a combination of noise pickup and the output impedance - the wireless receiver (like the Variax) will have a low output impedance. A newer system would probably be similar, but no need to worry about it if that one works.

Wiring yourself to the guitar bridge is no more dangerous than touching the strings, but should never be necessary since you'll be touching the strings anyway...

thecolourbox

I wasn't sure of the science as to why, didn't know if it was cos it had specific frequencies or something, but as long as it works, I'm sold. I just didn't know about the licensing thingy with radio frequencies, thought there was something about having to pay to use them cos of freeview tv. May be totally wrong there but hey.
Thanks so much for your help with this ICBM, i owe you a drink if you're ever in Brum

ICBM

The legal frequencies for radio mic/guitar systems have changed, yes. Old ones may no longer be legal to use... but I doubt you're going to be caught let alone anything else come of it - it would require the signal to be detected outside your house (not very likely, the range is quite small) by someone who was really looking for it. My guess is that the vast majority of people who bought systems that were legal at the time and are still working now, are still using them without even being aware that they're no longer legal.

Clingy

Wow - I have very similar issue with my Gibson 59 reissue, but not with my Suhr Modern.  I took guitar back to dealer but could not create the issue no matter how much gain and volume I gave it.  It's a combination of Guitar and something in the house, I am convinced of that.  Like you I have read every article going back years on the topic to no avail.  Touching the strings, bridge, cable plug, metal parts of the guitar or amp or pedals...indeed anything signal connected stops the interference.  As the electrcial boffins will tell you, this is not a grounding issue.  It;s been driving me nuts as the guitar is just fantastic, but for high gain I switch to the Suhr.

Looks like wireless will help solve this then which saves me playing with my bare feet toucking a pedal!

thecolourbox

Aha yes indeed, it is very very frustrating and had driven me to hardly ever playing because I  only spent the time I tried reducing the noise. I remember somebody suggesting i attach a spoon to my belt, and the barefoot pedal thing, none of which are helpful (unlike the excellent help given here especially by ICBM).
My Wireless unit literally was a "bargain bin" thing but depending how it goes may upgrade to a nicer newer model, however for now it works so I don't need to. Only real thing to bear in mind is that I'll need to keep a fairly regular supply of 9v batteries. But compared to the amount they would have charged for shielding my guitar that is a small price.
Going to try adding pedals into the signal chain this weekend, and try using it with my multifx on headphones, Exciting noiseless times!