Cornwall (the place) - bear with me...

rlw

So I took my Orange Micro Crush down to Cornwall and found it very buzzy/hummy electrically (not to say pathetic sounding) and felt a bit pissed off.  Looking in the local guitar shop, I spotted a Fender Deluxe 90 DSP (90 watts) in great condition and at a very reasonable price, albeit massive overkill.  Tried it and it sounded good (if loud) so bought it.

Took the amp back home and plugged in and it was a bit of a nightmare.  Hums, buzzes, couldn't turn it up without them getting intolerable, just like the little Orange.  I even got a repeat of the neck pickup starting to hum again (previous loose earth) which was very annoying and I attributed my various, but matching, misfortunes to the shit lead I was using and my cackhanded changing of bits and pieces on the guitar.

I was tempted to take the amp back but felt that it was probably the lead which did seem to be acting very oddly - touching it caused the buzzing to stop if not the separate humming, touching the guitar strings caused the humming to stop - and it had been fine in the shop, if a little noisy.

Back in London this afternoon, plugged both the Orange and the Fender in with a new pickup lead and no buzzing or humming and no neck pickup noise either.  Plugged in using the Cornish lead too and still no untoward noise.  The Fender was noiseless until turned up to about 9 in fact.

So I am concluding that the difference is either airborne interference - mains in Cornwall arrives at 1st floor level in a big old cable nailed to the side of the stone cottage - or appalling earthing for the building.  The earth actually is a big metal rod stuck in the ground next to the front door with a lead direct to the (probably Georgian...) fusebox inside.

For the buzz/hum/pickup noise differences to be so black and white was a very big surprise indeed so does my thinking make sense or not.

EricTheWeary

Old house in Cornwall, you are missing the obvious answer- ghosts.

Frankieabbot

Could be due to atmospheric issue. Air quality is better (but thinner) in Cornwall compared to London. Less air pressure in Cornwall for the sound waves to work on.

Sassafras

That's confirmed what I've always thought, Cornish gear is way overrated.

mart

This is ringing a faint bell. Something about lots of granite in Cornwall?

Wazmeister

Very interesting...

rlw

We are on solid slate and we also have a radon barrier - well, a sheet of red plastic under the new extension - so no granite or similar for a few miles. It probably is ghosts then.

57Deluxe

Poldark!

57Deluxe

...yes is due to Poldark... or more to the point the actions of Poldark and others who have disrupted the hard rock bed through mining over millennia...

from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JB087iB04p02851/abstract

"Stress-induced piezoelectric fields produce freely propagating electromagnetic radiation when microscopic rock fractures occur in quartz-bearing rocks. A laboratory study is presented which shows that electromagnetic emissions are produced when microfractures occur in Westerly granite. A detailed model is presented for the emission process which allows an estimate of the total radiated power from an individual microfracture. On the basis of these results a case is presented that an unusual radio emission seen on several widely separated radio astronomy receivers in the northern hemisphere on May 16, 1960, was due to a stress-induced microfracture along the Chilean fault. This radio event occurred 6 days prior to the great Chilean earthquake of May 22, 1960, and may have been a precursor to one of the largest earthquakes of this century."

It has been long known that many neolithic stones and circles contain high quantities of Quartz and thus give of radio signals... is attributed to why some people come across feeling 'all weird' when in close proximity to them...!

ICBM

Remember that all the electricity in Cornwall has to come in via Devon, so they can filter out the good stuff for themselves and only send the crap on to Cornwall.

I would strongly suggest having your electricity supply checked - at best you probably have a poor earth connection. An earth spike is the normal way to do it, but it's only as good as the contact to the groundwater layer if the surface is dry, and the wiring in the building could be dodgy too.

'Airborne' buzz interference is usually caused by dimmers, computers and other type of power supplies other than transformers, and isn't related to the earth issue but may be more noticeable if there is one.

ThePrettyDamned

If the noise goes when you touch the strings, your guitar is well grounded.

frankus

I'm confused are you saying it's the Orange amp that taint fit, taint right, taint proper or the Deluxe 90 that taint fit taint right taint proper?

mart

frankus said:

I'm confused are you saying it's the Orange amp that taint fit, taint right, taint proper or the Deluxe 90 that taint fit taint right taint proper, my lover?

FTFY.

DartmoorHedgehog

ICBM said:

Remember that all the electricity in Cornwall has to come in via Devon, so they can filter out the good stuff for themselves and only send the crap on to Cornwall.

We have to take our own with us if we do a gig the other side of the river

Living on top of a massive lump of radioactive granite doesn't seem to be a problem - my kit is fine in my house, although the Blackstar HT-20 I had used to pick up "chirps" from the power line networking kit if somebody was using the web.

ICBM said:

'Airborne' buzz interference is usually caused by dimmers, computers and other type of power supplies other than transformers, and isn't related to the earth issue but may be more noticeable if there is one.

A few of my local venues have started putting loads of LED coloured spotlight things around the stage area, which seem to cause all sorts of noise to the point where my guitar with P90s is virtually unusable - even humbuckers aren't completely immune.  Really annoying.