Annoying humming/static noise from guitar pickups

[Speedskater]

I'm still going with a "lost neutral" type problem (either yours or your neighbor's). If the Neutral current is taking a very different path (the water pipe's) back to the power company than the Hot wire's current, then you have a huge loop broadcasting noise and interference all over the basement. This is a worst case ground loop condition.

[jinksdingo]

To test:
Close the door and tape some household foil over the cabinet door so it is overlapping the door almost half a yard all round. tape the joins if you have to.
Find the next one on the floor. Try the foil there too.

I really hope this solves it for you.

If these work then get the mesh and cover them.

[Bilic]

Thanks guys, iv been doing some research and it says to block EMF it would have to be a magnetic material, so copper or household foil would not work.. but metallic paint or some sheet metal might.. but that could be wrong.

I really hope it's not a lost neutral type problem, that seems like something i wouldnt be able to fix.

[Speedskater]

Well no, metallic paint won't work.
As for sheet metal, soft (easily magnetized) sheet metal is a good low frequency shield, the thicker the better. But you will have to shield all the areas that you pick up hum. If it is a "lost neutral" type problem the sheet metal might act more like an antenna.

Do the town houses have a common owner or is each house individually owned?

[Rod Gervais]

Is the main breaker for your electrical service located in your breaker panel or is it located where the meters are?

BTW - if this problem is occurring with humbucker pickups I don't believe you're going to solve it with a localized shield behind the pickup. It takes a fairly strong field to produce hum like that in pickups meant to minimize that specific issue.

I would also point out that there is a wrap abound effect that happens with shields - when it comes to frequencies being transmitted that have a length larger than the size of a small localized the shield with one open face - the shield is pretty much invisible.

However - I think you also got some bad advice...... copper shielding can be pretty effective for electromagnetic fields.

Rod

[Omega Arts]

If you have a metal gas pipe making this noise i would call the gas company come and take a look. Voltage of any kind on a gas line should not be.
I would try and put a meter on the pipe and ground it and see if there is actual voltage coming down the pipe. If so it ain't a good thing.
Larry

[Bilic]

Speed- The town houses are individually owned.

Omega- The gas pipe is bonded by awg 6, do you still think i should call?

Rod- The main breaker is in the panel box, the meters are 3 houses over on the side of the house on the end. The problem still exists with all types of pickups, tried humbuckers, gibson.

The battery powered amp with all electricity off is probably my next test.

[Speedskater]

Originally Posted by Rod Gervais

[*******}
However - I think you also got some bad advice...... copper shielding can be pretty effective for electromagnetic fields.

Rod

There is a whole bunch of fine print about the special conditions under which this is true.

Henry W. Ott has a 62 page chapter just about shielding:
home page

If a sheet of copper has a Relative Permeability of 1, then a same sized sheet of ordinary steel is 1000 and mu-metal is 25000.

For the situations most of us deal with I'd go with the steel (as mu-metal's price is over the top).

[Omega Arts]

Originally Posted by Bilic

Speed- The town houses are individually owned.

Omega- The gas pipe is bonded by awg 6, do you still think i should call?

Rod- The main breaker is in the panel box, the meters are 3 houses over on the side of the house on the end. The problem still exists with all types of pickups, tried humbuckers, gibson.

The battery powered amp with all electricity off is probably my next test.

Did you check to see if you can measure any voltage on that gas pipe?
If so call the gas company just for safety.
Larry

[Speedskater]

If the gas pipe is bonded to the water pipe and electrical ground, you won't read much voltage (at least while all the pipes are intact). But there might be a lot of current.
The pipe danger starts when a plumber or HVAC guy dis-connects the pipe for maintenance.

[Speedskater]

Originally Posted by Rod Gervais
However - I think you also got some bad advice...... copper shielding can be pretty effective for electromagnetic fields.
Rod

Originally Posted by Speedskater

There is a whole bunch of fine print about the special conditions under which this is true.
[*****}

Now lets look at some of the conditions when it's true:
copper shielding can be pretty effective for electromagnetic fields.

from:
Cables, Transmission Lines, and Shielding for Audio and Video Systems
by Jim Brown
http://audiosystemsgroup.com/TransLines.pdf

Let’s take the simple case where our interfering signal is an AM radio station a mile away
transmitting on 1 MHz. We are in the far field, so it is a plane wave, with the
magnetic and electric field in balance, and the wave impedance is 377 ohms. Steel conduit
would provide a reflection loss of 70 dB; copper or aluminum would provide about 110 dB
of shielding.
When our wiring is in the near field of a current source, the magnetic field is much stronger
than the electric field, so the wave impedance will be quite low and there is little if any reflection
loss. A quick examination of Fig 13 shows that the far field begins at about 400 miles
from a 60 Hz source, and about 1,500 ft from a 100 kHz source. Thus, in the real world, we
are always in the very near field of the power system equipment, so the wave impedance for
these fields is quite low!
On the other hand, when our audio system is in the near field of an interference source that
has high voltage but low current, the wave impedance will be quite high. In this situation, the
electric field predominates, and the dominant coupling mechanism will be capacitive. This
allows a thin copper or aluminum shield to be quite effective.

The above from pages 17/18. This is a very technical paper, not light reading at all. If you miss some of the fine print, you'll get it all wrong.

[Rod Gervais]

Originally Posted by Speedskater

This allows a thin copper or aluminum shield to be quite effective.

+1

Thin Grounded copper shielding can be effective well below the the frequency cycle of alternating current.....

Rod

[skinnypete]

OP did you get any resolution to this issue? I'm having a very similar problem in my NYC apartment. I'm near the basement and when I move guitars or basses around there is really bad hum depending on which way I point the pick-ups. It happens on my Rhodes too, but obviously I can't move that easily. There is various machinery in the basement like a large heater, etc. I also notice that I get alot of static shocks walking around in here.

I have projects to do and this sucks!! I was really hoping to be able to work at home, I don't want to have to pay for a studio space. I haven't tried a power conditioner yet, any suggestions?

I'm about to call an electrician, but I don't know if I can find one who has a clue about pro sound and related issues.

[Speedskater]

a] The static shocks are not part of this hum problem, it's just static. But static can cause other problems, at one radio station studio we had to spray an anti-static solution so that the DJ's could operate the console.

b] The guitars are picking up the hum from the room not from your equipment. So power conditioning your equipment won't help.

c] Most electricians will only find major defects. Hum problems are a little bit trickery.

[Alejandro Varela]

You own a Fender?
Trash it and buy a Gibson!!! LOL
I had a similar trouble at home with Fenders...
I solved wiring from the strings bridge to a gas conduct.
Now it sounds clean.
Just my +1

PS, ...and of course use the best wire available for your guitar

[skinnypete]

Thanks for the response Speedskater. So it seems like there's some kind of "polarity" and/or "electrc field" at work. When I'm facing my recording gear, which is set up against the wall, there is a loud hum. If I spin the instrument (picture the neck pointing the same direction, pick-ups flipping in a circle), as the pick-ups face straight up, the hum goes away. Then as the pick-ups face away from the gear, the hum comes back just as loud. Then as it faces the floor, no hum again. When the pick-ups are "alligned to a certain plane" thats when the hum is loudest. I guess I could just record everything laying on my back! Hah

Is there such a thing as an electrician who specialises in recording studios? I was thinking about calling a couple local studios for a referral.

I tried it last night with a Strat and a Music Man bass, going direct into the Apogee Duet 2, with the exact same results for both instruments.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[skinnypete]

Originally Posted by Alejandro Varela

You own a Fender?
Trash it and buy a Gibson!!! LOL
I had a similar trouble at home with Fenders...
I solved wiring from the strings bridge to a gas conduct.
Now it sounds clean.
Just my +1

PS, ...and of course use the best wire available for your guitar

Haha naw I don't like the sound of Gibsons for what I'm doing at the moment. I'm not a big rock guy, but if I really needed that sound I would get something like an Ibanez ART100 and save myself like $4000.

edit: and oh yeah im using slutty gold tipped mogamis so its def not the cables

But yeah I just tried a nicer Ibanez bass and the hum was about a tenth as bad. IDK why the Music Man was humming but maybe the ground is bad on it. I thought since the MM had humbuckers that it wasn't a prob with the single coil Fenders.

Guess I will try getting my instruments shielded first. Has anyone done the whole copper foil cavity thing? Does it really make a difference, or is that just urban legend?

IDK what I will do about the Rhodes though.

[Bilic]

Sorry man haven't checked this thread in a while! Unfortunately i still haven't found a solution and it's still a huge issue for me to record guitar down here. By any chance are you close to a breaker or fuse box?

[skinnypete]

Originally Posted by Bilic

Sorry man haven't checked this thread in a while! Unfortunately i still haven't found a solution and it's still a huge issue for me to record guitar down here. By any chance are you close to a breaker or fuse box?

No, I think my problem is that my studio is above some basement machinery that is creating some kind of electromagnetic field. I shielded two of my instruments, which made a pretty big difference. I am planning on shielding all of my basses and guitars, trying out a power conditioner, as well as a 10 mega ohm DI, which I hope will help with SNR.

Shield all of the instruments you record with. My tech used shielding paint in the cavities of two of my basses. It reduced the noise by like 80%, which is pretty good I think!

[jetam]

Man, you certainly have some serious grounding problems.
As someone already told you, it's possible that some device (or even the whole circuit in your house) lost neutral connection and is using water/gas pipes (wich are of course grounded) as a neutral/ground connection. I hope and think that this isn't the case, but it's possible and can be extremly dangerous.

I'd say that it's most likely that you just have bad or improperly implemented grounding. Because pipes are made of metal which is a good conductor, the effect is more noticeable when you come closer to them, because electric field becomes stronger. To check the grounding you should have an electrician (unfortunately not all of them have the gear needed to do this) to stick a probe into the ground and measure the resistance of your grounding and the difference of potentials.
It depends on what the cause for this problem is, but you'll probably have to change at least some part of your electrical instalation, but maybe even have to bury metal probes into the ground.

If you have a volt meter or DMM, measure the voltage between your hand and the "ground" contact on a socket.

[Gabryel]

Have you tried a guitar with humbuckers? If it doesn't do noise, most likely there's something you can do on the fender to prevent this noises on this system, despite the pipes. I've had similar problems live and it was always fixable either on the amp or the guitar, sometimes with very unconventional things from the techs... but still worked, even if the problem source wasn't there.

Did you try wiring with copper from a screw in the amp to a different ground? I know it can sound strange, but it has worked for me.

Gab