General > General Technical Chat
Home recording studio - noise with guitar amps - who to call?
DaveNJ:
This is in a residential area - no businesses for about two miles, but I hear you - it’s definitely been extremely difficult to trace the source. I’ve tried the am radio thing, as well, and so many things seem to radiate interference, but I haven’t been able to find that ticking source! That’s what I’m trying to find out - is there a type of service outside of a standard general electrician shop who would be better to bring in? I’ve read about ham radio operators using sensitive equipment to sniff out sources of noise, but I just don’t know who to reach out to.
floobydust:
Residential areas do get industrial interference - the substation (big) distribution power transformer can connect to many areas. You have to think a little different, light rail transit, kilns in schools, hospital heaters can be close and affect local power.
The interference can come in through the airwaves and/or conducted from mains wiring or the distribution system electrical ground. One studio went all out and installed a large isolation transformer with new isolated ground, which got rid of all noise from the grid. But it doesn't help with the RF.
That ticking source, pulsing a few times a second... reminds me of a high power heater that curses the airwaves around my lab. It's about a mile away. That interference gets in everything, all my audio gear picks it up. It changes sound with the heater load.
I would ask around who knows experienced techs in the music industry, and find a local HAM club as they will know best how to sniff it out. You will likely get lost between ID'ing the source and shielding the recieving end.
BrianHG:
--- Quote from: DaveNJ on October 11, 2019, 07:17:31 pm ---
Brian, good info - thanks! To answer your questions:
1. One amp is 10 years old (Suhr Badger 30), the other is 51 (Fender Princeton Reverb) :) . I can also get the noise with a line6 Helix, so its not necessarily due to tubes and electrolytics.
6. No, I only bring them to top folks in the area.
I'm going to go through a full debug session on Sunday - turning off all other breakers, running the amps from battery, etc so I can try to narrow it all down... I'll post back with what I see.
--- End quote ---
1. Same interference on 3 different amps from 3 different eras, all 3 with not input?
a) If the hum coming out of the Amp's speaker where you placed a microphone in front?
b) Can you hear the hum directly?
c) If you took the amp to a different location, like a different house another part of the city, will they still hum?
d) Do you have high tension power lines within 2 blocks of your house, or, a transformer power sub station within 6 blocks of your house? (If the answer to this question is yes, you are most likely out of luck, sorry.)
e) Do you have access to borrow a (I hate to say this) a high end power line filter and isolation filter like those used by some adiophiles? (These weight quite a bit as they have 2 large transformers in them with huge caps) I'm not talking about those cheap power filter bars or boxes.
6. g) Are you saying all of your amps have been serviced?
NOTE: A deeper look at your .mp3 file revealed perfectly timed diode switching noise in the waveform. This may be due to light dimmers always on at the same brightness, computer/electronics power supplies, LED/CFL lamps, or, on your power grid, even street lights, or someone has a huge device which internally operates electronically with DC at the full AC mains voltage.
DaveNJ:
Brian - wow, I can't believe it's been 3 years since I started this thread!In the time since, I had put the studio on hold and just dealt with the noise or recorded elsewhere - I'm ready to dive back into it now and I really do appreciate your input and suggestions.
To answer your questions from the last post:
1. The interference is the same but, it's only when a guitar is connected. With the amp just turned on, there is some hum, but nothing like what was present in that recording or in the new videos I've posted below;
2. The loud buzzing and clicking only happens when a guitar with passive pickups is connected and the volume on the guitar turned up.
3. In a music store about 2.5 miles from my house, everything is quiet as it should be.
4. Power in my development is underground. but is fed from above ground wires about .2 mi from my house. There're above ground transformer boxes on my block or around the corner.
5. I've tried a furman power conditioner and also a Tripp-lite medical transformer, and neither has produced a change.
Now, this weekend, I shot a number of videos showing the issue and also a few things I've tried - left field things 0 to suppress the noise. You may find these interesting:
First vid - demo of the issue with three different guitars (it also happens with different amps, just didn't want to move them to this room):
https://youtu.be/da0JncZyENM
Then, a weird update!
https://youtu.be/sJuumHCLyik
Then, a series I took this evening working through a few things:
01 - Guitar Grounding
https://youtu.be/D3Uv5RvINU8
02 - Belly Armor
https://youtu.be/GdfG4vXMc60
03 - Further Tests
https://youtu.be/vSpddcZIZW8
Lastly, there is this video from another musicians on YouTube who had roughly the same exact issue who was able to get his local power company to solve his problem:
https://youtu.be/t6E0O8UtObU
fourfathom:
--- Quote from: DaveNJ on November 20, 2022, 07:02:40 pm ---2. The loud buzzing and clicking only happens when a guitar with passive pickups is connected and the volume on the guitar turned up.
--- End quote ---
I previously suggested that you spin the guitar around and see if the noise changes. Have you tried that? This sounds like magnetic fields hitting the guitar pickup, rather than conducted electrical noise. Of course, wiring can radiate magnetic fields, so it could still be ultimately dimmer (etc.) related. But you might be picking up magnetic fields from something like an upstairs refrigerator compressor motor.
Since you have already shut off all house electricity save for your studio (?), it's probably not your refrigerator compressor, but at this point I would be looking at magnetic fields.
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