Electrical Noise

[COSSA]

I bought a new house a few months ago and started building my studio. For some reason I am getting a terrible hum from my amps when I plug in my guitars. (using single coils or humbuckers)

When you kick in the distortion it gets way worse.

I have unplugged everything in the room and even turned off all breakers except for one. It still does it!

When I first moved in I don't remember them doing this. When I touch the strings, it mostly goes away, so it seems like a grounding problem of sorts.

They're building a house next to me, could the temporary power there be affecting me?

If I buy a Furman power conditioner, would this fix it?

Has anyone else had any problems with dirty and noisy electricity?

My last home and smaller studio didn't do this.

[livilaNic]

Originally Posted by COSSA

I bought a new house a few months ago and started building my studio. For some reason I am getting a terrible hum from my amps when I plug in my guitars. (using single coils or humbuckers)

When you kick in the distortion it gets way worse.

I have unplugged everything in the room and even turned off all breakers except for one. It still does it!

When I first moved in I don't remember them doing this. When I touch the strings, it mostly goes away, so it seems like a grounding problem of sorts.

They're building a house next to me, could the temporary power there be affecting me?

If I buy a Furman power conditioner, would this fix it?

Has anyone else had any problems with dirty and noisy electricity?

My last home and smaller studio didn't do this.

I have the same problem. I use a compressor (gate) to get rid of it. I think its my output jack on my guitar. Seems like every Ibanez I've owned it seemed to loosen and get frayed wires from screwin with it so much.

[frederic]

http://www.neelyguitars.com/Pickups.html

[apl]

Do you have a computer next to you? The monitor throws out a lot of interference. You may have some kind of ground problem too. Plug everything into the same outlet. I once got a terrible hum from plugging to connected pieces of equipment into different outlets in the same room. Really surprised me. Plugging them into the same power strip fixed it.

[frederic]

All of my non-midi guitars and basses have been converted to balanced audio, using 1/4" TRS jacks.

Since this is for studio only, this doesn't present me with a "use house amps" on stage or elsewhere, type problems. I was able to do this because my instruments have active electronics, so it was a matter of replacing the pre-amp circuitry with homemade stuff that captures the pickup signals and balances it right away internally, passing it out that way to whatever is down the line.

My amps now have balanced inputs also.

However, this means I cannot use foot pedals or things along those lines. I have to insert them into the amp's sidechain, and I get mixed results depending on what each foot pedal is.

[notbradsohner]

make sure there is not a dimmer on your light switches.

[LemonTree]

buy a power sstrip with RF filtering, electricity in some houses can be really dirty. That's the cheapest solution. Nest step up is a power conditioner, then hunt the bad earth.

Fun and games, eh?