What? You Don't LIKE Ground Noise?

  • Thread starter Thread starter StuGort
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A wire strapped from your guitar to your balls will do nothing to minimize single coil noise. They just make noise.
 
Grounding yourself is possibly the single-most stupid advice ever given or received in regards to electric guitars and amps.
 
I'm an Inside Wireman with 35 years experience, amigo. That link is nonsense and so is purposefully grounding yourself.

Quit dispensing electrical advice of any sort.
 
If you want to put your money where your mouth is try playing barefoot on concrete and get back to us about what a great idea grounding yourself is.

The bridge being grounded is a world of difference from grounding yourself.

The link talking about noise on an open circuit (cable plugged into amp with no load and high gain) is just that---- noise on an open circuit, which is as far away from how amps are designed to be used as is possible. Of course it is going to hum or otherwise make noise.

If you bothered to read and understand that link you would have noticed that no where in it did the author recommend purposefully grounding yourself.
 
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Another nice way to get a good jolt is playing in any condition and not realizing some moron spilled enough beer under your mike stand that you're standing in it. Had that happen once, too. :D
 
I once played bass on a friends SVT rig during soundcheck and the power switch had got knocked around to where it made contact with the chassis sending 110v to the bass and thru my lips when they touched the mic! :eek:

That definitely got my attention when it knocked me to the floor!
:D
Saw a blue flash and it felt like someone hit me in the face with a bat!
oweee ........ mommie!

An SVT was the culprit in one of the few actual electrocutions i could find when I searched for them.
 
"That definitely got my attention when it knocked me to the floor!"

And there is the point! Many people survive a potentially fatal shock because they fall over, fling the mic/stand away or otherwise let go. Had you been "intimately connected" Bob you would not still be with us.

Dave.
 
What about those old Fenders and the "death cap" that I keep hearing about? What was the deal with them?
 
Greg_L said:
What about those old Fenders and the "death cap" that I keep hearing about? What was the deal with them?
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As I understand it, not being of the parish, some mains supplies were of indeterminate "polarity"? That is live and neutral were either not marked on the outlet and standard or the wholes supply was "floating" whereas neutral should be bonded to ground at the entry point of the building.

This meant that amps often hummed like a cnut so they fitted a capacitor of about 100nF that connected the chassis to either live or neutral, whichever gave least hum.

But not only can 100nF pass enough 60/50Hz current to kill the buggers would go short! Hence, live chassis!

Before my time on amps but I did repair AC/DC radios in the day and they were lethal but LEGAL!

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
As I understand it, not being of the parish, some mains supplies were of indeterminate "polarity"? That is live and neutral were either not marked on the outlet and standard or the wholes supply was "floating" whereas neutral should be bonded to ground at the entry point of the building.

This meant that amps often hummed like a cnut so they fitted a capacitor of about 100nF that connected the chassis to either live or neutral, whichever gave least hum.

But not only can 100nF pass enough 60/50Hz current to kill the buggers would go short! Hence, live chassis!

Before my time on amps but I did repair AC/DC radios in the day and they were lethal but LEGAL!

Dave.
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Yeah it seems to be a common and immediate mod to old Fender amps - get rid of the death cap and wire it up for a three prong cable.
 
When I started back in the early 80's one of the first projects I was on was a maternity ward expansion at a hospital. One of the new specs at that time was grounding every metal door and window frame because there had been a staggering increase in deaths of patients hooked up to electronic monitoring devices. That came about after it was determined that as little as 18mA could be fatal in the right circumstance.

Two-prong wiring was common back in the 60's in the US. The outlets and appliances weren't polarized like they are today i.e. one prong opening bigger than the other ("neutral" or "grounded conductor") so it was common to have the polarity reversed when plugging in devices.

Amazingly enough, you can still buy two-prong duplex outlets!

One of my brother's friends had an issue with his clothes dryer, and I went to check it out. He showed me that the dryer would run intermittently, and when it stopped he would push against the panel cover and the dryer would start again. I took off the cover and deadfront and saw that the neutral for that circuit had been nicked by the wire stripper when installed and had stretched and BROKEN. It was making intermittent contact with the grounded deadfront, and when he pushed against the panel cover he was inadvertently closing the circuit! Was a simple fix of cutting off the broken end and re-landing the wire to the neutral buss. Never seen that instance again in 35 years. But it can happen!
 
c7sus said:
One of my brother's friends had an issue with his clothes dryer, and I went to check it out. He showed me that the dryer would run intermittently, and when it stopped he would push against the panel cover and the dryer would start again. I took off the cover and deadfront and saw that the neutral for that circuit had been nicked by the wire stripper when installed and had stretched and BROKEN. It was making intermittent contact with the grounded deadfront, and when he pushed against the panel cover he was inadvertently closing the circuit! Was a simple fix of cutting off the broken end and re-landing the wire to the neutral buss. Never seen that instance again in 35 years. But it can happen!
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OK...since were tossing out off-topic anecdotes about the joys of electricity. :D

My worst experience with a neutral wire was about 12 years ago when I notice my kitchen appliances acting odd...like the microwave struggling for power...etc....then complete outage. Called the power company, they showed up at 3AM and this was in the dead of winter no less. Came to the conclusion that the neutral from the road to my house was dead, and it being underground, it was most likely a break....somewhere...........

Took a few days to get them to come back with a "thumper" to locate the spot...about 2/3 down my driveway and just along the side of it, which was the most direct path when they laid the cables during house construction.

I was out there with a shovel in January..had to dig down about 4 feet and make a wide enough trench so you could get in there and work. Sure enough....there was the break. You could see that the jacket of the neutral had a slice into it, just like it was cut with a knife. It was probably there during cable manufacturing, and it just took a lot of years for moisture to get in and cause shorts when it rained, and for the wire to slowly corrode until it broke.....in January!!! :mad:
Anyway...brought in a licensed electrician who cut/spliced/sealed the repair...the power company inspected and approved, and I had the pleasure of putting the dirt back in the hole.

The only nice thing in all of that was the original power company guy who came at 3AM....he was kind enough to drag a cable 250 feet from the tranny out by the road (one of those boxes on the ground) across my wooded front yard area, and down to the meter, and temporarily hooked it up.
He said this was against code and his boss would probably give him shit...but he wasn't going to leave me without power in the dead of winter, knowing it was going to take at least a week or two to get it resolved.

These days....I have a 15kW Generac generator hooked up to my electric panel as my emergency backup. :)
Installed it myself about 10 years ago...fully inspected and approved...takes care of almost everything in the house I could need during an outage. I've got 300 gal of propane to keep it going for at least a month! :p
 
I don't think it's off-topic. If you are depending on the neutral for all of your equipment grounding and personal grounding means you could wind up in a body bag. That is the lesson of the death cap on old amps. Most common circuits require mechanical grounding, but humans should avoid being the path to ground in all conditions!

Another time I was at a trade show at the Anaheim Convention Center and a guy showed up with a transformer for his display with a MALE PLUG on the secondary of the transformer! Then he was all pissed off when we refused to hook it up for him and charged him to replace the male cap with a female cap.

There are an awful lot of stupid people out there that shouldn't be doing anything with electricity!

I don't do a lot of service work, but I've seen some FB pages with crazy pictures of weird shit people do. Those guys really have some stories to tell. It's a wonder more people don't get fried as a result of their electrical ignorance.

Last summer there was a story out of CA about a guy that was electrocuted on a solar project. He was sent home, didn't go see a doctor, and died at home the next day when he went into fibrillation and couldn't be revived. If you do get bit it's worth going to the ER to get checked out.
 
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c7sus said:
I'm an Inside Wireman with 35 years experience, amigo. That link is nonsense and so is purposefully grounding yourself.

Quit dispensing electrical advice of any sort.
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You didn't read what I wrote. I wouldn't go out of my way to insult you..but your inside wireman experience doesn't seem to have covered the subject of galvanic skin potential. Since I used to get paid ridiculous amounts of money per hour as a research analyst (I can read pretty well), you might want to at least CONSIDER why I put this gizmo together. After your posts, I'm guessing you have never even heard of galvanic skin potential. You might also want to ask yourself how I even began to broach the subject...if I don't read.

GSP comes into play when considering a multitude of engineered electrical products. That's why I linked to the article....which lays out what "grounding" is, what it isn't, how it pertains to noise in a circuit, and it includes a short exercise that helps people understand his basic points. Did YOU read it?

"Purposefully grounding yourself" is what people do when they play electric guitars...ALL of them. It seems that this concept is difficult to grasp for some people. I'm getting comments that would logically call EVERYONE who plays an electric guitar "stupid" for grounding themselves....as if grounding oneself to a guitar is some kind of unfortunate accident that sometimes occurs when people play them. The lengths that some of you want to go to either win an argument...or just insult someone...is unfortunate. I didn't suggest the article overtly backed the idea of better grounding oneself to an electric guitar (though it tacitly does JUST that). I do suggest it fairly well explains what happens when we ALL ground ourselves to them...EVERY SECOND OF TIME WE SPEND HOLDING ONE THAT IS PLUGGED IN....and why that reduces noise in a circuit...which it OBVIOUSLY does.

We have some thick headed mules on this forum I'm discovering...I'm happy to oblige because not only do I read...I also LIKE to write.

Instead of calling the link "nonsense" why don't you instead dispute one of the declarative statements within it. Then we can talk about that. Or maybe elaborate on what you mean when you say, "The bridge (and strings) being grounded is a world of difference from grounding yourself". I'd be interested to hear that...because with a little more research I could qualitatively categorize the "differences" in conductivity of certain skin types which I'm addressing with my gizmo. I haven't done this yet because it's obvious that the skin covering the inside of your hands will be less conductive than almost every other type.

As far as "playing barefoot" on concrete...sorry...that's just facile. You and I both know that it requires amperage that shouldn't be where it is in a guitar/amp circuit to get a lethal shock....and that if this happens you're going to get that shock no matter what type of ground you are touching...and whether you die or not is dependent on duration, amperage level, and the route it takes through your body.

From the article...

"The noise (usually) gets quieter when a person touches their guitar strings because the strings are grounding the player! Almost all guitars have a wire that connects the bridge (or tremelo claw) to the ground terminal of the output jack so that the strings are grounded. When someone picks up the guitar and holds it close to them, that person's body is acting as a radiator or reflector of noise in the vicinity, "concentrating" it, if you will, close to the guitar's pickups.&nbps; Then, when they touch the strings their body is suddenly much better grounded, shunting noise to ground. They go from being a radiator or reflector to being a shield. How much the noise is reduced depends on the person's internal and skin resistance – a person with high resistance may still be concentrating a bit of noise around the pickups while a person of low resistance may completely shunt the noise to ground."

Lower resistance WILL shunt more noise to ground....unless he's wrong. Is he wrong? Why?

27. The Electrodermal Response

This pretty thoroughly covers GSP and it applications to electrode placement. If you don't think certain skin types are better than others to connect the body to a ground, and will therefore shunt noise to that ground BETTER than the typical way we do it when we play...then there's not much more to say.
 
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c7sus said:
I don't think it's off-topic. If you are depending on the neutral for all of your equipment grounding and personal grounding means you could wind up in a body bag.
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I just meant off-topic music/audio wise.....but yeah, proper wiring and hook-ups are not something to screw with.
When setting up my studio...I ran a pair of 20A lines from the main box, on their own 20A fuses...all properly grounded.
I then wired the entire studio gear to them and followed star-grounding as best as possible. There's actually a Furman power/spike conditioner, followed by a Furman voltage regulator (I have a pair)...and then all the gear gets its power from that.

I also went to every single switch/outlet at my house when I moved in and made sure the neutral/positive/ground wires were correctly connected and firmly connected. I've seen one loose connection cause weird clicks/pops in the AC.
 
You're talking about nomenclature. The guitar is grounded, not the player. Show me anywhere in the NEC where it is recommended that a person ground themselves in relation to any circuit. While you are doing your searches for galvanic skin potential try doing a search for difference of voltage potential.

Like I said, if you really want to do a demonstration for us play barefoot on a concrete floor or better yet in a bathtub full of water. If that idea is facile, try attaching the other end of your copper plate to a water line. Then you'll be securely grounded for sure. You won't like the result. Next try throwing a phantom-powered mic into the mix. Let us know which funeral home to send flowers to.

You'll find out pretty quickly that what you are advocating is extremely bad advice.

Can you predict in advance when components of a circuit will fail and short to ground?

The problem you are trying to address with your galvanic gizmo is much better addressed with isolating transformers than with a chunk of copper applied to your ass.

I already addressed the example of the amp set to high gain with a cable and no load. It's going to make noise. The galvanic skin resistance is obviously going to complete that circuit to some degree and reduce the noise. But using that as the basis for an argument to purposefully ground yourself is flat out wrong.
 
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StuGort said:
"Purposefully grounding yourself" is what people do when they play electric guitars...ALL of them. It seems that this concept is difficult to grasp for some people. I'm getting comments that would logically call EVERYONE who plays an electric guitar "stupid" for grounding themselves....as if grounding oneself to a guitar is some kind of unfortunate accident that sometimes occurs when people play them.
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Mmmmm....people don't "purposefully" do that to intentionally solve noise issues...it just happens that way because we touch the strings/bridge.
The take-away point is that in a properly wired situation....you won't get grounding noises to begin with.
You may want to consider why you get them, and rather than improving the skin contact to your gear with some wire down your pants and a brass plate....spend the time to fix the problems at the source.
Heck, there are even power conditioners/hum eliminators that can solve it for you if you don't want to deal with fixing your house AC and studio grounding scheme.
 
miroslav said:
Mmmmm....people don't "purposefully" do that to intentionally solve noise issues...it just happens that way because we touch the strings/bridge.
The take-away point is that in a properly wired situation....you won't get grounding noises to begin with.
You may want to consider why you get them, and rather than improving the skin contact to your gear with some wire down your pants and a brass plate....spend the time to fix the problems at the source.
Heck, there are even power conditioners/hum eliminators that can solve it for you if you don't want to deal with fixing your house AC and studio grounding scheme.
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This. It's astounding how often self-proclaimed smart people can totally fuck up the simplest things.
 
miroslav said:
Mmmmm....people don't "purposefully" do that to intentionally solve noise issues...it just happens that way because we touch the strings/bridge.
The take-away point is that in a properly wired situation....you won't get grounding noises to begin with.
You may want to consider why you get them, and rather than improving the skin contact to your gear with some wire down your pants and a brass plate....spend the time to fix the problems at the source.
Heck, there are even power conditioners/hum eliminators that can solve it for you if you don't want to deal with fixing your house AC and studio grounding scheme.
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^^^^This.
 
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