Bass Buzz

K

KrispyDK

New member
My bass is making a terrible buzz. A clever man on here said it maybe to do with other electrical appliances that are on the same circuit.

I turned everything from the pc to the fridge off to try and prove that theory. The last thing left to turn off (besides the bass amp) were the lights.

It was the bloody lights! So, my question is, is that normal or should I expect more from my bass in terms of shielding? It wasn't mega expensive but it wasn't cheap either - £300 active bass.

What do you think?
 
KrispyDK said:
My bass is making a terrible buzz. A clever man on here said it maybe to do with other electrical appliances that are on the same circuit.

I turned everything from the pc to the fridge off to try and prove that theory. The last thing left to turn off (besides the bass amp) were the lights.

It was the bloody lights! So, my question is, is that normal or should I expect more from my bass in terms of shielding? It wasn't mega expensive but it wasn't cheap either - £300 active bass.

What do you think?
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Florescent lights? Yeah that's pretty common. I don't know what helps though. When we had that problem in our old jam room we turned off the florescents and bought some cheap lamps.:D:eek:
 
No, not fluorescent, just regular - in my front room. But they are on dimmer switches which i think is the root of the problem.

So, normal behaviour from the bass then...I shouldn't feel robbed?!
 
KrispyDK said:
No, not fluorescent, just regular - in my front room. But they are on dimmer switches which i think is the root of the problem.

So, normal behaviour from the bass then...I shouldn't feel robbed?!
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Fairly normal for electric guitars and basses. I've heard dimmer switches can be a problem. I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't think better shielding would help. Maybe a power conditioner?

I'm sure someone smarter than myself will be along shortly to set you straight.:D
 
Yonce, cheers for the reply. You've put my mind at ease now and stopped me looking like a plonker by going back to the shop with it!
 
Dimmers are the devil. I have to cut the light on the dimmer off before recording any music.
 
gcapel said:
Dimmers are the devil. I have to cut the light on the dimmer off before recording any music.
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Oooh yes, haha. Dimmers are rough.

To be fair, sometimes it's just the grounding in the house itself. I lived in an apartment where, no matter what I did, there was always a slight background hum coming out of my amp. I could never get it to clear up and just had to kind of live with it while recording, until finally I moved to a new apartment and lo and behold my amps were silent again.
 
Yeah, those dimmers are a surprising enemy for electric guitars and basses. I was surprised to find out that they caused interference, I'm still not really sure why that is.

Shielding your instrument is a good step towards getting rid of the buzz. You shouldn't be picking up interference more than a few feet away from the dimmer. If you're farther than a few feet away and still getting a good amount of buzz, shielding will probably help. It won't get rid of the buzz altogether, but it'll help make any single-coil pickup less succeptible to 60 Hz hum.

For a general idea of how to do this yourself, check out this great article at GuitarNuts:

http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/shield3.php
 
Thanks for that Tadpui. Apparently the insides have been painting using some king of paint. Somebody else suggested foil but I'm scared of shorting the thing!
 
ez - no and stops if I turn the lights off or move away from the light. It does stop if I touch the plug on the lead at the guitar end.

Haven't yet sussed all the knobs out on the bass yet but it gets louder when I turn one of them all the way up. It's either the high freq tone or the pickup blend knob.
 
One thing that I found on my J-Bass copy is that I can adjust the individual pickup volume knobs (or I guess in your case, the pickup blend knob). I can sweep the volumes until I find a setting that outputs both pickups at equal volumes. Since they're wired out-of-phase with each other, having both pickups at equal volumes will cancel out the hum (or at least reduce it since both pickups might not be picking up the hum from its source at equal strengths). That's probably what you're experiencing. That's definitely a good immediate solution to your problem until you can find a more permanent solution.

What's the make and model of the bass?
 
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