Best way to get rid of "hiss"

O

Omniscient

New member
Basically the hiss that I'm getting from my amp. I don't know if I have my amp and pedals settings too high or if it's just there because I'm not running anything in a rack to get rid of the hiss.

I pretty much just got into this so I'm still oblivious to a lot of the equipment and tricks of the trade.

So what can I change around or even buy to get rid of the hissing.
 
If you're omniscient, surely you wouldn't need to ask this, lol. A de-esser might help a little. And most of the hiss is heard before you start playing and at the end, usually, so a noise gate set quite low.
 
I would check the path of everything first.

Does the amp hiss with nothing plugged in?
How about just the guitar plugged in?
Then try effects units. Could simply be cables, bad electronics.

Always try to isolate and correct the real problem instead of hiding it.
 
As mentioned above, the most important thing is to find out what exactly is causing the hiss. Start with pluggin your guitar staright into the amp first. Then add your pedals etc... 1 at a time. Make a note of each piece of equipment that adds noise to your system. At the end of that test, you should have an idea of where the noisy parts of your setup are. The second thing you need to do is start checking all of the cables. See if the noise changes when you swap out certain cables.

It is also important to remember that high gain channels by nature create a certain amount of moise. In general, a cheaper amp may be more succeptible to this than a more expensive one, but that rule does not always hold true. If you do go the gating option (which can be succesfull) be very cautious in how you set your levels. As far as a deesser goes, I would avoid that like the plague. In general, I find that louder and heavier guitars actually need to be compressed more in the lows than the highs, and that the compression actually needs to come before the amp to help contain the "woof" that people seem to get so much of nowadays. Especially with 7+ string guitars and extreme drop tunings. A deesser will serve to compress your high strings and not your lows. Exaclty the opposite in my opinion of what is normally wanted. Not only that, but for a deesser to affect the hiss from an amp, that means the threshold would have to be very low. As a result, you may be radically compressing just about everything you play. You will thenm have to crank your track to be heard, and the hiss will actually be worse.

Just some thoughts:)
 
Cheap and nasty method of doing it:

Plug all yer stuff in, sit the guitar on the floor...

Record the hiss, and find out the level in DB of the hiss...

Get a software plugin noisegate and gate at the level of the hiss...

told ya it was nasty ;)
 
1) Take your amp of the loop. Go direct into your DAW with a POD amp simulator, or get a real good AMP simulator plug in for your DAW.

2) Try micing your amp cabinet if you particularly want that sound. This may help with some of the noise.
 
sushi-mon said:
2) Try micing your amp cabinet if you particularly want that sound. This may help with some of the noise.
Click to expand...

Provided, of course, he has a good mike, decent cable, and a decent mike pre :D :D :D :D DAve
 
Lots of things can cause this. Most common are the pickups, amp and positioning. Stay away from pedals if you can...they can be extremely noisy.

With regard to positioning, I need to be at least 6 feet away from my amp at a 90 degree angle. IOW, my guitar neck is pointed directly away from the face of the amp (E.M.F. problem...?).
 
If you can't kill it by making equipment adjustments (without killing your sound) try this:

Step one - Is the hiss a problem in the first place? Record the guitar, hiss and all. Play it in the mix. Can you even notice the hiss when the full band (and the guitar) is playing. Don't knock yourself out fixing it if it isn't a problem.

Step two - Is it only a problem when the guitar isn't playing? Try a noise gate.
 
sushi-mon said:
1) Take your amp of the loop. Go direct into your DAW with a POD amp simulator, or get a real good AMP simulator plug in for your DAW.
Click to expand...
I would not go as far as changing the tone to fix it...if your hissing amp is giving the desired tone that is.

I'll take the propper tone with noise over a compromised tone with no noise any day.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
I would not go as far as changing the tone to fix it...if your hissing amp is giving the desired tone that is.

I'll take the propper tone with noise over a compromised tone with no noise any day.
Click to expand...

Yeah, which is why I suggested micing the amp if he wants the tone, with the potential for less noise. But for minimal fuss...plug, play and record amp simulators can be pretty decent.
 
Omniscient said:
Basically the hiss that I'm getting from my amp. I don't know if I have my amp and pedals settings too high or if it's just there because I'm not running anything in a rack to get rid of the hiss.

I pretty much just got into this so I'm still oblivious to a lot of the equipment and tricks of the trade.

So what can I change around or even buy to get rid of the hissing.
Click to expand...

This may very well be a simple gain staging problem. Try this: turn down the amp and turn UP whatever is plugged into it.... Turn up the instrument and then turn down the amp as much as you can without changing the sound too much.

Every time you amplify the signal, whether in a pedal, in your amp, etc., you're adding noise. The hotter the output of the instrument, the less gain you'll be adding at later parts of the signal chain and the less noise will be added.

Of course, you may want some gain for other reasons, e.g. tube overdrive, but that's a different issue....
 
dgatwood said:
This may very well be a simple gain staging problem. Try this: turn down the amp and turn UP whatever is plugged into it.... Turn up the instrument and then turn down the amp as much as you can without changing the sound too much.

Every time you amplify the signal, whether in a pedal, in your amp, etc., you're adding noise. The hotter the output of the instrument, the less gain you'll be adding at later parts of the signal chain and the less noise will be added.

Of course, you may want some gain for other reasons, e.g. tube overdrive, but that's a different issue....
Click to expand...

In my experience, it's sometimes been the exact opposite of this. If the hiss is being generated in the guitar (pickups and what not), you can drastically reduce hiss by turning down the guitar and turning up the amp.
 
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