Stand on metal to ground myself instead of a hum eliminator?

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I happen to have a bass, amp and USB mic to hand. The bass peaks to -10ish and the noise eventually drops to a (reasonably?) acceptable -60dBFS ish. Were I to move around the room with the bass I reckon I could better that by 10dB? But I would say, in a song mix that S/N ratio is good enough?

Dave.
 

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Geeez! That's nasty! I would not be at all surprised if that is due to the overhead lines. I suspect there is also some electro-staic pickup as well judging by the higher harmonics. Do you know the line voltage?

But WHERE is the chuffin' guitar? The figures mean Jack unless we can refer them to "normal" playing levels.
I shall see if I can post an example.

Dave.

Line voltage should just be regular 120 volt, in a basement of a residential home built in 2010, and basement wasn't finished until 2015. I could post an audio of moving the guitar around so you can hear how the noise changes based on the orientation and location of the guitar if that helps?
 
Line voltage should just be regular 120 volt, in a basement of a residential home built in 2010, and basement wasn't finished until 2015. I could post an audio of moving the guitar around so you can hear how the noise changes based on the orientation and location of the guitar if that helps?
Ah, when you mentioned "overhead cables" I was thinking 132kV pylons? Yes, run the guitar facing N S E and W.

Dave.
 
I don't know how far they can cause interference or noise so here's a photo taken from the window so you can see how far those power lines are. At that distance, can they still be the source of my issue?
 

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Almost certainly not. The thing with interference is that it drops of VERY quickly with distance due to the inverse square law. double the distance and the interference drops to ¼! double again and it's a 1/16 of what it was. If the quality and volume of the hum changes as you spin through 360 degrees, then you can track it down reasonably simply. move to one side of the room and do the spin with the guitar on a strap. There should be two peaks. one will be at 90 degrees to the neck in front and the same behind. find the maximum interference direction, and the source is on that bearing. Then go as far as you can away from that position and repeat. The direction should be different. but the source is on the new bearing - where the two cross is the source. This will fail if the interference is being propagated by your house wiring. However, it can help you find things like wall wart type power supplies misbehaving, or individual bits of kit if they are causing it.
 
So assuming it's not the power lines because of the distance, to rule out any of the audio components. I will unplug from the wall, everything except for the guitar and the mixer, and put headphones on (connected to the mixer) to see if the hum noise is there. If the noise is still there without any change, then it's coming from the house wiring? I tend to think that's what's going to happen. How do you defeat house wiring noise?

Here's another discussion on the topic:

Notably:
If your issue is purely defined by what direction your guitar is facing then it is an electromagnetic field (EMF) issue.
 
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Single coil pickups, by their design, convert electro-magnetic energy into electrical energy. Those little, subtle, wobbles of your strings, wibbling about in the field of your tiny little magnets. When we had real tubes in our computer monitors, it was pretty bad, and of course, close. It got better when we swapped to flat screens, but got worse when switch mode power supplies became everywhere. I have found these the worst generators of noise, some crazily so. Often the noise they generate propogates through your house/studio mains power wiring, spreading out the origin point over a wider area.

It is well worth it to pull everything you can, that is not essential. So strip down what you have to a minimum. Unplug everything bar the computer, monitor, interface. Dont even use amps and speakers, but headphones. Absolute minimum gear, and see how noisy that is. Add your kit, one by one and see if you can identify one specific item. For me, in my video studio, it was the 4 port network hub. One other thing caused grief. My Adam speakers. Plugging in these caused some kind of grounding issue, and these now have their audio going through a transformer isolator. In my home studio, these monitors are silent. I neverr found the cause, but the isolator cured the noise, presumably coming from something else.

Plugging in a Les Paul produces just guitar. My Strat just hates my studio. At the theatre I look after, I sometimes see single coil players struggling with feedback and weird whistles and noise. I quietly walk up to the rack, stage left, and turn off the hearing loop, and the guitar behaves. Not every guitar with single coil pickups, not the same make, or pickup brand. Has the guitar got shielded pickup cavities, or screened cable between pickup and switchery? No idea. Just happens.
 
I don't know how far they can cause interference or noise so here's a photo taken from the window so you can see how far those power lines are. At that distance, can they still be the source of my issue?
I have pylons close to my house like that.
They have never given a problem.
 
Just unplug or switch things off. No current - no transmission.
Yes, bang off the main breaker(s) and run laptop on battery. The OP's noise has two features that tell a story?
Firstly the main (huge!) peak at 60Hz. That can only come from direct mains 'injection' almost certainly 'magnetic' and likely a transformer. Equipment hum will be 120Hz (100Hz EU) because nobody uses half wave rectification these days!

The second observation is the EXTREME DIRTINESS of the rest of the spectrum! That suggests to me a poorly designed or badly shielded Switch Mode PSU. OR! The UMC is noisy. Try a recording with gain at minimum and ideally input shorted. I shall do the same for my KA6 in a mo'.

That was done with the inputs switched to 'Line/insrt' and at minimum gain i.e. the converter noise plus the line preamp residual.

Purty clean innit?
 

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