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Hum question

xtremehardy388xtremehardy388 Posts: 2,759
edited October 2013 in Musicians and Gearheads
Our pastor plays in our praise band. He's got an early 60s Kalamazoo (yay for my hometown) Gibson ES335. He hasn't done anything to change the electronics and would like the keep everything original. He's running it through a Zoom multieffects pedal into a Fender Blues Jr. He gets pretty serious hum. Is there any way to change/fix this? He's plugged into an outlet with other instruments
Grand Rapids '04, Detroit '06
JEFF HARDY AND JEFF AMENT USED TO LOOK THE SAME
"Pearl Jam always eases my mind and fires me up at the same time.”-Jeff Hardy
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • mccreadyisgodmccreadyisgod Posts: 6,395
    Are the pickups single-coil or humbucker? I assume he plugs in using actual cables, no wireless. Is the Zoom FX unit powered off battery or A/C? Does the room feature lots of big florescent lights?

    Things to try: 1) Swap out all cables for new, including power. 2) Try lifting the ground on the amp (I don't think the Blues Jr. has a ground lift on it; if not, you can try one of those gray ground lift adapters you can get at the hardware store for like $1. Be careful not to use any mics when performing this test, as a ground short from the guitar rig to the PA rig can hurt.) 3) Try swapping out pieces of the rig: different guitar, different amp, bypass the pedal, etc. 4) Get an outlet tester (again, cheap tool from the hardware store; any guitar player who plays out should own one) and test the outlet providing power to the rig.

    Hum is usually caused by a grounding issue. The guitar itself could be ungrounded (does the hum change when someone is touching metal parts of the guitar, strings, bridge, etc?), the amp could have a bad ground, or there could be some sort of grounding issue with the FX pedal. The cables could be bad. The power could be bad, or missing a proper ground connection. It could be noise induction in single-coil pups (why they invented hum-cancelling pups, right?), especially from florescent lights. Could be from stage lights on a dimmer sharing the same power.
    ...and if you don't like it, you can suck on an egg.
  • DriftingByTheStormDriftingByTheStorm Posts: 8,684
    ^^^ just read what mig wrote. ^^^

    im gonna go ahead and assume that guitar has p90s.

    if so, read what he wrote about lights and the actual circuit your gear is plugged in to.
    specifically, make sure the wall outlet is grounded, and put your gear on one that is on a different breaker from the lights.

    also, god speed.
    p90s make some of the most beautiful noise i have ever heard,
    and also, some of the worst. :/

    60 cycle hum is the devil
    you will find that a guitar with p90s, even on isolated power, will still receive interference too easily from nearby sources. a computer, a fancy keyboard, a radio, a telephone pole(?), i fucking get TV and radio channels playing out my amp sometimes with my SG :(

    if all else fails, or if it would just help to shut the damn guitar up when it WASNT being strummed, at the least, you may find use of a "noise gate" pedal. a true noise gate will set to engage when it no longer detects a signal above the threshold level you set (ie. when you stop playing the guitar) and kill the output, thus shutting up the god awful p90 hum.
    If I was to smile and I held out my hand
    If I opened it now would you not understand?
  • xtremehardy388xtremehardy388 Posts: 2,759
    He has single coils.
    The pedal is powered by A/C
    Thanks for the advice!
    Grand Rapids '04, Detroit '06
    JEFF HARDY AND JEFF AMENT USED TO LOOK THE SAME
    "Pearl Jam always eases my mind and fires me up at the same time.”-Jeff Hardy
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