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Humbuckers humming


SGfan127

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Hi everyone, I have an sg with two 57 humbuckers. I was wondering if its normal to get a humming noise when I am not playing and I'm on high gain/volume. The humming intensify when I'm not touching the strings and I can reduce the noise when I change the angle of my guitar. I want to know if it's normal or if I should go see a luthier. Sorry for my bad english, I'm french, and thank you :)

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I had this same issue show up over the last two days. My guitar is running through a Zoom G3X then to the amp. I thought the noise was cable related, so I changed cables and the noise continued. I thing disconnected the Zoom and ran directly into the amp. The humming noise was greatly reduced with just that small change. I then tested knobs on the amp to see if any of them were causing the additional noise. I found the "Presence" knob to be the culprit. Upon turning it up, there was tons of noise and turning it down did the opposite. I have chalked this up to "the nature of the beast." I have decided that I can live with some white noise during lulls in playing.

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Running with high gain adds noise whether it's from your amp settings or pedals. You mentioned that "I can reduce the noise when I change the angle of my guitar" please keep in mind that external sources of radiation such as TVs and flourescent lighting can cause this. Also bad grounding on your guitar or in your home can lead to noise issues.

It's normal for noise to increase as gain increases. Nature of the beast. Jim

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Yeah, my SG does this, too. Kind of made me angry. My SG was my first humbucker guitar and I was led to believe that unlike single coils, the humbuckers buck the hum and they would be silent. I can get them completely silent if I turn my body a ceratin angle, just like my Strat. But isn't my SG supposed to be different than my Strat when it comes to pickup noise? Now the noise is no way as loud as my single coil guitars, but it is there. Thought it wasn't supposed to be there.

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"...if I turn my body a certain angle."

 

Angle to what? If yer right in front of your amp, and especially if facing it, anything will hum. If you are facing a computer, it'll hum. A freezer, teevee set, even just a light with the wrong kind of bulb in it, it will hum until you turn enough to get the coils not directly facing the vibration of whatever it is you are turning from.

 

If you are a decent distance from the amp and not directly in front of one of the things that irritates pickups it will be quiet.

 

So what are you near?

 

rct

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Thank you for your answers, I wanted to be sure if it was normal. I will play with a greater distance to my amp. How does metal bands do to cancel the humming? Do they use a noisegate or something like that?

Many do. There are lots of different metal bands that use different tone or distortion types, as you obviously know.

 

If you listen to recordings of some that have the really high gain stuff and the "silence" in between chords and riffs, you can actually hear the noise gates kicking in and off. You could even say it's part of the sound.

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"...if I turn my body a certain angle."

 

Angle to what?

 

So what are you near?

 

rct

Don't know. It varies.

 

I don't know the science behind it, but if you have single-coil hum, you can get rid of it by turning your body a certain angle. That's just basic guitar playing. Players learn that before they learn their first bar chord.

 

I expect the electric buzz/hum from single coils, but was perplexed when my SG did it. I was led to believe that humbuckers are silent. I was fooled. I feel shame.

 

I dealt with my shame by buying a BOSS Noise Suppressor pedal. It works like magic. My guitars are now so silent I don't even hear the notes I am playing. Love my Noise Suppressor pedal.

 

(And why do you have the guy from ZARDOZ as your avatar? You do realize that movie did more to destroy Sean Connery's career than even METEOR did. He still has not recovered from ZARDOZ.)

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Arthur has been my avatar since...year 2000, somewhere in there. Zardoz was a hoot when we were young, and it had come out on dvd in y2k, so I got it and still enjoy it once in a while. Poor Sean. Orange diapers don't look good on anyone!

 

rct

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For a technical explanation, for those that care:

 

Pickups don't actually cause hum, they pick it up. The hum is an outside source.

 

In any electrical circuit, there is the positive(+) and negative(-). Electricity always wants to escape, and some always does. It is the portions of the signal escaping one half to the other that picks up these stray unwanted noise.

 

In a BALANCED circuit, the design is to create a (+) and (-) that are the same, so there is less potential for one half to try to get to the other. Some studio equipment, some stereo systems are made like this. In essence, to make something "balanced", you make 2 circuits identical and one is the (+) and one is the (-).

 

Humbucking pups prevent this because there are two coils "balanced" to prevent them from picking up the stray signals already there. Some "humbuckers" are more balanced than others. It is impossible to create a perfectly balanced pup in the first place, but due to research and technology, some are made less balanced than others on purpose because they "sound better".

 

So, back to the hum: pups happen to be the most vulnerable to pick up stray signals, but even if you eliminate them from picking up hum or noise from the air, that hum and noise is still there and can be picked up from other parts of the rig.

 

Also, hum that you hear isn't always in the "air". For example, it could come from a refrigerator, get into the power source (the wall socket) as an audio signal, then an amp plugged into a wall socket will pick up that as an audio signal and mix it in with the amplified signal of an amp you are listening to. What is heard as hummimg or buzz could be leaking into a circuit, or CAUSED by a circuit.

 

The point of THAT is that often, high gain settings not only cause an imbalance by design (more likely to pick up hum from other sources), but some may CAUSE hum (be the source of the noise and amplify it within itself). This would apply to any stomp box or device. Digital devices that typically have some very small signals are especially prone to create their own noise.

 

I sure can ramble, eh?

 

I can go on and get deep on any part of this, but I think by a little understanding and perspective there can be a lot of help there if one wants to chase it down.

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  • 4 weeks later...

First get yourself one of these circuit testers and make sure the outlet you are using is grounded/wired correctly. Then go to your local guitar shop and buy a really good guitar chord. I had noise problems like you discribe and it turns out the outlet I was using was not grounded. Now I keep a circut tester pluged into my power strip so I can see that the wiring is correct when ever I plug in. I thought I was having a problem with my amp because every guitar I own made crazy noise. I had the Amp checked out by a pro. My amp checked out okay and my tech handed me this circuit tester and told me the house wiring was no good. If you have a vintage amp you will have to convert the two prong plug (no ground) to a three prong plug.

circutetester016_zps3a5d0539.jpg

circutetester017_zpscdfb529f.jpg

circutetester018_zpsb5015306.jpg

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