Eleven Rack Grounding? Noise

[RYOAK5150]

Heya!

Im fairly new to 11R(maybe 3 months in), but Ive had enough time to dial in my perfect tones and figure out how the unit works.

Since day one I've had a rather annoying background buzz, most noticed with palm mutes on high gain patches and even on high clean patches. At first I thought it was the guitar, then after testing with 3 other guitars, changing pickups, rewiring pickups and using more copper tape than Id like to admit, I isolated it to the 11R itself.

Yes, I can turn the noise gate all the way up and have a virtually useless patch, but thats just not ideal...obviously.

I have:

-Tested multiple guitars
-Change power cable
-Used surge protecter; went straight to outlet
-Changed outlets
-Changed guitar cables
-Changed speaker cables
-Used with power amp; used without(USB to Mac)


Even with the noise gate to a useless setting, its still there, just cut off quicker.

Heres a sample of what I hear. After the two palm mutes I let off to let the noise gate catch, no humming when just sitting there, then I play again and there it is: https://soundcloud.com/undead5150/11...e-consolidated

Ideas?

[TieDyedDevil]

I'm sorry, but... how is that you've isolated that noise (I listened to the clip) to the 11R itself?

This sounds to me exactly like hum pickup through a very high-gain amp. If you use enough gain you can overcome even very heroic attempts at shielding the guitar.

Still, there are several things left to check:

1) Make sure that your 11R is plugged into a properly grounded AC outlet. The mere presence of a grounding pin is not sufficient; sometimes the house wiring is not up to code. If you're in the US, you can buy an outlet tester for about $5. Look for one of those little widgets having a three-prong plug on one end and three lights on the other. There may be similar testers available elsewhere in the world.

2) The quality of the shielding in your instrument cable is very important. Have you tried another cable?

3) Does the sound or intensity of hum change as you move around the room or change the direction the guitar is pointing? This is a sure sign that the guitar is picking up the hum.

4) Try the same setup in a different room or even a different building. Some locations are just electrically noisier than others.

[RYOAK5150]

Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil

I'm sorry, but... how is that you've isolated that noise (I listened to the clip) to the 11R itself?

This sounds to me exactly like hum pickup through a very high-gain amp. If you use enough gain you can overcome even very heroic attempts at shielding the guitar.

Still, there are several things left to check:

1) Make sure that your 11R is plugged into a properly grounded AC outlet. The mere presence of a grounding pin is not sufficient; sometimes the house wiring is not up to code. If you're in the US, you can buy an outlet tester for about $5. Look for one of those little widgets having a three-prong plug on one end and three lights on the other. There may be similar testers available elsewhere in the world.

2) The quality of the shielding in your instrument cable is very important. Have you tried another cable?

3) Does the sound or intensity of hum change as you move around the room or change the direction the guitar is pointing? This is a sure sign that the guitar is picking up the hum.

4) Try the same setup in a different room or even a different building. Some locations are just electrically noisier than others.

Its been isolated because Ive tested with 4 guitars total, all with different pickups. The issue is not only on high gain amps, but clean channels as well. I used the dirty channel for a clear example.

-A new cable has been tested
-Moving around the house does not change anything(moving with the guitar)
-Different outlets in different rooms, on different circuits has no change

Next step is to take to another location and test that way. Again, it does not hum when Im not playing.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by RYOAK5150

Again, it does not hum when Im not playing.

Yes I know you mention it earlier but are you are really sure you have the noise gate in the Eleven Rack amp/rig fully disabled?

That is the obvious cause of statements like "it only hums when I play".

Getting the noise gate defeated will make debugging what is going on a lot easier. You'll be able to look for subtle noise changes as you change things around without playing the guitar.

Darryl

[Darryl Ramm]

So far you've isolated it to the Eleven Rack or the environment. Have you tested with a different high-gain guitar amp in the same environment? Sounds like standard run of the mill pickup noise to me. That happens when you palm mute because you (the player) is behaving as an antenna. proper grounding of the guitar cable and grounding inside the guitar is important (e.g. on a Stat type guitar make sure folks have not broken off the bridge ground cable when messing around with changing trem springs). If you've tried multiple guitars this should hopefully not be the problem. What pickups are in the guitars?

So while just suspect this is really just environment/input noise, but just in case...

What revision is the Eleven Rack? (earlier revisions had a grounding issue on the front panel output to amp jack-only an issue if you use that jack). You can search for those old threads on this forum.

What amp are you driving? (via main outs or output to amp). Describe exactly what is connected to the Eleven rack over what connections. If you unplug all external amps, computers, just have a guitar connected and turn off all nearby computers and florescent lights (or any that are not "nearby" but on the same circuit. Make sure nothing is connected to the FX loop and the FX Loop block is disabled. Do you heat this noise in a pair of headphones attached to the Eleven Rack? Do you hear it when the guitar is unplugged? In extreme cases of tracking down pickup noise I've turned off every except one power circuit to a house and made sure that the guitar amp (Eleven Rack in this case) was the only thing on that circuit and then went turning on other circuits to find the culprit (A CFD light hidden in a closet in one case). Guitars can also hate odd things like refrigerators. You have to just play around.

Darryl

[RYOAK5150]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Yes I know you mention it earlier but are you are really sure you have the noise gate in the Eleven Rack amp/rig fully disabled?

That is the obvious cause of statements like "it only hums when I play".

Getting the noise gate defeated will make debugging what is going on a lot easier. You'll be able to look for subtle noise changes as you change things around without playing the guitar.

Darryl

Right you are. I did forget to disable the NG, my apologies.

So yes, there obviously is constant hum when the NG is disabled and walking around does slightly alter the hum, but does not rid of it. At one point it got quieter, but there was minimal difference.

I actually lugged the rack around the house trying different outlets again, as well as instrument cables and power cables to no avail. This is the first processor or head Ive had this problem with in my house. Anything from Axe FX to Mesa triples and high gain peavey heads.

I've also tested with a surge protector and power conditioner. Not sure what else to try. I would understand with high gain amps, but when the clean channel does it, its a bit useless for recording.

[TieDyedDevil]

It just occurred to ask: do you have a compressor in the signal chain?

[musicman691]

Don't forget if there's a crt screen TV or computer monitor in the area that will cause major noise like we're hearing here.

There's another possibility and it might not even be in the house but outside on a power pole. There may be a line transformer radiating noise; it may even be coming from a neighbor's house. Trust me - as a ham radio op I've seen more than my fair share of noise radiators that you wouldn't think were causing the problem.

[RYOAK5150]

Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil

It just occurred to ask: do you have a compressor in the signal chain?

No. None of my patches have a compressor. The issue is present on every patch on the unit.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by RYOAK5150

Right you are. I did forget to disable the NG, my apologies.

So yes, there obviously is constant hum when the NG is disabled and walking around does slightly alter the hum, but does not rid of it. At one point it got quieter, but there was minimal difference.

I actually lugged the rack around the house trying different outlets again, as well as instrument cables and power cables to no avail. This is the first processor or head Ive had this problem with in my house. Anything from Axe FX to Mesa triples and high gain peavey heads.

I've also tested with a surge protector and power conditioner. Not sure what else to try. I would understand with high gain amps, but when the clean channel does it, its a bit useless for recording.

Are you using humbuckers or single coils? Active or passive pickups? I've seen actives with a lot of noise. And if you've got humbuckers and have them wired so you can split the coils you just made yourself a single coil pickup with all the noise benefits thereof.