How to make my set-up less hum-ful?

[backpacker]

Hi guys,

I need your kind advice on how I could reduce the noise level of my rig.

My set-up looks like this:

Strat>Biyang Overdrive>Wampler Super Plextortion>BYOC Beaver>Ibanez Echo>Boomerang III Looper>Amp.

All pedals are daisy-chained and powered by a Moen adaptor, except for the looper which is connected to a 1 Spot adaptor individually as it requires 700mA of current. My amp’s power plug is a 2-pin one. Guitar pick-ups are all single coils.

I can live with the very slight noise (hum) when I connect my guitar to the amp directly without pedals. But when all pedals are connected, the hum is noticeable louder, even when the pedals are not activated; however there will be no more noise when I rolled off the volume knob of my guitar entirely. (Does this mean the pedals & adaptors are not the source of the noise?) And also, if I were to press on some connection points (e.g. patch cable to a pedal), the noise level will reduce too.

Based on the above description, would you think getting a dedicated power supply like CIOKS would help?

Thanks!

 

[dodgethis]

It's your pickups. If you got the budget, noiseless single coil pickups. No budget, Biyang Noise Gate.

 

[skipper53]

It's your pickups. If you got the budget, noiseless single coil pickups. No budget, Biyang Noise Gate.

This should help extensively =)

 

[Godspeed64]

Isolation is key. Try isolating particular cables, try either power supplies on each pedal, as well as batteries just to see if some (especially time-based effects) have an inherent clock noise.

Plus changing your amp to a 3-pin plug helps a lot as well. I changed my set-up to full Canares and a Fuel Tank JR a long time back only to discover that the noise was cause by my 2-pin plug.

 

[junkiemanxl]

Trouble shooting individual pedals through batteries first to single out the causes. Since u have a single coil configuration, hum is pretty much inevitable unless they are noiseless pups.

another contributing factor that may induce hum is playing under florescent lights.

 

[wck]

Isolation is key. Try isolating particular cables, try either power supplies on each pedal, as well as batteries just to see if some (especially time-based effects) have an inherent clock noise.

Plus changing your amp to a 3-pin plug helps a lot as well. I changed my set-up to full Canares and a Fuel Tank JR a long time back only to discover that the noise was cause by my 2-pin plug.

Agreed. The ungrounded 2 pin can cause quite alot of noise, the daisy chain will amplify it and single coils don't help. Like Godspeed says, try to find if a cable or pedal is causing it..

When you touch the patch cable and the noise goes away you're grounding it, the same should happen if you touch any metal part that is part of the signal chain. I would suggest grounding the amp first before getting an isolated PSU cos the PSU doesn't eliminate noise, it just doesn't amplify it like a daisy chain.

 

[subversion]

My amp’s power plug is a 2-pin one.

you might want to look into this as well, especially when you have a single-coil equipped (thusfar, we are assuming your strat is a 3x SC version) guitar running on excessive drive/ distortion. the 3-pin plug isn't expensive & could be replaced yourself.

 

[backpacker]

Thanks for all your replies. I noted the amp plug 2-pin to 3-pin solution.

One question though: If I roll off my guitar volume and the hum vanishes, can I conclude the pedals & power supplies are actually not the ones causing the hum?

 

[wck]

Nope, its normal that when you put the guitar volume to 0 it cuts hum cos you're cutting the signal going thru everything else. It'll be better if you check every pedal and cable individually for noise.

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

when rolling down the volume pot, a portion of the hi frequency range also got roll off in the process(thus some folks put a small value capacitor in the range of picofarad for the treble bleed mod, which retain the clearness of the geetar signal when reducing volume)

Anyway, if theres no cap for the treble bleed mod, as mentioned, a portion of the hi frequency being rolled off, actually seem like reducing the hum, but its sorta "masking" the frequency of the hum and thus make it seem as hum got reduced.

Hehe, of course, it might be a faulty pot as well. But in general, when we roll off that treble frequency on the geetar(either thru volume or tone pot), if the "hum" level reduced, prolly its due to the frequency roll off which kinda make it seem as the hum reduce or disappear.

 

[backpacker]

Apart from converting the amp's plug to 3 pins, what is the next best step to lower the hum? Is it getting a dedicated PSU, changing my pickup to noiseless ones or better cables? Getting all 3 would probably solve the issue, but I would like to see how I could upgrade progressively according to effectiveness.

I also ask this because if the amp at the studio that I jam is not earthed, at least my set-up has another measure in place to lower the noise.