What Will Help With My Massive Feedback?

[mailman]

i just get maassssssive feedback. even when my guitars taken out of the same room as my amp....and wrapped in a blanket lol

I just get it and it's driving me insane

will a compressor/limiter (like a dbx) help me out?

i already got a Rocktron HushII and that thing is just useless

so will a limiter help? yes? no? noisegate?

thanks

[Bytrix]

Try turning down your volume a bit

Is this on a guitar you made, or not? You could have your wiring messed up, perhaps not enough shielding, or not grounded? I don't think pedals and signal processors are gonna help, better to fix the problem at the source.

[mailman]

no, this is on my regular guitars

i turn the volume way down and im still getting a humm thats louder than the actual guitar output

it probably has something to do with my gain/eq but i dont wanna eliminate the sound i worked so hard to dial in

[Jehle]

Sounds like a buzzing problem rather than feedback. Feedback is a high pitched squeel caused from an interaction (accoustic coupling) between the amp and the guitar (strings or pickups). Buzzing is electrical noise.

I would suspect a faulty ground somewhere. The power supply in your house could be noisy and that's a huge problem. If you have flourescent lights or a computer on near your guitar or amp, turn them off. Neon lights also cause buzzing. A hair dryer running on the other side of the house will also make the power lines noisey. Your house could also just have crappy wiring. Try plugging in at a different place in the house.

Does your amp buzz reguardless of how you have it "dialed in"?

[Paul Marossy]

What kind of amp are you using? How old is it? Does it have a 3-prong power cord? If so, is the ground part still part of the plug? What kind of guitar, what kind of pickups? Single coils are going to pick up noise no matter what you do - even from a simple wall wart. What effects are you using? Some effects units introduce a buzz into the signal and any kind of high gain sound will just amplify that.

[lovekraft]

If you're having the problem with guitar and amp in separate rooms, it's almost certainly not feedback - Paul and Bill have both made some good suggestions based on guesses about what you have going on, but it's going to be impossible for anybody to do more than just guess without a clear and accurate description of your problem. Did you have the same problem before you "dialed in" your glorious new sound? Do you know the difference between hum, hiss, buzz and feedback? They're not interchangeable, and they all have different causes and solutions. If you'll post your entire signal chain and the specific noise problem you're having, one of us is bound to be able to help - until that information is available, this thread is pretty much a waste of time.

[mailman]

Sounds like a buzzing problem rather than feedback.  Feedback is a high pitched squeel caused from an interaction (accoustic coupling) between the amp and the guitar (strings or pickups).  Buzzing is electrical noise.

I would suspect a faulty ground somewhere.  The power supply in your house could be noisy and that's a huge problem.  If you have flourescent lights or a computer on near your guitar or amp, turn them off.  Neon lights also cause buzzing.  A hair dryer running on the other side of the house will also make the power lines noisey.  Your house could also just have crappy wiring.  Try plugging in at a different place in the house.

Does your amp buzz reguardless of how you have it "dialed in"?

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well it does squeal, believe me!

but yeah. if i turn my guitar to the right angle it will disappear, regardless of its proximity to my computer.

this goes for any guitar i have.

and its a peavey XXX

[mailman]

If you're having the problem with guitar and amp in separate rooms, it's almost certainly not feedback - Paul and Bill have both made some good suggestions based on guesses about what you have going on, but it's going to be impossible for anybody to do more than just guess without a clear and accurate description of your problem. Did you have the same problem before you "dialed in" your glorious new sound? Do you know the difference between hum, hiss, buzz and feedback? They're not interchangeable, and they all have different causes and solutions. If you'll post your entire signal chain and the specific noise problem you're having, one of us is bound to be able to help - until that information is available, this thread is pretty much a waste of time.

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its a buzz, my mistake.

my chain is guitar >> amp >> furman EQ >> speakers

its not the EQ cuz i have the buzz w/o it

but the eq does amplify it

i'm guessing it has to do with my computer or bad wiring in my house from what you guys are telling me..

[lovekraft]

OK, start at the top - does it continue when the guitar is unplugged? How about when the cord is removed from the amp? Keep removing things from the signal path until it goes away, and make notes on what effect each removal has on the noise. I suspect it's a shielding/ground loop problem that's being boosted by the gain in your amp, but again, follow the sequence above to find the offending item. HTH - out of curiosity, have you tried moving the whole setup to find out if it's location-specific? Our old rehearsal space was like the electrical equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle, and even perfectly shielded, well-behaved equipment used to freak out occasionally in that room.

[Paul Marossy]

Sometimes a wah pedal will also pick up a slight hum that it amplifies the crap out of with a high distortion circuit.

[Southpa]

Just something else to look into. Do a google search for "microphonic pickups" and do some reading. See if that fits into the symptoms.

[GregP]

A few thoughts:

1. If I'm understanding you right, I'm having the EXACT same probelm right now. At my old place, my guitar would pick up hum from my CRT monitor. Of course, when I turned off the monitor OR stood at the correct angle, it more or less went away.

At my NEW apartment, turning off the CRT monitor doesn't help, and I have to be standing in EXACTLY the right spot with the guitar angled exactly the right way. Someone said to me that it might be do to a combination of a) poor wiring, which isn't something I'm in control of; and concrete walls, which apparently contain and reflect electromagnetic interference. By standing in the right spot and at the correct angle, I'm in the spot where the electromagnetic signal is reflecting and arriving the least.

Unfortunately, there's probably little you can do about it.

2. Regardless of the source of hum, a compressor/limiter will ALWAYS make it worse rather than better. Look at it this way: the compressor's job is to boost a signal when it starts to get weaker (sort of... actually what it REALLY does for the most part is boost the whole signal all the time but then tame the peak, so that it sounds more consistent and you don't notice the fade-out tail as much) When it's just the hum (you're not playing your instrument), the humming signal is being amplified.

Unless you can eliminate all interference and poor wiring (I haven't yet), the closest you can get to noise elimination is a noise gate. A noise gate is just an illusion, though. It will silence the hum when you're not playing, but when you start playing it's back and at full volume. The difference is that you don't notice it as much when you're actually playing notes, but it IS there in the background.

Greg

[mailman]

whats a good noise gate to get then?

i dont notice or mind it when im not playing. its mostly when im not playing, or when just playing simple non-chord material

[GregP]

Noise gates are so dead-basic in terms of technology that there isn't really (in my opinion) much difference between them. They all have the same controls:

1. Threshold: basically, you allow your guitar to hum, and then you turn this just until the hum disappears. Basically, you're manually telling your Gate what your "floor" is.

2. Attack: determines how quickly the gate "closes" when the threshold is reached

3. Release: determines how quickly the gate "opens" when you're playing actual notes.

Basically, it's like having a guy at a volume knob with super-human reflexes and response time, who goes "shoot, he's not playing, there's that hum!" and turns the volume down on you. The technology's not sophisticated enough to worry about brands, just get something cheap (IMO). Mind you, if you get something TOO cheap, it will be generating its own hum.

It's worth mentioning that it DOES affect the natural ability to express yourself on guitar. Gone will be those sorrowful and lengthy decays of your note. Because your note will probably still be "ringing out" but at a lower volume than your hum. But since your gate is configured for a certain threshold, it will slam the door shut on your decaying note.

For certain styles, a gate actually ENHANCES the effect, though. Nu-Metal-ish "chugga chugga" riffs sound awesome with a noise gate, regardless of whether or not you're having hum issues, because with aggressive gating you get that super-clean "WHAM" in your face riff, interspersed with DEAD SILENCE when the gate shuts. Makes certain kinds of riffs sound great. But makes bluesy expression with volume swells and decaying notes suck.

Greg

[mailman]

well thats good news to me seeing as i do a lot of hi-gain metal

for blues, everythings fine when clean so i'll just turn it off and let it all ring out.

any brand suggestions though? just so i know where to start looking?

[marksound]

I have a Rocktron Hush Pedal. One knob, one footswitch. A lot of people don't like them , but I'm using it just to kill the natural hum of my Strats. It works for me and it was cheap.

[GregP]

This one looks OK:

http://www.behringer.com/NR100/index.cfm?lang=ENG

Can't set the attack, but that's OK because most of the time you're going to keep it set for fast attack anyhow. The switchable option between "mute" and "reduction" is cool, though I can't imagine what the "reduction" part will actually do other than change the response of the threshold.

There's always good old Boss:

http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/NS-2/

[mailman]

I have a Rocktron Hush Pedal. One knob, one footswitch. A lot of people don't like them , but I'm using it just to kill the natural hum of my Strats. It works for me and it was cheap.

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i have a rack mounted HushII and it feels like the only thing it does is act as a volume knob