Lunch Report: 01/31/2013 - Hum & The Cold

Day Four: Battling the cold. It is cold here and will continue 'till Saturday. Yay! Lunch today will be some type of smoked food; my neighbor has a huge barrel-type smoker and I'm getting in on that! I may have to run to Brother's to get a few sides... Any industrial strength smokers out there?

G&L/BBE Question:

I can't get past this so I'll go there: 60 cycle hum, Static Electricity, EMI & RFI noise. What the H! I know the "classics" hummed a bit, but EVERY pro I've worked with had some type of work done on their gear. Personally, I'd pay extra for an instrument that came delivered with some of this done in-house. I also understand that these remedies can also take away sonically. HB's aside, the aluminum guard I got for my S-500 took away most and it is enough for me. BTW, it was the same exact type used on the C.L.F. Centennial ASAT and was in the actual batch, right Thumbs? G&L should offer those babies on at least a few models, like the originals (ASAT & S-500). What do you do to remedy the noise on the guitar/bass and rig?

S-500 PG closeup:



Non-G&L Question

Cold climate folk: how you holdin' up? This is my non-G&L question because it is so cold here! In MN, we have laws regarding car idling, parking rules, etc. We have a lot of cold, but not too much snow so far this season. I hope that doesn't equate to a drought-like summer ahead...



* I'm heading to Cali in a couple days and won't miss this weather one bit!!!


Cheers,

Will

Hey Will,

On the eastern end of Lake Ontario our weather has been CRAZY! Last Wednesday we had a low of -30 C (-22F) and yesterday broke a record with around a +13C (55F) or so. Tonight it is supposed to dip down again to around -10C (14F). I am certainly jealous of your Cali trip!

Hum doesn't drive me that crazy, nothing rolling off the volume between songs doesn't fix! I don't think i would be willing to sacrifice tone for the suppression of hum.

Have a good one
Scott

G&L/BBE Question:
What do you do to remedy the noise on the guitar/bass and rig?

I only play at home at fairly low volume so it doesn't bother me.

Non-G&L Question
Cold climate folk: how you holdin' up?

I love cold weather! We're already in a draught here in Missouri. A lot farmers are hauling water for their cattle because their ponds are dry. My own pond is down 8 feet from its normal level. I hope we get some good rains this spring.

Sprinter 92

Any industrial strength smokers out there?

Sure..I'm game,

...oh you probably meant something else,
...um,well...So did I

I better leave until after the stupidbowl, I fear my honesty and lack of meds won't be
good for anyone's buzz.

Go Vegans !!...
LOL
elwood

We had a solid two + weeks of cold in RI, warmest it got was around 20F, you know it's bad we you walk out on a 13 degree morning and think to yourself "Hey it's kinda warm today!" Not as bad as Scott has it or you guys in MN I'm sure. Not much snow here either, though we just got a downpour last night as the temp jumped from 27 to 57 in the course of a day. It's back to 20's with some light snow tomorrow. May be the same crazy system that went through your neck of the woods Scott. Meanwhile I'm enjoying this spring-like day.

As far a hum goes, it never bothered me much until I got an old aluminum guard for my Classic, now my other ASAT bothers the heck out of me! I put some aluminum tape on the underside of the pg but it's still not enough. In that guitar I did intall the 4way switch so maybe it's time I re-evaluated the grounding scheme. Those Aluminum guards are great though and I would pay extra for the factory option.

Have a good one!
-Dave

Will, using smokers in Minnesota is almost an art! Very popular. I also use a dehydrator and make some tasty Jerky. See folks, we Minnesotans do not hide all winter.

I think that G&L could do more on shielding. I have shielded some G&L pickguards with foil tape to get rid of static and it works as expected. I think that you aluminum pickguard is also very effective. Most of the noise we deal with is 60 Cycle from lighting and things that use transformers. It is interesting that Ernie Ball MM addressed this quite a few years ago with an active noise suppression circuit. Many folks removed the battery claiming it affected the tone. Noise isn't all bad if you like some dirt and grit in you sound.

We are spoiled by the warmer winters we have been having. I may go south if I ever get old, but only for about a week! I don't plan on getting old anytime soon either. Nice photo of our recent Will. It didn't last long. We have been on kind of a roller coaster temp wise too. Be careful with the climate shock when you go west. You could get sick!-- Darwin

Scott,

So, you know of the cold! Yeah, I'm going, going, back to Cali, Cali. Too bad I won't hook-up with Darth; we could've organized a BBE/G&L party in LA. Too bad. I don't mind the noise so much and if I do, it's HB's as mine are all silent.

Sprinter,

Play low and they won't know... Sorry about your drought. Bring on the rain!

Elwood,

Ha! I get it. Grilled/smoked corn is pretty good. No Vike's in the StoopidBowl, so it doesn't matter that much to me either...

Dave,

Spoiled by the pickguard. I can truly appreciate that; they should offer something. Send over some of that weather when you get a chance.

Darwin,

More shielding would be nice. Or at least considering it in the design process. I also understand that some people can never be satisfied and "tone" is subjective. Smoking is an art and my neighbor is close. I say that because I'd do a few things differently, but won't go into that here. Still tastes good...

Smoked corn sounds heavenly,
thanks for understanding.

(goes back into hiding, not a good day for this kid)
elwood

i am surprised that g&l doesn't offer shielding as standard, or at least an option. pretty much all the fenders come with shielding nowadays. aluminum foil is not as effective as n aluminum guard, or plate under the guard. i am lucky to have some aluminum plates, original fennder form the 50's courtesy of mister forest white.

Elwood, you got it.

Louis,

G&L has a good price-point and any added features will push this up. I think there are many people out there that are driven to modify their guitar/bass. When the answer to the hidden pickup route in the Solamente was given, they feel this way too... ALthough as an option/upgrade? I say yes!

If G&L was looking to save $$$$. They better start thinking about moving out of California.

I found out recently, the humm was from the amplifier. Need to start from the source: the AC plug and work back.

They gotta stay in Fullerton. By that idea, all businesses should leave high population regions. There's a lot of people for a reason. Now, I don't want to get political...

The hum is in the amp. Maybe someone should start a business hunting these down and call themselves "Hum Detectives"... Good luck; I'm sure you'll find it.

The most hum I've experience comes from my Korina Jr. P90s are renowned for hum, and these ones certainly deliver. In all honesty it doesn't bother me at all and I would not be willing to pay any extra to have it removed. I can't hear it when I'm playing, and thats generally what I'm doing when there's a guitar in my hands. I also use Scott's trick of rolling back the volume between songs, its very simple.

No cold weather here, I'd hate to be anywhere with temperatures below 0. We had our first bit of significant rain for months last night, so the garden has been watered, the car washed and hopefully some of the bush fires have been extinguished. I've wanted a smoker for a long time now but am not willing to shell out ~$600 for a manufactured one. I have a wine barrel and a portable gas burner that I want to try out some time next week. First thing I want to try is smoked mackerel, it was going cheap at the markets yesterday.

Moving from Fullerton Ave is surely out of the question. They might as well move production to Bhutan.

Jamie,

I hear ya. Dealing with the hum is a slippery slope... Good luck with the mackerel. I've had it smoked and it does well...

If I only played loud rock'n'roll I would probably live with hum, but it annoys the heck outta me when playing fingerstyle or quiet jazz. I have 2 strats which were factory shielded using conductive paint in the cavity and foil on the entire underside of the pick guard. They are near silent, which made my G&L's all the more annoying. I've since installed aluminium foil in the cavity and on the pickguard of all my G&L's. It's a fiddly job making sure there's electrical continuity, but it does kill nearly all the hum. I'd spring for conductive paint and an aluminium pick guard if it was a factory option. That's a sweet aluminium guard, Will. Can I ask where you got it from?

I enjoy smoked food - salmon, trout, eggplant (aubergine) - but I've never really thought about doing it myself. I was watching a show on TV last night where Heston Blumenthal was cold smoking some cheese with rosemary. It looked delicious melted over toast. Judging from the amount of 'sampling' he did, it must've tasted pretty good too.

Philby,

That pick guard was made by Toneguard owned by fellow member, Thumbs. Mine was made during the batch he created for G&L on the C.L.F. ASATs. I think he still makes them... Smoked eggplant is great!

*** I was reading the latest NAMM mailer from GC and page 2 shows a band named Kinky and the bass player uses L-2500's. Nice.

http://www.tone-guard.com/Leo%20Fender%20Shielding%20Info/


I have a metal one myself and I was curious how much quieter it is compared to the same guitar without one.
Made the AB comparision today and it is true, the metal pickguard will reduce the hum. I have no other shielding underneath.

I like the feel of the metal and the knobs feel like they are on solid ground. Unlike a plastic/flexible pg.

Yeah, the pickguard feels cold too...

Researching Thumbs new website. He has no pgs for G&L. What a shame. There used to be an image of G&L, once clicked would send you to the stock he had. If the LE2 is using a pg, they should have consulted him.

Researching Thumbs new website. He has no pgs for G&L. What a shame. There used to be an image of G&L, once clicked would send you to the stock he had. If the LE2 is using a pg, they should have consulted him.

I see that. Maybe send an email to him. Those pictures are great. I'm so glad to have gotten one from that run... And white too!

http://www.tone-guard.com/Leo%20Fender%20Shielding%20Info/


I have a metal one myself and I was curious how much quieter it is compared to the same guitar without one.
Made the AB comparision today and it is true, the metal pickguard will reduce the hum. I have no other shielding underneath.

I like the feel of the metal and the knobs feel like they are on solid ground. Unlike a plastic/flexible pg.

what about your assertion that shielding the guitar does nothing to lower noise levels?

Louis that is a good question. As I was going to save that for a LR in the future.
This is how I stumbled on to it.
Back when I tried the copper foil thingy, all it did was create a mess and cut my fingers.
There was no hum reduction going on. All things considered, it sounded the same.

A couple months ago, I was working on my power amp.
It had a nasty hum. Time to consult the TUT books and Kevin.
You can see my conversation with him here.
http://powerscaling.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1550

I found out just a couple weeks ago the grounding issue and a possible way to remove it.
Parts came in this week, built the circuit, installed, test. It became one very quiet power amp.
Next test was the circuit in the Pre-amp. Again, noise reduction.

Another test that I didn't think of is AB guitars with and without the metal pickguard.
I cranked the input, Master Volume, everything to 10.
What I found was the 2, 4 position of the switch, the one with 2 coils going. No hum.
Only when you use 1 single coil you get hum. The difference between metal and plastic was noticeable.

So why did I not see any changes to hum with the copper foil thingy? I think that has to do with ground loop hum.
As long as the ground loop hum was coming out of the amp, there is no way I could hear a difference in shielding.
Shielding did remove some, emphasis on some, of the hum on my new power amp. But everything had to be cranked to hear the difference. And even then it wasn't a massive change. I had to go back and forth a couple of times to make sure.

This thing on-going. Still searching , still testing.
Speaking with Elwood, he thinks it might be a good idea to add the Ground Line circuit to the amp and pre-amps. We both have the same setup. I agree.
You are probably thinking I must have one noisy amp. But it isn't. At least at the volumes I play at.
Right now, I am putting conductive cavity paint in one of my guitars. I am bringing this to a new level. It will be interesting to hear what comes out of this. Jury is out on this until further review.

Note: I did a massive internet search as to why my shielding did not work. All I ever read was I must have installed it wrong.
Right now, it looks like I did install it correctly. It is very possible the amp was the culprit.

Speaking with Elwood, he thinks it might be a good idea to add the Ground Line circuit to the amp and pre-amps.

I remember contributing to that thread ; however it must have been someone else that came up with
the idea to mod the pre and power amp with the rectifier type of soft ground lift ( I'm improvising terms here).

viewtopic.php?f=115&t=8006

I think you are distilling the problems out...good job , and I DO have alot of rack gear in my studio/home set-up so
I am paying close attention to see what/where/if/how I can use to benefit my music space (where they CAN hear you scream, by the way )

Alembic has been using silver conductive paint ( and active humcancelling circuits ) since the early seventies.
If you do some searches on their series l and series ll instrumemts you might find some good reading .

Those series instruments have to be calibrated to be eliminate RF noise.
Here's a picture of electronics wiz ( and founding father to Alembic) Ron Wickersham in his lab with must be a pretty worst case scenario as RF goes. He states that if he can make a circuit quiet under those situations that it'll be good practically anywhere else on the planet. That's an RF generator wrapped around the instrument.




My point being, Alembic does what they do well , and keeping unwanted noises from going to the amp is one of their forte's .

Having more than one source of noise can be confounding at times , good job on your progress.

elwood

$ilver paint is out of the question. Why stop there? Why not gold?

Will make do with Stewmac cheaper graphite paint.



I could go the more expensive nickel route. Here http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/protective-coatings/emi-rfi-shielding/super-shield-nickel-841/
Maybe next time.

From the web, people say they hear no difference between copper shielding and paint. So I doubt, nickel would magically perform better. Paint is easier to deal with.

Before I make any mods to my amps, I need more parts. And I am not in a big hurry. Usually I wait until the part list grows before buying. These projects are neat, and keep me busy. Rarely I watch TV anymore.

These projects are neat, and keep me busy. Rarely I watch TV anymore.

I imagine Alembic was just adapting what Ron pulled from then current aerospace and electronics technologies.
...and they had some clients that could afford silver, gold etc.

[youtube]6YIp0h7PIlo[/youtube]

thx for the link to the graphite paint, it'd be good to have a frugal option for shielding . I'm all about being frugal at the moment .

My TV is on in the background, often it's tuned to the local U radio station though (news and jazz etc.)
Otherwise I am too often reminded of the movie Idiocracy , sigh...

+1 for good projects, cheers

+1 on the graphite paint. You did a meticulous job too. Dig it. This quest is like Lord Of The Rings, but we don't have to hurl the guitar into a lava pit. Although I've felt like it more than a few times...

Little more research on the web.

The best info wasn't here last year when I tried this.
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/archive/index.php/t-847972.html

ScottB says the shielding will not stop hum. But it can stop buzz.
To stop the hum we will need a dummy coil system.
" noise that is minimized at certain angles is hum"
"Buzz will be much more constant with angle and shielding will reduce it."
Theory here http://www.darcoid.com/images/uploads/pdfs/pg192theory_of_emi.pdf

This stuff has become very interesting to me lately because I am putting my amp together.
An issue over the transformers on the outside of the chassis catching unwanted waves. It turns out there is not easy/cheap solution to cover the trannys for wave protection.
If you want to do it right, the metal has to be really really thick. The cost of such contraption is
out of the question.
The metal cups I have over my trannys are only for protection from the weather, not from invisible waves.

copper shielding, especially copper sheet, not just the tape, is much more effective than paint. i have both in guitars.

here is mine



and ron kirn's

OK guys here is what is probably a stupid question, if it is go kinda easy on me for not seeing the obvious. I have seen some really nice copper foil shielding, even tried my hand at it once, bought the wrong thickness of foil, but you know. Tone guard makes aluminum pick guards that work. Is there a reason not to use aluminum foil? The thought just occurred to me, and I am having a hard time thinking of a reason not to.

Thanks in advance

One technical reason would be the difference in conductivity between copper and aluminum. Copper conduct about a factor 1.7 better than aluminum. And although copper oxidizes too, aluminum oxidizes relatively fast leading to s surface layer of aluminum oxide which is an insulator. Now you have to know that oscillating fields mainly lead to surface currents, which is why an antenna can be a hollow tube leading to the viability of a telescoping antenna. So copper will just act better and be longer lasting. You also still need to make a proper connection from the foil to ground which is where a surface oxide layer may wreak havoc too.

If you want to do the aluminum experiment, which would be cheap, and you are able to connect it properly to ground, you'll need to change the foil when it starts to look dullish gray. When you use copper foil, you'd need to do that when it starts to look green.

Hope this helps,

- Jos

Wow, thank you, I had not thought about the oxidization issue! I hope this does not get tiring but this makes have another theoretical question, if you don't mind. A while back I was reading an article about why silver is a better conductor for audiophile applications than gold. According to this article, the primary reason was that while silver oxidized, it still maintains a high conductive rate ( the article cited a 3% loss compared to gold's 11%, In the high frequency part of an audio signal, I have no idea how accurate this is) This makes me wonder (theoretical not applied) would silver address the oxidization issue better? Thanks for the data, you guys are a real help.

Duh! never mind I just reread the upper posts, apparently alembic uses silver paint. Question answered. Sorry for the lack of observation skill. My bad.

Stewmac's graphite paint needs multiple layers and days to dry before testing. You do test it before assembling it back to production, don't you?

Nickle paint is messy, poisonous. But boy, does it work! And fast.


The G&L S500 deluxe model does not come with a pickguard. You will not be able to shield the pickups as good as the pickguard version. Hence a little more buzz.

OK guys here is what is probably a stupid question, if it is go kinda easy on me for not seeing the obvious. I have seen some really nice copper foil shielding, even tried my hand at it once, bought the wrong thickness of foil, but you know. Tone guard makes aluminum pick guards that work. Is there a reason not to use aluminum foil? The thought just occurred to me, and I am having a hard time thinking of a reason not to.

Thanks in advance

try to solder aluminum foil to make contact with ground.

try to solder aluminum foil to make contact with ground.

Hey louis, torture is not allwed on this site!

And what's wrong with spot welding?

Kidding aside, while building wire gas detectors for my thesis research, I used aluminized mylar of only a couple of microns thick glued aluminized side facing a G-10 circuit board. To make electric contact I used a little bit of silver paste between foil and copper anode and voilà.

- Jos

There has been talk over on the amp builder forums about aluminium reducing hum better than steel chassis.

try to solder aluminum foil to make contact with ground.

Hey louis, torture is not allwed on this site!

I dunno I kinda like Louis' sense of humor!
I could just see myself "WTH is wrong with this soldering iron? I know I read somewhere this would work!"