Amp hiss with pedal

[Honch]

BT50 Crate amp, for a band and not at home? How many are you in that band? Do you play hard rock or anything like that, heavy metal? Grunge? stoner?
50W seems a tad stingy for that kind then. Seems that those ones has a full range 12" speaker, no tweeters. The round holes visible are ports.

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All increasing of treble on any EQ, whether it's on the amp, on the bass guitar tone knob, or on any pedal, will increase high end background hiss noise too. Some brands/types more, some less. It's a matter of fact you basically have to live with. Both Behringer and that particular Crate amp are at the lower end of the spectrum, and if your bass is like that too, you'll have to expect it somewhat and deal with it. Which tells us something about that you haven't got all the dough in the world to step up. Yet.

You can "increase treble without hiss" with the following solutions, that have the least cost to you, it may work and may not work out for you, but it's worth trying:

1. Buy brand new strings, of stainless steel. It will cost you some dough.
2. Adjust pickup height, closer to the strings, but not too close. Experiment. This is free, and if you don't like the settings, well just screw them down/up to whatever they were at before. This comes at no cost at all.
3. Cables. Check that they're not too long, and of decent quality. You don't need to get boutique or posh, but if you know someone that can lend you some George L cables, which are famous for retaining the treble throughout the cable length, try them. This will cost you some dough, though.
4. Check the actual "gain structure level" of both your bass and amp. Turn all controls on bass full up. That your gain and level knobs on the amp are set "optimal" for your signal. Like, adjust your input gain until some led slightly blinks red (if any), and adjust everything else AFTER that yardstick, so to speak.

If find it very peculiar that you'd need any sort of EQ pedal for an amp that has the following EQ charasteristics built in already:

• Tone Range:
• Low 21dB @ 50Hz
• Lo Mid 23dB @ 150Hz
• Hi Mid 18dB @ 1kHz
• High 34dB @ 10kHz
• Input Impedance: 220k ohms
• Maximum Signal Accepted: 15 volts peak to peak

34 db plus at 10 Khz and you still need an EQ pedal, of worse repute (Behringer) to bring up treble !??!?! I'll bet that you get equal amount of hiss if you remove the pedal, and turns that 10 Khz knob to full 34 db added gain. If it doesn't, it must have a built in noise gate. Which I don't know if it has or not.

 

[BassBrass]

all amps make hiss, all pedals and especially drive and eq pedals make hiss, you can actually hear the hiss of a certain frequency. Hiss disappears when ambient sound is louder than hiss. When you play you don't hear the hiss. All the suggestions you have has so far are about reducing hiss to normal levels, getting rid of hiss is the realm of NASA and radio telescopes and involves filtering or gating.

 

[Billy Lowe]

If you use battery or power adapter it can make all the difference in the world. Switching power adapters can induce som high end hiss, that just makes a bad pedal worse. I'm not sure why a pedal like that should bring something beneficial to your palette. While you have told us about your amp, and pedal, I've seen no post of what kind of bass you actually plays. It can be a "Behringer" type of bass, of the lowest quality pickups, or a bass with active systems in it. I e of your bass has a battery too.

Epiphone EB-0

 

[DavC]

you will need to use your imagination a bit to trouble shoot any kind of noise ... as many have said , the process of eliminating things until the Hiss lessens is one way ... plugs , cables , bass , amp , pedals , etc, etc can all contribute to noise ...

follow the suggestions that have previously been given ... unless you're waiting for a particular answer you wanna hear .. ?!

and whenever someone asks for 'noise' help , ... knowing every single component helps others make their best guess . !

knowing the top end freq response of your speaker would help ..? you might be trying to boost freqs that your stuff can't even reproduce .. ?!

 

[Honch]

So now we know:

Epiphone EB-0 bass -> Behringer EQ -> Crate BT50 Amp. Is that right? anything else?

Now, WHAT STRINGS are on your Epiphone? You know that basses of those types are in the "darker" range of tone spectrums don't you?
If it's like this one:

You have basically "no treble" by and large. They have only ONE pickup at the neck position, where the sound is the darkest, and even the muddiest. Humbucker, mahogany or dark wood, a top recipe for dark and no trebly sound.

If you, on top of this, use a) flats, flatwound strings, nylon, tapewounds b) coated bass strings, with nickel underneath or pure nickel, you can try to raise treble on any EQ until hell freezes over and you will not get any more treble. ONLY BACKGROUND HISS....to no end.

An Epiphone EB-3 like this:

Has an added pickup at the bridge and thus has a more expanded range both when used together with the neck pickup and alone. The bridge pickup has always more treble than the neck pickup. This one together with brand new stainless steel strings should (like in: ought to) get the treble you're looking for from that pedal but without the hiss, and makes you get rid of the behringer pedal....

You'll only buy and play these basses if you want a 60's style bass sound*, very muffled, and very lacking of treble, regardless of what kind of music you play. I am not sure, but didn't they come with built in "mufflers" in front of the bridge? To mute the strings like the ashtray with foam over the Fender basses? You don't buy or play these basses if you want a high end trebly sound, say like that from a Rickenbacker or Music Man or similar modern gear (Warwick, Steinberger et al) . No EQ pedal in the world can save you from this.


*Oh, and 60's neck dive...

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I wont scold you for using the gear though. If that's what you want then so be it. If your avatar and profile shows correctly, you're like 16 year old and are basically just starting out. This is what you can afford, and be able to handle. There may be way too much information coming your way at once, to be able to digest. Each one of us has once been in your situation too, so we can't take for granted that you're familiar with all lingo, buzzwords, and string gauges/types there are around.

Mind you, if you're going to ask: "what is flats?" I won't be the one laughing at you and scold you if you don't know. There's way too many pitfalls and information to digest at once, regarding what can make that hiss, and it's no wonder that you'll become confused. So ask on, and fire away.

There are no stupid questions. Well, there are, but I won't think that yours belongs to any of these.

 

[friendlybass]

Cool rig man I played a similar one for a while when I needed cheap stuff and its noisy. When you play with the band the hiss will only be an issue in between songs/if you have the amp mic'd or you're running a di out. My recommendation is either live with it or upgrade unfortunately

 

[Honch]

Yes, all these Gibson/Epiphone EB basses (EB-0, EB-2, EB-3) and similar are kind of "niche" basses. 30" scale (short scale) and useful for a limited kind of sound, even style and music. Which is not treble content. If the OP wants that, and he knew that when he bought the bass, he has got what he asked for. He wants that sound... don't forget that the main sound all those 50-60 basses had, was to mimick the acoustic upright bass somewhat. The high end, roundwound strings hadn't made the waves until the late 60s. And then other basses came with it. If you buy an EB- you're aiming towards a certain sound, looks anyway. It's not the most versatile of basses. Especially not the ones with one pickup only. They are "cult" or "underground" and cool looking, but that's about it. You use it and bring it out to mimick certain songs/music styles from the 60s where other basses can't cut it.

I wonder why you got an EQ pedal (any) in the first place?

To check out if you could be able to bring out some treble, that the bass wasn't capable of anyway?

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I read in the other string thread, that you play alternative/indie rock. That you like the sound of Benjamin Blakeway of Catfish and the Bottlemen and such bands. Well, AFAIK he uses a Fender Jazz bass, to a couple of huge Fender Bassman stacks live. But I don't know of any pedals, or strings that he uses. Seems pretty stock to me. Plays with a pick too. Fender Jazz basses has two single coil pickups, and yours EB0 has one humbucker way up the neck. Seems that you're trying too hard to mimick his sound. First, change the bass to a Squier J bass of the same design, they are as cheap as the Epiphones. If you think those are too big for you (due to it's 34" scale) well, there's nothing we can do for you in order to get the same sound out of a 30" shortscale EB0 bass with one humbucker pickup in the neck. Humbuckers - generally speaking - have less treble than single coils. An EQ pedal (or anything else pedal!) will not even get you close in the ballpark.

At this time in your playing, I think you should shy away from anything external pedals, and trying to mimick someones sound exactly, but instead try a bit to concentrate on actual playing and practicing instead, with the equipment, sound you already got. I know of several 16 years old that can't afford that equipment even, regardless of it was second hand. So you're well off, and should be satisified with your gear so far, for at least a couple of years. Quit fiddling and faffing around with pedals and stuff, for now.

 

[Honch]

You haven't told us which EQ pedal of Behringer it is...EQ700 Graphic Equalizer? Something parametric?

However, numerous online reviews of ordinary people, says that their main drawback is hum and noise. Believe it or not, this is mostly due to their plastic casing. However, well made, all others, like Boss have theirs in metal casing. It's not just for sturdiness, but for shielding too. You should look up "faraday cage principle" on the wikipedia, and learn how a small box of steel, or any metal will buck out stray RF noises from coming inside and reach the electronics inside. No matter that how much you have digital effects or something like that, they're all suspectible to pick up noise from cables and so on, and radio frequency from the outside. A metal box is an effective shield, and you don't have to make further precautions. However, I think Behringer are "price worthy" pedals. I mean, an EQ pedal for what...50 USD? 25? I would shy away from their reverb pedals though. Some effects from them just show their price range when scrutinizing their sound quality. Cheap costing, and cheap sounding.

 

[Honch]

Silent it became. Too much coming at you at once, from one of the forumers...? Can't think it could be me...