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F Bass electronics noise issues

Bassflute

Bassflute

Jun 24, 2006
2,560
91
Vancouver
www.youtube.com
Disclosures
Endorsing Artist: MTD basses and strings; Bergantino Amps & Cabs
#1
Anyone managed to tame the single coil (and even humbucker) noise issues with one of these basses? One of my students bought one - lovely instrument except for this problem; it very noisy. His bass has six controls: volume, balance, passive tone, bass, midrange, and treble, with a pull knob on the balance for humbucking mode (which is still very noisy) and a pull knob on the passive tone control for passive mode.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Didn't want to bug George yet as my student bought it used.

Thanks,
Cameron
 
#2
Hi Cameron,

I am an EE and have designed al sorts of audio stuff and am a new owner of a BN5. Here is what I can offer you:

My F-Bass will pick up noise in single coil mode only, when there is a light dimmer being operated nearby. This is completely normal, single coils are by definition not able to hum buck.

In humbucking mode my bass is very quiet - as quiet as my Ken Smiths, etc.. You may have a bad connection, cord, or grounding issue that is worth looking into.

Hope that is helpful.
 
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#3
nuwavedc said:
Hi Cameron,

I am an EE and have designed al sorts of audio stuff and am a new owner of a BN5. Here is what I can offer you:

My F-Bass will pick up noise in single coil mode only, when there is a light dimmer being operated nearby. This is completely normal, single coils are by definition not able to hum buck.

In humbucking mode my bass is very quiet - as quiet as my Ken Smiths, etc.. You may have a bad connection, cord, or grounding issue that is worth looking into.

Hope that is helpful.
Click to expand...

Ditto, my BN4 acts the same way as noted above. I must say that I slightly prefer the tone in single coil mode, but have to deal with a little hum (not much). In humbucking mode, it's damn near dead-quiet. My Jazz (with Fender 60's Custom Shop pickups) hums more than my F even with the F in single coil mode. I think there is something prob wrong with your student's F...
 
#4
nuwavedc said:
My F-Bass will pick up noise in single coil mode only, when there is a light dimmer being operated nearby. This is completely normal, single coils are by definition not able to hum buck.

In humbucking mode my bass is very quiet - as quiet as my Ken Smiths, etc.. You may have a bad connection, cord, or grounding issue that is worth looking into.
Click to expand...

+1 This mirrors my experience, as well. In humbucking mode, both of my BN4 and BN5 are super quiet, and both are actually pretty good (no worse than any other single coil equipped bass) with one coil tapped.

Tom.
 
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#5
Bassflute said:
His bass has six controls: volume, balance, passive tone, bass, midrange, and treble, with a pull knob on the balance for humbucking mode (which is still very noisy) and a pull knob on the passive tone control for passive mode.
Click to expand...

Mine is quiet too. No hum issues at all. If I attenuate one (or the other) pickup in single coil sometimes it can hum like any Jazz bass I have played, perhaps his 'balance' knob is off center towards one PU or the other?

Al
 
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#6
tombowlus said:
+1 This mirrors my experience, as well. In humbucking mode, both of my BN4 and BN5 are super quiet, and both are actually pretty good (no worse than any other single coil equipped bass) with one coil tapped.

Tom.
Click to expand...

Quadzilla said:
Ditto, my BN4 acts the same way as noted above. I must say that I slightly prefer the tone in single coil mode, but have to deal with a little hum (not much). In humbucking mode, it's damn near dead-quiet. My Jazz (with Fender 60's Custom Shop pickups) hums more than my F even with the F in single coil mode. I think there is something prob wrong with your student's F...
Click to expand...

nuwavedc said:
Hi Cameron,

I am an EE and have designed al sorts of audio stuff and am a new owner of a BN5. Here is what I can offer you:

My F-Bass will pick up noise in single coil mode only, when there is a light dimmer being operated nearby. This is completely normal, single coils are by definition not able to hum buck.

In humbucking mode my bass is very quiet - as quiet as my Ken Smiths, etc.. You may have a bad connection, cord, or grounding issue that is worth looking into.

Hope that is helpful.
Click to expand...

puff father said:
Mine is quiet too. No hum issues at all. If I attenuate one (or the other) pickup in single coil sometimes it can hum like any Jazz bass I have played, perhaps his 'balance' knob is off center towards one PU or the other?

Al
Click to expand...

and in the room we are there are no noise complaints from any other basses. We used good cables, so yeah I think there's something wrong with this one. I know about single coil hum, but this is out of control.

There's something wrong with that bass...bummer.

Thanks for the input.

Cheers,
Cameron
 
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#7
in single coil mode, my f bass make a strange pulsating hum sound when i single out the neck or bridgle pickup. its only really a problem if the lights are bad in the studio...which is pretty rare
 
#9
I recently got a Sadowsky five-string with hum-canceling pups. It's stone quiet at home but has a "directional" buzz at two locations where I regularly play. At a third location it is completely quiet. I Emailed Roger Sadowsky and learned that hum-canceling pups are not 100% for five strings because one half of the pup covers two strings, the other half three strings. So you can get some buzz. The only way to be buzz-free is to use two single coil pups and play with both full on. However, it sounds like you have a different situation. Sorry to muddy the water. I suggest finding electronic schematics for the bass, printing them and taking the whole works to Paul Iverson at Tom Lee on the North Shore. Good luck!
--
Rod
 
#10
Cameron, me thinks there is something up perhaps with this particular bass. If I were you, I wouldn't hesitate to contact George. He's a good guy who cares about his product. I'm sure he'll be able to offer some insight that will help you get your students bass on the right track.
 
#11
I currently own 3 F-Basses and am giving serious thought to adding two more, and my experience with F-Bass parallels the experiences of those expressed here. What you are describing with your student's bass doesn't seem like a "normal" F-Bass.

However, before having his bass worked on or checked out even, I thought I better ask the obvious: is his bass is noisy in all rooms, in all buildings, with all cables, with all amps, and pointing at all angles?

I find noise to be very situational -- especially with my AC6, which has only 1 magnetic single coil pick up (at the bridge). Sometimes, the direction I'm facing while playing brings noise, forcing me to turn and play facing a certain direction.

=> Woolysock, is that what you mean by a "directional buzz"?

I am NOT an electrical engineer, and I have no idea why noise happens, even when just tweaking volume on single coil pickups, but I do know there was a location where I could not make noise stop no matter what I did. (Actually, that was with other basses, not my F-basses). At any rate, I was told that some locations just don't have good clean power, and it affects some equipment.

I'm sure the two of you have already tried this bass through different rigs, with different cables and in different locations to determine whether or not his bass has the noise problem in all scenarios, but like I said, I thought I'd ask the obvious question just to be sure.
 
#12
Tom7 said:
I currently own 3 F-Basses and am giving serious thought to adding two more, and my experience with F-Bass parallels the experiences of those expressed here. What you are describing with your student's bass doesn't seem like a "normal" F-Bass.

However, before having his bass worked on or checked out even, I thought I better ask the obvious: is his bass is noisy in all rooms, in all buildings, with all cables, with all amps, and pointing at all angles?

I find noise to be very situational -- especially with my AC6, which has only 1 magnetic single coil pick up (at the bridge). Sometimes, the direction I'm facing while playing brings noise, forcing me to turn and play facing a certain direction.

=> Woolysock, is that what you mean by a "directional buzz"?

I am NOT an electrical engineer, and I have no idea why noise happens, even when just tweaking volume on single coil pickups, but I do know there was a location where I could not make noise stop no matter what I did. (Actually, that was with other basses, not my F-basses). At any rate, I was told that some locations just don't have good clean power, and it affects some equipment.

I'm sure the two of you have already tried this bass through different rigs, with different cables and in different locations to determine whether or not his bass has the noise problem in all scenarios, but like I said, I thought I'd ask the obvious question just to be sure.
Click to expand...

facing that way solves the single coil hum issue, but isn't always practical. My student's bass makes MORE noise in humbucker mode than in single coil mode (no we don't have them backwards). We did find a lonely blob of solder inside the cavity with nothing attached - I'm starting to think a ground wire was left out of this one during manufacturing. I guess it would be possible for somebody to break something in there during a battery change, but I think this was either defective when built or something has blown by itself. You can't really mess up a preamp in a bass - they do sometimes go bad by themselves. Switches go bad, somebody pours a beer into it, etc.

This thing is noisier than my other students' MIM jazz and pre basses, noisier that a 5 string Marcus Miller, I'm talkin' NOI-ZEE!

I think he's been in touch with George.

Thanks,
Cameron
 
#15
Tom7 said:
I currently own 3 F-Basses and am giving serious thought to adding two more, and my experience with F-Bass parallels the experiences of those expressed here. What you are describing with your student's bass doesn't seem like a "normal" F-Bass.

However, before having his bass worked on or checked out even, I thought I better ask the obvious: is his bass is noisy in all rooms, in all buildings, with all cables, with all amps, and pointing at all angles?

I find noise to be very situational -- especially with my AC6, which has only 1 magnetic single coil pick up (at the bridge). Sometimes, the direction I'm facing while playing brings noise, forcing me to turn and play facing a certain direction.

=> Woolysock, is that what you mean by a "directional buzz"?

I am NOT an electrical engineer, and I have no idea why noise happens, even when just tweaking volume on single coil pickups, but I do know there was a location where I could not make noise stop no matter what I did. (Actually, that was with other basses, not my F-basses). At any rate, I was told that some locations just don't have good clean power, and it affects some equipment.

I'm sure the two of you have already tried this bass through different rigs, with different cables and in different locations to determine whether or not his bass has the noise problem in all scenarios, but like I said, I thought I'd ask the obvious question just to be sure.
Click to expand...

Mike Lull checked it out, whose judgement I trust, and it is apparently fine. Not a good thing - this bass is, in my opinion, noisy as ****, worse than my student's MIM Fender Jazz basses and the like. The only bass I've found close to generating this much noise is one of my students Marcus Miller 5 string, but the F bass is considerably worse.

It would seem George has changed the pre-amp configuration; the older ones are apparently silent. I would NOT put up with that level of noise if I had bought the thing for $8,000.00 or whatever he's asking these days. And he's not shielding the pickup cavities? That's nuts. Single coil mode is ridiculous, possibly the worst bass I have seen for this, and unuseable as it currently is unless you face magnetic north; and if you use the tone pots at all, wow. Unbelievable. We did find one issue inside which helped - we wrapped the battery, which previously had been grounding out one of the pots. It helped but it's still extremely noisy.

We're going to try shielding the cavities soon, see if that improves it somewhat.

:rollno:

Not impressed. Lovely bass; bad electronics.

Cheers,
Cameron
 
#17
I still think you should have your student, or yourself, talk to the man who built the bass. George F. would be your best bet at getting this problem solved, and I think enough people have piped up to make you think that there is something wrong with this particular bass. I've played dozen's of F's and haven't had any of the problems that you mentioned here...
 
#18
dkb said:
I still think you should have your student, or yourself, talk to the man who built the bass. George F. would be your best bet at getting this problem solved, and I think enough people have piped up to make you think that there is something wrong with this particular bass. I've played dozen's of F's and haven't had any of the problems that you mentioned here...
Click to expand...

One guy has 3 F basses; the two older ones are silent, new one is loud as ****. So it might not be just this bass.

Cheers,
Cameron
 
#20
Control cavity not shielded? Mine is nicely shielded. Noisy as ****? Mine has no noise issues at all. Mine is a 2006 BN5. Are you sure it's not an "Ef-bass" or something other than an real F? No insult intended at all, just doesn't sound at all like any reports I've ever seen about any F bass before, even from those that don't particularly like Fs. My BN5 is perfect!

At any rate, since your student is in touch with George I hope he can work this all out. I totally agree that these noise issues he's having are unacceptable in anything over a $100 bass! :hmm:

Hmmm...
 

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