hearing a voice through my rig...

[byacey]

Though nothing may have changed with your rig, something may have changed with whatever is transmitting. It could be a new ham radio setup near you, or a new wireless mic rig somewhere nearby.

I used to use a G50 wireless. One time at a gig a guitar started coming through my speaker. Someone at the club next door must have been using the same frequency.

Or it could be ghosts.

Most hams transmit on single side band, which would not sound intelligible if demodulated by your amplifier.

 

[WillyW]

 

[byacey]

true, but i don't feel like dealing with it, and i've played every piece of that rig many times without the interference of any sort. btw, i literally haven't moved it in months.



bass and pickups are well shielded. cable was cheap, but using the same cable and bass through another amp solved the problem at the time. later on, i'll have to look for issues.

if it comes up again, i'll try unplugging and replugging and see if that helps.

time and patience are two things i'm short on currently. hopefully that will change in the future.

You might want to check the AC ground on the power cord to ensure it's intact. Floating the the chassis ground could cause this issue.

 

[swink]

My brother had this regularly when he used his distortion pedal in conjunction with his old Strat. I don't remember if it was the Boss Turbo Distortion or the Overdrive/Distortion but we had a lot of fun with it. For example, we discovered that we could trigger the signal by hitting certain notes. (Don't ask me about the exact circumstances, I'm talking about more than 30 years ago.)

 

[GretschWretch]

You're complaining about this on TALKbass? Really?

 

[lug]

 

[Polish Thunder]

If the voice is saying "Quit" or "Stop now", it might be a sign regarding your playing.....

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

OMG.

This happened to me last year while working on a guitar project. Freaked. Me. Out.

I had just finished some hot-rod-mods to a Fender Telecaster HH... I pulled all the stock electronics out and replaced them with Alembic activators. Shielded everything to hell-n-gone. Put it all together, set everything up and fired up my '65 Princeton Reverb... I'm putting it through paces, switching, dialing, and something just ain't right. The bridge pickup screams loud and clear, nice and quiet, but the middle position with both pickups is so weak that it's virtually unusable. The neck pickup sounds okay solo'd, until I crank the gain up... then... I start hearing a Cuban radio station. From the dark side of a mountain in Southwest Virginia. Loud and clear.

Upon further investigation, I had wired the pickups out of phase with each other on the preamp. In their configuration, I can only guess they made a fantastic radio antenna. Didn't take long to sort it out, but that was a weird one!

All fixed up! Cubans are gone.

 

[Topkat13]

Do you live near a graveyard?

 

[bertthebassist]

Have you noticed a black suburban or van near the house lately?

 

[Mike Marshall]

yesterday i turned on my quilter interbass through my phil jones c2, plugged in my mini P (with fender precision pickups, totally shielded) and there was a deep buzzing, not like single coil hum, that got louder and quieter and included a man talking; when the buzzing got louder, the voice also got louder.

not being in the mood to trouble shoot, i plugged into my rumble 40 and had fun playing with no voice or other noise.

i've never had any talking on any bass, cable, amp in our place before - i always use the same electrical source, and every amp is in the exact same location facing the same way. i usually sit in the same chair facing the same direction, too.

i admit i'm not in the mood to trouble shoot every part of my rig, and it didn't happen later. i suspect one of the neighbors may have some cell phone accessory that "leaks".

I have experienced this when playing in certain areas of Downtown Detroit the answer is to get what is known as a Ferrite shield and clamp it around your guitar cord. I was able to get some at an electronics store. 30 years ago the guitarist I worked with was an electronics tech for Motorola and he did extensive work with the police department and their radio systems he had much bigger clamp on ferrite shields than what I bought but you should be able to get them

 

[Redbrangus]

Here are some more steps to take to prevent amps from getting radio station interference:

• Make sure all the equipment (amp, pedals, etc) are on the same electrical circuit or outlet. This will prevent inter-component interference and signals that your amp may pick up.
• Connect the soundboard and speakers on the same circuit as well. Try swapping out your instrument cable or cables which may reduce or completely stop the amp radio interference.
• You can stop RF noise into the amp by using a shielded cable rather than a guitar one. Also, look for a Radial guitar SGI which converts guitar or pedal to balanced amp signals. This is also ideal in shielding the amps, wires, and connected components from unwanted radio interference.
• Another thing that may help is a power conditioner. I recommend this one from Amazon.

Source: https://www.happynewguitarday.com/why-do-guitar-amps-pickup-radio-stations/

I found both of the New Guitar Day articles referenced in this post to be ill-informed and misinformative. I'm not sure the author even fully understands the subject himself -- the most conspicuous example being the previously noted confusing reference about the difference between guitar cables and shielded cables. Both of these articles appear to be little more than click bait, IMHO.

 

[agedhorse]

I found both of the New Guitar Day articles referenced in this post to be ill-informed and misinformative. I'm not sure the author even fully understands the subject himself -- the most conspicuous example being the previously noted confusing reference about the difference between guitar cables and shielded cables. Both of these articles appear to be little more than click bait, IMHO.

Agreed

 

[bassicmike]

My brother had this regularly when he used his distortion pedal in conjunction with his old Strat. I don't remember if it was the Boss Turbo Distortion or the Overdrive/Distortion but we had a lot of fun with it. For example, we discovered that we could trigger the signal by hitting certain notes. (Don't ask me about the exact circumstances, I'm talking about more than 30 years ago.)

I used to be able to get voices with an original Big Muff.

 

[devnulljp]

 

[DerrickSmalls]

It is odd that a couple people mention The Police, they have a song called "Does Everyone Stare" that had this happen during the recording, and they kept the voice in the final mix. About 30-35 seconds into the song a beautiful operatic voice came through the speakers while recording and they kept it. Here is a link, listen at around 30-35 seconds in. Great stuff!

 

[wysiwyg248]

true, but i don't feel like dealing with it, and i've played every piece of that rig many times without the interference of any sort. btw, i literally haven't moved it in months.



bass and pickups are well shielded. cable was cheap, but using the same cable and bass through another amp solved the problem at the time. later on, i'll have to look for issues.

if it comes up again, i'll try unplugging and replugging and see if that helps.

time and patience are two things i'm short on currently. hopefully that will change in the future.

Fluorescent light installed lately? Neighbor using ham radio? Cables from other rig crossing over? New antenna TV in near by room?

 

[2112]

You could have someone near by operating a cb or ham radio at power levels that exceed what federal regulation allows.

While this could happen, it also could happen with any RF transmitter, operating at any power level and frequency combination, depending on distance and style/directionality of the antenna being used.

EVERY piece of conducting material in your rig, from the wires in your instrument down to the traces on the PC boards in your amp, are antennas. And, of course, they are all different lengths, shapes, and are all "pointed" in different directions. Manufacturers of electrionic devices (well, most reputable manufacturers, anyhow) shield and isolate their components from outside RF (and even internal RF) to make a reliable product, but there's only so much they can do... most devices will be vulnerable at certain frequencies, especially when power levels and antennas transmitting on those frequencies cause the electrical field strength to be high nearby. And the RF picture for any device changes with every physical move, as antenna phasing, shielding from external sources, and exposures to field strengths vary. The problem is, in the amplified music world, that it doesn't take much RF to create a problem, and the likelihood of this being a problem is VASTLY higher in our increasingly wireless world, and also increasingly difficult to track down.

Most hams transmit on single side band, which would not sound intelligible if demodulated by your amplifier.

While many hams transmit on SSB, most do not (probably due to cost of the equipment and the extra effort required lol). SSB would indeed most likely be unintelligible as received and demodulated by your bass rig (unless it happens to have a product detector and a finely tuned beat-frequency oscillator).

The fastest way to solve the problem while you don't have much time: switch out pieces of your rig until the problem disappears. Try different cables, guitars, pedals, amps, cabs, etc. Also try moving thing around. But while doing so keep in mind, depending on the power, distance, and/or directionality of the offending signal, you may not be able to solve the issue easily or quickly.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

As long as it isn’t like some sort of low, demonic voice telling you to smash your bass, you’ll be ok.

 

[swink]

As long as it isn’t like some sort of low, demonic voice telling you to smash your bass, you’ll be ok.

You know my mother?