hearing a voice through my rig...

[beans-on-toast]

Simple thing to do is to try good quality instrument cables. It should be just long enough for your needs. Don’t loop it, snake it back and forth, lying flat across the floor.

Next, the quilter 24VDC power supply doesn’t appear to have a ferrite core next to the DC power connector that plugs into the amplifier. I would add one. Cable clamp on cores are available. Quilter may have one inside the chassis. It still wouldn’t hurt to have one. If you describe your issue, Quilter may have some suggestions.

 

[Deleted member 341607]

Growing up in Seattle we were big fans of Sonics basketball-- the year they took the championship (1979? damn I'm old) we were rehearsing in an unheated basement freezing our backsides off when we discovered we could pull in the ball games on our guitarist's amp-- getting scores between songs made that place a little more bearable--

79 was a great year!

 

[Killing Floor]

Hey, don't listen to them if the voices tell you to commit crimes.

 

[Patrice B]

That used to happen a lot more back in the 60's and 70's than it does now. I remember hearing the local Top-40 station playing through my Fender Bassman amp in 1966. Usually that is caused by the instrument cord acting as a big antenna, picking up and feeding RF signals into the input of the amp. Sometimes just moving your amp a foot away did the trick, or standing in a different spot. But more often than not getting a well-shielded instrument cord instead of the cheapest one you can find did the trick.

That's actually the main reason we used shielded cords for our instruments. The two-wire lamp cords would transmit the signal from you bass just fine but would also pick up all kinds of hum and some radio stations. If you mistakenly pick up a speaker cord and use that for your instrument cord, you will often get that type of interference because it's just a fancy 2-wire lamp cord with different ends. so make sure you are not using a speaker cord. I'd suggest that you try a few different instrument cords to see if that eliminates the problem. When you find one that fixes that problem, buy a spare one of the same brand, length and type.

Also, be aware that Radio Frequencies (RF signals) are fickle things and atmospheric conditions can drastically affect them. When I was a kid living in Santa Maria along the central coast of California, night time would drastically change what I could pickup and listen to on my little transistor radio. Although I couldn't hear it during the day, I could listen to KAFY in Bakersfield (was top 40 then, now Spanish Language station), KRLA in Los Angeles, and XERB, which had studios in LA but the transmitter was in Mexico. That was so they could transmit with 50,000-watts, which wasn't allowed in the US at the time. It's the station that had Wolfman Jack! During the day, the airwaves were too crowded and I couldn't get any of them. At night they would come and go.

So don't be surprised if this is an intermittent problem and don't go spending a lot of money trying to fix it before you try a number of different instrument cords while you're experiencing the problem.

Tropospheric ducting could happen. Last week, I’ve heard faint radio signal on one of my amp. It’s only the second time it happens in about two years. Maybe the spot where I was in the room, more signal at this time for this specific station, don’t know?

Tropospheric Ducting Forecast for VHF & UHF Radio & TV

 

[Rojd]

¿entonces lo retiró sin hacer preguntas?

I explained what was going on with the pedal and he took it back without any issues.

 

[Pet Sounds]

Usually, the voices tell me to fire the drummer.

 

[byacey]

we were rehearsing in an unheated basement freezing our backsides off when we discovered we could pull in the ball games on our guitarist's amp-- getting scores between songs made that place a little more bearable--

This is a good application for high power tube amplifiers.

 

[Ric5]

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 remember playing gigs back in the 70s in old bars with substandard electrical wiring in the building. We had a 2 prong power cord or we had to use an adapter to plug in.

Then there were the old fluorescent lights and dimmers and neon signs for beer brands.

All of that made our instruments buzz and sometimes pick up cb radios. It was an adventure ...

it is interesting that many places are adopting new electrical codes that will require shielding, surge protection and noise suppression on the entire building's electrical circuits.

This is good news for musicians because less noise will get through.

 

[Vektori]

There might be a restless spirit trapped into your cab. You should try exorcism.

 

[bobalu]

When I run through my Walkabout Scout I have occasionally picked up a Short Wave radio transmission and sometimes emergency service vehicle radio transmissions (fire and police - when I can actually hear them drive by outside). It is rare, like once every six months or so, and only occurs at night for some reason, never in the day. I have no explanation, and the amp is fine. I assume it is my bass pickups receiving the signal, not the amp. I don't know.

 

[Laurent]

In 1982 I saw Miles Davies Live during the We Want Miles tour.
When the wireless of his trumpet picked up a taxi driver's radio, he looked inside the horn of his trumpet then kept on playing!

 

[Stempelloos]

We used to hear cockpit voices through the amps, mostly with clear weather.
The planes flying in from England had their route almost directly above the practicing space,
so we thought that had something to do with it. But then later we practiced in Amsterdam,
with different amps and cockpit and control tower voices came in too, still with clear weather.
I suspect the Epiphone Genesis of one the the guitarists to be the antenna for it.

 

[JamesDeGrandis]

In other words, traffic and weather in stereo.

Could have been worse...
Two different morning shows...
NPR News and Christian Sermons...
(I can't even imagine the meltdown some of the acts would have had in that environment...)

However....
Dr. Demento + *Anything else* = Priceless

 

[H K]

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".

Sell your rig to Jack White. He'll make a documentary on it claiming its intentional

 

[DrBnz]

An example of that would be when I was in the Navy (WAY WAY back in the day). I was a helicopter crew-chief and our internal aircraft communications were done via a 40ft electrical cord attached from the aircraft, to my helmet. That worked well UNLESS you were out around the battlegroup (who were radiating all the time), the cord is laying on a steel flight deck and if there is as much as a small cut in the cord I would pick up all sorts of noise / radio comms / radar sweeps, you name it. So obviously nothing was wrong with the aircraft or my helmet. The cord had became an antenna. I believe you have missing or broken down insulation somewhere and a work crew in the neighborhood radiating..... or a police helicopter circling your house (that aint good).

 

[azureblue]

I used to play this club, where they had a policy of giving too drunk patrons a ride home - taking the keys and getting them a cab. So the cabbies got wise, and would park out behind the building around the end of the night. The stage was on the other side of the wall. I had a single bobbin P bass and an Acoustic 370 then, and every d--- time they talked with dispatch, it came through my amp. I shielded - even put the pickup cover back on and grounded it, copper foiled, changed the back plate to metal, grounded even better, and anything to I could think of, to try to shut it up, but the RF was too strong. One night, in between songs a cabbie keyed in. and the singer stopped the show so we could all listen in.
Good luck with stopping RF pick up - doing all the tricks at once can work, but it's no guarantee.

 

[Williethump]

I hear voices all the time. You get used to it.

I always hear two whining freqs in my head at all times from my 8 inch howitzer and 175mm heavy artillery service in Vietnam. Have to think somebody talking in my head would be worse. Especially creole. Me and approximately 27 others immediately thought of the Police song, already memed in an early post here.

 

[Blue Moose]

You're okay until the voice starts requesting "Freebird."

 

[pbassnut]

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".

Ghost in the machine? Seriously, though ... I live a mile or so from a major radio tower which causes some of my amps to intermittently pick up radio broadcasts ... sometimes just a little bit ... other times blaring. My tube stuff seems to be generally more susceptible to the problem. Once I take my stuff on stage, it all works as it should so I just roll with the intermittent issue when playing at home.

 

[WG Plum]