Help reducing hum?

[Shaunpski]

Had a big hum with my P bass. Shielded it perfectly. Hum still there. Realized the input jack tab was grounding against the body. Bent the tab away from body and silence ensued. A little method to my troubleshooting would have saved me the time, $ and cuts from the copper tape. Good luck!

 

[Dan Bass]

I play in a punk/garage band, so in almost all my songs I play with a load of treble and drive to get a really dirty and aggressive sound. However, the downside to this is that I get an absolute ton of hum that annoys me no end. Any suggestions on how to keep my sound but reduce the hum?
Just in case it matters I use a Squier Mike Dirnt P-Bass with a Bare Knuckle '58 split single coil pickup, a Hartke A70 kickback amp and an Ashdown NM2 drive pedal.

Passive pickups hum and buzz if your not touching something metal on your Bass, a whole lot of buzz if you use effects and treble way up most of the time. Get ACTIVE EMG SPLIT P-BASS PICKUP and it will still totally sound like a Mike Dirnt P-Bass, even better, and EMG pickups are grounded them selves for total silence and don't need a bunch of shielding on your Bass, don't even need a ground wire to your bridge anymore, will not ever get shocked either. There is a ton of Basses I love out there and I will not get them because of that passive buzz sound, only if I put active EMG's in them I will get that Bass. Plus ACTIVE EMG 40DC HUMBUCKERS are my favorite, look how the SPECTOR NS 5XL USA BASS sounds, awesome, and those Basses are armed with active EMG 40DC's.

 

[JimmyM]

Dan, if a passive pickups hums and buzzes, it's because it's not grounded properly, or it's a single coil picking up stray noises. In this case, though, neither apply because the Bare Knuckle 58 is not a single coil but a humbucker. Also, while I do love EMG actives, they're a whole different ballgame tonally than passives, and personally I wouldn't use one to replace the other if someone's a fan of passives.

However, you are very much correct that added treble and drive create noise. When you boost a certain frequency range, you also boost that freq range's noise floor. And drive pedals can often be pretty noisy, and the more you crank the drive, the noisier they will get. Beans' suggestion of a noise gate pedal to shut your signal down when not playing is the only real solution. He suggested the RockTron Hush, which I have and is quite a good pedal, but pretty much every pedal company makes a noise gate pedal.

 

[Dan Bass]

Dan, if a passive pickups hums and buzzes, it's because it's not grounded properly, or it's a single coil picking up stray noises. In this case, though, neither apply because the Bare Knuckle 58 is not a single coil but a humbucker. Also, while I do love EMG actives, they're a whole different ballgame tonally than passives, and personally I wouldn't use one to replace the other if someone's a fan of passives.

However, you are very much correct that added treble and drive create noise. When you boost a certain frequency range, you also boost that freq range's noise floor. And drive pedals can often be pretty noisy, and the more you crank the drive, the noisier they will get. Beans' suggestion of a noise gate pedal to shut your signal down when not playing is the only real solution. He suggested the RockTron Hush, which I have and is quite a good pedal, but pretty much every pedal company makes a noise gate pedal.

Hey Jimmy, what I meant to say was for me I have bad luck with all passive pickup Bass guitars even humbuckers which are supposed to buck the hum. I got a lot of rack mount gear and a lot of the time I put my treble pretty high and I use headphones often when its to late to jam out loud. I also have had perfectly grounded and shielded Basses and the only way my passive Bass pickups are quiet is if I don't use a lot of effects gear and turn the treble back a little, but when I'm on headphones i can hear the tiniest of noises too, not near as bad out loud on speaker cabs. What I should of suggested to the OP was this ISP DECIMATOR ProRackG noise reduction system. I've only heard great reviews about these and they got the little ISP G string noise reduction pedal that's a lot cheaper and works great too.

 

[JimmyM]

Ya, I hear the Decimator is really good, too, but I've yet to hear one.

 

[bassthumpersf]

Turn off your amp, no more hum.

 

[Dan Bass]

Ya, I hear the Decimator is really good, too, but I've yet to hear one.

See, thats how good they are, you haven't heard one, wow, they are quiet. HEE HEEEEE!! I think they have a ISP G-String ll noise reduction pedal, and like the rack version it's a dual system, I'm pretty sure you plug your Bass guitar straight into it, then go through all your effects gear, rack stuff, pedals, ect. Then again last of all plug into it for the second time dual side just before going to your cab or amp, for total silence. They say it makes your guitar silent first, then it makes your effects gear totally silent second, works two times, that's the whole dual purpose of it. I think there's a test demo on YouTube, not sure though, I'm going to check it out. If this works I'm getting one, then never worry about hum or buzz problems with passive pickups going through all my rack gear with the treble too high.

 

[Dan Bass]

I play in a punk/garage band, so in almost all my songs I play with a load of treble and drive to get a really dirty and aggressive sound. However, the downside to this is that I get an absolute ton of hum that annoys me no end. Any suggestions on how to keep my sound but reduce the hum?
Just in case it matters I use a Squier Mike Dirnt P-Bass with a Bare Knuckle '58 split single coil pickup, a Hartke A70 kickback amp and an Ashdown NM2 drive pedal.

You could try one of these ISP DECIMATOR ll G-String Noise Reduction Pedals.

 

[Snaxster]

Passive pickups hum and buzz if your not touching something metal on your Bass

Dan, that is true only if the guitar is not grounded properly.

Not even shielding will prevent buzz that results from lack of grounding.

At minimum, the guitar must be grounded (to prevent buzz and shocks). Better still, the guitar also should be shielded, with the shielding grounded, too (to prevent hum).

I own a number of bass guitars, all with passive pickups and most with no preamp. Most of the preamps are Audere, which uses an unusual grounding scheme. But no matter what each bass's wiring, it must be grounded correctly. For the sake of sound, sanity and safety, I will not play them otherwise.

Hands off or on, my bass guitars do not buzz, even though any of their single coil pickups may hum.

 

[beans-on-toast]

It pays to do your homework when selecting a noise gate.

You set the threshold. This sets the ground floor level where the unit cuts in and is set based on how noisy your signal chain is. Some units have a settings for how the release works which can be useful; some have XLR connectors as well as /1/4"; some, like the rack based ultra hush, even have midi control so you can have different settings depending on what gear is switched into your signal chain -- some chains are noisier than others so different thresholds can be set. This is more useful if you have a fancy midi based switching system.

 

[Dan Bass]

Dan, that is true only if the guitar is not grounded properly.

Not even shielding will prevent buzz that results from lack of grounding.

At minimum, the guitar must be grounded (to prevent buzz and shocks). Better still, the guitar also should be shielded, with the shielding grounded, too (to prevent hum).

I own a number of bass guitars, all with passive pickups and most with no preamp. Most of the preamps are Audere, which uses an unusual grounding scheme. But no matter what each bass's wiring, it must be grounded correctly. For the sake of sound, sanity and safety, I will not play them otherwise.

Hands off or on, my bass guitars do not buzz, even though any of their single coil pickups may hum.

I have a custom ibanez SR 600 and it has 2 Music Man MM style big fat monster double humbuckers and the Carvin 505s 18v active/passive ICON 3-Band preamp, I put copper shielding under the pickups, grounded them, put copper shielding all around the control cavity and all grounded properly. I also have a good wire soldered to the bridge grounded to the copper shielded control cavity wall, the jack ground wire, everything is grounded to the copper shield wall. And with passive pickups you are grounding the guitar soon as you touch it that's why there's a ground wire to the bridge. Now if I don't use any of my high quality rack mount gear or don't turn my treble up too high, it is a quiet Bass even when I touch one of the big alnico exposed pole pieces. Now if I turn on all my rack mount gear and turn my treble knob on my Bass guitar all the way up, and pluck a string and let go it hums, barely but it hums, and when I take my hands off the bass and when i hit a string and let that note keep playing and touch something metal like the bridge you can hear a tiny little static click sound or touch one of the exposed pole pieces. A lot of effects and treble too high makes this happen, because when I don't have the effects on or treble too high its quiet because its grounded perfect. I rebuild, customize, modify, update and change pickups and parts of Bass guitars, I know my electrical work.I am just saying that's the way passive pickups are with effects hooked up and treble too high, I also jam a lot with high quality headphones and maybe I hear way to much that way, cause out of my speaker cabs out loud I don't have a problem. IMO I like active EMG 40DC Humbuckers and they are totally silent no matter what and the pickups are grounded them selves with no ground wire going to the bridge, the way I like it and I can turn on all my rack effects and turn my treble up all the way with headphones on and it's totally silent. That's what I need and that's what I like.