I could use some help for my first gig next saturday...

[dbsfgyd1]

Hi guys,

I’m playing a ’79 Fender Musicmaster bass for a few years now, which I really like and upgraded with an Aero Musicmasterer pickup. I play it through an Ashdown Studio 12 and only use the clean setting and a tuner pedal.

Because the bass guitar only has one single coil pickup, I usually get some amount of single coil hum. Since I shielded the guitar, it's generally not that disturbing.

I started a band with a few colleagues a couple of months ago and recently bought myself an EHX Hum Debugger pedal. Most of our rehearsels took place at home, where the pedal does exactly what it is supposed to do. Without it there is the typical light hum, but when engaged it is completely quiet.

But... next saturday we will have our very first try-out gig at the office. We had our last few rehearsals at that location and I immediately noticed a much stronger, disturbing noise, depending on where and in which direction I was standing. With the tone almost completely rolled off or the high frequencies EQ-ed out on the amp, the noise is gone. And the weird thing is, at the office the EHX Hum Debugger even seems to boost the hum and make things worse...

I also tried a ground lift, but that makes no difference either.

I find it very strange that I only have a very light hum at home rehearsals and even dead silence with the EHX Hum Debugger, while at the office I have a lot of noise and it gets worse with the pedal.

Will my only option be to EQ out my treble and high-miss or roll down my tone almost completely? Or does anyone have any other suggestions I can try?

Thanks very much in advance!

I’m going to assume the gig is not going to be in this office, and this maybe a current issue in this office, not your rig.

You may or may not be able to fix the hum issue in the office, but I would roll off the treble on your bass, as you said stops the humm, and play the audition. I would seriously doubt anybody making a judgement at this audition is going to not hire you because the bass is a little less distinct. Just don’t be overbearingly loud.

 

[Wasnex]

Sometimes the EHX Hum Debugger works and sometimes it makes it worse. Pretty sure this is normal...you are not the only one who has had this experience.

IMHO the only real solution is to get a pickup that rejects the hum.

My first bass was a Ric 4001, which had a pair of single coil pickups. Performance was exactly as you describe. Where you stand and the direction you face has an impact. Use this to you advantage. The other thing you can do is turn the bass's volume down when you are not playing. For example, between songs.

 

[jtg]

Throwing another redundant log on the fire: don't fixate on this. Focus on playing well and having a good time. Don't throw any more gear at it; its a distraction. Dont turn up your amp louder than you need it. Rock out and turn your volume knob down between songs if the hum bothers you. Just don't forget to turn it back up before the next downbeat.*

*ask me how I know #sometimesyoudontlearnthefirstdozentimes

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

Hi guys,

I’m playing a ’79 Fender Musicmaster bass for a few years now, which I really like and upgraded with an Aero Musicmasterer pickup. I play it through an Ashdown Studio 12 and only use the clean setting and a tuner pedal.

Because the bass guitar only has one single coil pickup, I usually get some amount of single coil hum. Since I shielded the guitar, it's generally not that disturbing.

I started a band with a few colleagues a couple of months ago and recently bought myself an EHX Hum Debugger pedal. Most of our rehearsels took place at home, where the pedal does exactly what it is supposed to do. Without it there is the typical light hum, but when engaged it is completely quiet.

But... next saturday we will have our very first try-out gig at the office. We had our last few rehearsals at that location and I immediately noticed a much stronger, disturbing noise, depending on where and in which direction I was standing. With the tone almost completely rolled off or the high frequencies EQ-ed out on the amp, the noise is gone. And the weird thing is, at the office the EHX Hum Debugger even seems to boost the hum and make things worse...

I also tried a ground lift, but that makes no difference either.

I find it very strange that I only have a very light hum at home rehearsals and even dead silence with the EHX Hum Debugger, while at the office I have a lot of noise and it gets worse with the pedal.

Will my only option be to EQ out my treble and high-miss or roll down my tone almost completely? Or does anyone have any other suggestions I can try?

Thanks very much in advance!

It's the lights, and other things in the room. Your hum de-bugger has two settings. Moderate and heavy kill.

In my living room or church, moderate was perfectly fine. In my bedroom, it needed the heavier setting. It gives you two options, because it kills your tone. It's a low pass filter. As in, it's filtering out the frequencies of 60 cycle hum.removing those frequencies also removes them from your bass tone. So, it gives you two options to choose from. Just a "food for thought" thing. I never noticed anything bad happening to my sound. At all.


But, if the buzz is coming from shotty power in the building, or flourencent lighting and such, there's not much you can do about it. A humbucking pickup would probably still hum in that situation.

My suggestion is to buy a power conditioner, or a humbucking version of that pickup. Or, a p bass.



Yes, I have experience with a de-bugger. No, I haven't ever had anything but good happen with it.

 

[skycruiser]

Here's a unique solution that I found can resolve certain types of single coil pickup noise. Replace the pickguard with an aluminum one. If it fully surrounds the pickup (which I think it will from my google image searches of the musicmaster bass), it may solve the problem. It must be an aluminum plate pickguard, not simply an aluminum foil sheet behind the plastic pickguard.

I have several videos on this youtube channel that demonstrate noise reduction with metal plates, both aluminum and copper.

https://www.youtube.com/@bass4108

It doesn't solve all noise problems, but it is very effective with a certain type of interference.

Some people say adding this affects the tone. I don't hear any difference at all with plastic vs. aluminum pickguard. Not saying there's no effect, but it is not noticeable to me.

 

[BlueTalon]

My advice - you're not going to solve any electrical noise issues in your office, do as others have said and dial the volume off as you end each song. No one will notice a bit of noise during the song while you are playing. And if it continues to be a problem, you might need to think about a different bass.

Or at least a hum canceling pickup.

 

[P. Aaron]

Everyone at rehearsal was CONVINCED my Mesa WD-800/LDS 2 x 10 thru my Dimension was humming until I told the guitar player to turn of his overhead canned lights (run by a dimmer switch).

Hum was gone.

 

[steve_ss]

If your songs are in the same key as the hum, would it be less noticeable? Just asking for a friend.

 

[Ric Vice]

I just live with the hum because it generally disappears when the band begins playing. With my Lakland 55-94’s I just dial out the single coli bridge pickup.

 

[J-Mags]

well your notes, and the band's sound are louder than the hiss, so if it's in the way so much to be noticable, use a volume pedal to shut the line down when not playing. Offices often have leaky lines and electronic devices and there may by no way to change that.

This. Guitarists usually hum a lot more than you do, At the end of each song, either kill your volume knob or step on a tuner pedal to mute your sound until the next song. Killing all your high end to kill the hum is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Hummy sound during song breaks can make an audience anxious and annoyed. During songs, it's seldom noticed.

 

[BassBrass]

Throwing another redundant log on the fire: don't fixate on this. Focus on playing well and having a good time. Don't throw any more gear at it; its a distraction. Dont turn up your amp louder than you need it. Rock out and turn your volume knob down between songs if the hum bothers you. Just don't forget to turn it back up before the next downbeat.*

*ask me how I know #sometimesyoudontlearnthefirstdozentimes

That's exactly why I suggested a volume pedal. I don't forget a volume pedal whereas I would certainly forget an easy to forget knob, and you can actually fade the last note out of a song, hum gone. But I suppose you can forget a pedal too or train yourself to remember the knob inbetween.

 

[Aidan Woodward]

I would check and make sure your bass is properly shielded. Copper tape or shielding paint. Both the pickup and control cavities, and make sure there’s a ground link between the two. Any decent tech can do this for fairly quickly. You can even shield the inside of your pickup cover as long as it’s removable. It’s a single coil bass so there will always be some level of hum but you can greatly reduce the amount of outside electrical interference this way.

 

[Parzival]

Like others have said, it's all those lights in an office and everything else going on electrically. Not an easy fix. What I'm interested in is a gig at the office. Tell us more about that because it sounds interesting.

 

[bassdog]

also, try to stand in a way that tends to eliminate or reduce the hum. Sort of a hassle but just keep in mind. Especially between songs. Once the music starts, there will be no issue.

 

[HolmeBass]

Office lights were my first thought. It will be hard to mitigate that issue.

Maybe turn the office lights off in the room you are playing in, and add some nice stage lighting and lava lamps instead?

 

[RickDavis]

First of all, a big thanks to everyone for all the advice and enthusiasm!
I read all your replies and felt like I owed you an update:

I’m sure now it will have something to do with the power, electricity and/or lighting at the office. I might not be able to change that, but I ordered a Brennenstuhl Premium Line power strip with integrated HF filter and EMI/RFI noise filter anyway (I’m from Belgium and the Furman doesn’t seem to be available over here). This will definitely come in handy at rehearsals and gigs, so if it doesn’t make that much of a difference in noise, it’s not a big deal. I’ll have it by tomorrow, so I will be able to test it during our setup and soundcheck on Saturday.

I’m glad to hear it’s not really a malfunctioning of some kind. I really like my Fender Musicmaster, so I would prefer to keep this as my (main) bass guitar. I have already shielded the cavity with copper tape (although I didn’t shield the inside of the plastic pickup cover – maybe I can try that as well?). But if it turns out I keep struggling with the single coil being noisy, I might consider swapping it for a suitable noiseless pickup.

At the rehearsal yesterday I tried to find a good position/angle and used the volume and tone knobs in between playing to mute the noise. I might buy a volume pedal later on, but for now this will do. It was manageable and the sound was more than acceptable. I agree that most of the audience will not notice anything strange

 

[Parzival]

First of all, a big thanks to everyone for all the advice and enthusiasm!
I read all your replies and felt like I owed you an update:

I’m sure now it will have something to do with the power, electricity and/or lighting at the office. I might not be able to change that, but I ordered a Brennenstuhl Premium Line power strip with integrated HF filter and EMI/RFI noise filter anyway (I’m from Belgium and the Furman doesn’t seem to be available over here). This will definitely come in handy at rehearsals and gigs, so if it doesn’t make that much of a difference in noise, it’s not a big deal. I’ll have it by tomorrow, so I will be able to test it during our setup and soundcheck on Saturday.

I’m glad to hear it’s not really a malfunctioning of some kind. I really like my Fender Musicmaster, so I would prefer to keep this as my (main) bass guitar. I have already shielded the cavity with copper tape (although I didn’t shield the inside of the plastic pickup cover – maybe I can try that as well?). But if it turns out I keep struggling with the single coil being noisy, I might consider swapping it for a suitable noiseless pickup.

At the rehearsal yesterday I tried to find a good position/angle and used the volume and tone knobs in between playing to mute the noise. I might buy a volume pedal later on, but for now this will do. It was manageable and the sound was more than acceptable. I agree that most of the audience will not notice anything strange

Another consideration, but not cheap, would be a buffered tuner at the front of the chain, like a Strobostomp. I know once I implemented my Strobo and a Furman strip, it basically eliminated any noise I had.

Still want to hear about what kind of gig you have inside an office.

 

[BlueTalon]

I’m glad to hear it’s not really a malfunctioning of some kind. I really like my Fender Musicmaster, so I would prefer to keep this as my (main) bass guitar. I have already shielded the cavity with copper tape (although I didn’t shield the inside of the plastic pickup cover – maybe I can try that as well?). But if it turns out I keep struggling with the single coil being noisy, I might consider swapping it for a suitable noiseless pickup.

If the rest of the bass is shielded adequately, you shouldn't need to shield the inside of the pickup cover. To put it another way, if shielding the rest of the bass properly didn't help, shielding the inside of the pickup cover won't make any difference. But let's check the shielding job you did.

Did you shield the control cavity?
Did you shield the pickup route?
Did you shield the backside of the pickguard?
Did you connect every area of shielding to each other, and to ground?
Is the bridge grounded?

Any unconnected and ungrounded area of shielding is not shielding, it is an antenna. You don't want any antenna. When you're finished shielding a bass, you should be able to check resistance (continuity) between any two points of shielding/ground and read zero ohms (or some low single digit number). If you don't already have a multimeter, you should be able to get one for relatively cheap.

 

[skycruiser]

Try the metal pickguard. It's like magic for a certain type of noise. If it is directional and sounds a bit like buzz or static, then it is definitely worth a try. It's a wonderful thing to make such a simple change to completely eliminate an annoying problem.

 

[RickDavis]

Another consideration, but not cheap, would be a buffered tuner at the front of the chain, like a Strobostomp. I know once I implemented my Strobo and a Furman strip, it basically eliminated any noise I had.

Still want to hear about what kind of gig you have inside an office.

Yesterday I tried the Brennenstuhl power strip (similar to a Furman) at home and it does seem to have a subtle but positive effect on the hum. As usual, adding the EHX Hum Debugger initially increases the hum, so there it didn't make much difference, but when the pedal is engaged it's complete silence. Today I'll be able to try it at the office, where the hum is a lot worse anyway.

I started this band with 2 coworkers (one does lead vocals, the other backing vocals and keys), the lead vocalists husband on drums and an old friend of mine on guitar. Since the other colleagues were very curious about our project, we decided to give them a try-out.
We're a local recruitment agency in Belgium with very open-minded managers, so they said we could definitely do the gig at the office. It's not the typical big office building, but rather a nicely renovated old railway residence.
We play all different kind of songs, about half of them in English and the other half translated in Dutch.

If the rest of the bass is shielded adequately, you shouldn't need to shield the inside of the pickup cover. To put it another way, if shielding the rest of the bass properly didn't help, shielding the inside of the pickup cover won't make any difference. But let's check the shielding job you did.

Did you shield the control cavity?
Did you shield the pickup route?
Did you shield the backside of the pickguard?
Did you connect every area of shielding to each other, and to ground?
Is the bridge grounded?

Any unconnected and ungrounded area of shielding is not shielding, it is an antenna. You don't want any antenna. When you're finished shielding a bass, you should be able to check resistance (continuity) between any two points of shielding/ground and read zero ohms (or some low single digit number). If you don't already have a multimeter, you should be able to get one for relatively cheap.

I did shield the control cavity, pickup route, pickguard and connected everything to ground. I'm not sure if the bridge is grounded, how can I check that?
After the shielding job I definitely noticed an improvement, so I guess it worked. But I don't have a multimeter, might invest in getting that as well.

Try the metal pickguard. It's like magic for a certain type of noise. If it is directional and sounds a bit like buzz or static, then it is definitely worth a try. It's a wonderful thing to make such a simple change to completely eliminate an annoying problem.

Not sure if I'll be able to find a metal pickguard for a Musicmaster bass, but I'll check it out later on. Thanks!