Long TRS Cable To Fix Hum?

[jnammy]

At church, I’m using my Ibanez single humbucker bass far away from my Ampeg PF500 using a 25ft unbalanced cable and I’m getting a low droning hum. The bass and amp are dead quiet at home. I think the noise at church is because of the long unbalanced cable. I plan on switching to a 25ft balanced xlr to 1/4 cable from my active bass preamp pedal near me to the front of my Ampeg that is far away. Do you think this will fix my issue?

 

[Wasnex]

Unless the amp has a balanced input, it won't fix the problem. Even worse, you may not get any signal at all.


Here is a pro level solution: SGI - Radial Engineering

 

[lowfreqgeek]

At church, I’m using my Ibanez single humbucker bass far away from my Ampeg PF500 using a 25ft unbalanced cable and I’m getting a low droning hum. The bass and amp are dead quiet at home. I think the noise at church is because of the long unbalanced cable. I plan on switching to a 25ft balanced xlr to 1/4 cable from my active bass preamp pedal near me to the front of my Ampeg that is far away. Do you think this will fix my issue?

No, that won't fix it. The amp input is not balanced, so it won't do anything but cost a lot of money.

It's most likely that you're picking up 60hz and other noise from the building/lights/gear in the bass itself. Has it been fully shielded? That's where you should start.

 

[agedhorse]

Probably not, may get worse (or much worse).

Does the noise change when you walk around the stage with your bass?

Is the amp quiet with nothing plugged into the front of it?

Is the amp quiet if you plug directly in without the pedalboard?

 

[JimChjones]

And another question, is the hum significantly different if you use a short lead?

 

[darwin-bass]

Here is a pro level solution: SGI - Radial Engineering

View attachment 7233738

I have done this sort of thing before using two direct boxes. The XLR cable has to have the same gender connectors on both ends and it works better if both the source and destination are active devices. If your floor preamp has a balanced out (TRS or XLR) then you'd need only one direct box but with the right cable.

Another approach is to feed your bass into a wireless unit and have the receiver at the amp.

 

[ashtray]

Triple check to make sure you’re not using a speaker cable. Back in the 90’s I experimented using a 50’ speaker cable as an instrument cable so that I could stand far away from my rig to hear the sound. Being unshielded though, it was super noisy!

If you need 25’, maybe consider going wireless? They sell little USB rechargeable units that weigh nothing, just plug in, and you have wireless freedom without all the wireless hassle of old setups.

 

[Al Kraft]

Probably not, may get worse (or much worse).

Does the noise change when you walk around the stage with your bass?

Is the amp quiet with nothing plugged into the front of it?

Is the amp quiet if you plug directly in without the pedalboard?

And another question, is the hum significantly different if you use a short lead?

I think your best and possibly least expensive solution will become more obvious from answering these questions. IME commercial buildings have all manner of things that can couple into your bass/cable/effects/amp/etc. Figure out what reduces/gets rid of your hum and/or what makes it worse and then focus on the type of solutions that could be helpful with that new insight.

Just to illustrate my point and without suggesting that this is your issue, I used to play in venue where it mattered where I stood and which way I was facing. I think it was lighting that caused the problem and it was show-stopping if I didn't position myself appropriately.

Every instrument I owned had the same problem on that stage and I guess if I had played in a Faraday cage or worn a tinfoil suit with a ground strap everything would have been fine. However, the simple, inexpensive, least embarrassing looking solution was to just reposition myself on the stage. Sometimes simple works once you get a sense of what is causing your problem.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

"or worn a tinfoil suit with a ground strap everything would have been fine. However, the simple, inexpensive, least embarrassing looking solution was to just reposition myself on the stage. Sometimes simple works once you get a sense of what is causing your problem."

I vote for the foil suit!

 

[Al Kraft]

I vote for the foil suit!

While on a particularly frustrating evening I did give it more than a moment's consideration, I figured I had already done enough in my musical career to give folks good reason to question the sanity of bass players.

 

[agedhorse]

I have done this sort of thing before using two direct boxes. The XLR cable has to have the same gender connectors on both ends and it works better if both the source and destination are active devices. If your floor preamp has a balanced out (TRS or XLR) then you'd need only one direct box but with the right cable.

Another approach is to feed your bass into a wireless unit and have the receiver at the amp.

I vote for wireless IF the problem is RFI in the environment... BUT at times this can be worse results because there's no effective ground to work with the shielding of the bass, and it may make the pickup more susceptible to noise. Worth a try though, can't hurt anything.

 

[Rich Fiscus]

"or worn a tinfoil suit with a ground strap everything would have been fine. However, the simple, inexpensive, least embarrassing looking solution was to just reposition myself on the stage. Sometimes simple works once you get a sense of what is causing your problem."

I vote for the foil suit!

 

[Al Kraft]

I can see that the tinfoil suit idea isn't going to die quickly or easily...

 

[Queue]

Try the JOYO wireless on Amazon. I bought a set just to try in my office (so I wouldn't need to keep a cable).

I tried it in tons of places, works great.

At $40, it's a quick easy try.

I find it very liberating to not be tied to the cable.

 

[Michedelic]

View attachment 7233961

Sonic Smith!!!

 

[IanStephenson]

You've got another problem if your amp is 25ft away... It takes sound 22ms to travel that distance.

It depends on the instrument and player, but that's a noticeable delay. It's at the level that you can work with, but I find it uncomfortable to be compensating. It's just hard to lock in (Bass is worse that guitar or keys here). The first few times I played larger stages where time of flight was a factor something just felt "off". Then I switched to IEMS and it was just fixed.

YMMV... but I'd find a way to be closer to the amp...

 

[Zooberwerx]

At church, I’m using my Ibanez single humbucker bass far away from my Ampeg PF500 using a 25ft unbalanced cable and I’m getting a low droning hum. The bass and amp are dead quiet at home. I think the noise at church is because of the long unbalanced cable. I plan on switching to a 25ft balanced xlr to 1/4 cable from my active bass preamp pedal near me to the front of my Ampeg that is far away. Do you think this will fix my issue?

No. The hum could be a ground conflict (loop)...just ruling out the simple stuff. I would remove everything except: bass > known good instrument cable > PF500 > enclosure. Bonus points if you're feeding a mixer desk from somewhere in the signal chain...remove that, as well.

That's a starting point. Do some diagnostics before dropping coin on possibly unneeded peripheral devices.

Riis

 

[Rich Fiscus]

I can see that the tinfoil suit idea isn't going to die quickly or easily...

But it’s equally stylish and aerodynamic.

 

[FretRiff]

more is better foil

 

[lug]

here's a $59 solution....

Amazon.com