Since I bought my Little Big Muff, I feel that I could use some kind hum eliminator. So what's out there and what's good? Anyone tried EHX's magic box, the Hum Debugger?
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Noise reducer...
- Thread starter Nils
- Start date
Now - just to get this straight: You mean HUM, and not hiss, right?
Technically and practically, these are fairly different mitigation issues.
If it's hum - like 60-cycle, power grid based hum - then shielding or hum-bucking of some sort is the thing to look at. My bass has two single coils that only buck hum when they're ran together; since I haven't shielded my bass (yet), I only use distortion with both pups, bucked.
If it's hiss - then we'd assume it to be self-hiss generated in the Muff, I s'pose - then putting the Muff IN THE LOOP of a Boss NS-2 does wonders.
I run obscene-amounts of gain (I really-must bring my board to work sometime and measure the small-small-signal - I mean like 'pre-clip' levels - gain; I'll bet it's huge). Anyway: My killerest distortion sound is unuseable without the NS-2 (major, constant hiss and squeel), and literally perfectly-noiseless with the NS-2.
One thing that makes my NR setup work so perfectly like this is that I run a searing, TREBLY distortion - so whenever there's signal, there's dense high-freq harmonics; this high-freq 'fuzz' literally covers ('masks') the hiss - and by the time the signal starts to give-way to background hiss, the NS-2 has already began to fade-out the note.
I'm saying that this works so well, I can let a note ring-out all the way to silence, and there's never any percieveable noise - all the way to 'gone', and the fadeout sounds perfectly natural.
As far as I know, many NS-2 owners run theirs in normal 'noise gate' mode (not taking advantage of the remote-sensing loop). They're not nearly getting the full benefits of the system that way!
Joe
Technically and practically, these are fairly different mitigation issues.
If it's hum - like 60-cycle, power grid based hum - then shielding or hum-bucking of some sort is the thing to look at. My bass has two single coils that only buck hum when they're ran together; since I haven't shielded my bass (yet), I only use distortion with both pups, bucked.
If it's hiss - then we'd assume it to be self-hiss generated in the Muff, I s'pose - then putting the Muff IN THE LOOP of a Boss NS-2 does wonders.
I run obscene-amounts of gain (I really-must bring my board to work sometime and measure the small-small-signal - I mean like 'pre-clip' levels - gain; I'll bet it's huge). Anyway: My killerest distortion sound is unuseable without the NS-2 (major, constant hiss and squeel), and literally perfectly-noiseless with the NS-2.
One thing that makes my NR setup work so perfectly like this is that I run a searing, TREBLY distortion - so whenever there's signal, there's dense high-freq harmonics; this high-freq 'fuzz' literally covers ('masks') the hiss - and by the time the signal starts to give-way to background hiss, the NS-2 has already began to fade-out the note.
I'm saying that this works so well, I can let a note ring-out all the way to silence, and there's never any percieveable noise - all the way to 'gone', and the fadeout sounds perfectly natural.
As far as I know, many NS-2 owners run theirs in normal 'noise gate' mode (not taking advantage of the remote-sensing loop). They're not nearly getting the full benefits of the system that way!
Joe
yeah i agree on the ns2. it's a fantastic noise reducer espec. with all the pedals in the loop except for delay and chorus/modulation pedals. put those after the loop. but it is a good NR. just make sure you don't turn the threshold up to 3 0 clock. leave it around 1 or 2 o clock. because if the threshold is turned up to 3 o clock it distorts some and adds some noticable distortion static like at the beginning of a note because it turns some of the hiss into that. but at 1 or 2 o clock it is real good.
Yeah, I've seen alot of boards with the Boss NS on them... I'll have to try it out. Rack ain't for me and the EHX seems a little dodgy. Thanks guys!
Whah...? I run mine at about 2:00 when I want a more uncontrolled, rawcous sound (string feedback, more string noise...), and way-up at like 4:00 for real tight stops and whatnot. I am running a passive bass, though - maybe my 4:00 is like an active's 2:00 (?).
Where it definately doesn't work as well is for signals without these 'masking harmonics' or whatever - like high-gain, treble-boosted clean tones. For that I need a dynamic filter (like what the Decimator has). I plan on getting a dynamic lowpass - probably rackmount-in-the-loop - but I'd still count on the NS-2 for those tight stops it gives me. Here's a recent example of a part that would be pretty-much un-do-able without the NS-2 eliminating his between notes (AND cleaning-up my playing a little):
Link Removed
(I'm still working on the tapping-thing)
Anyway: the NS-2 absolutely slays for heavy distortion.
Joe
^ my bass is passive too. maybe it's my room's wall electricity wiring. or just the way it works with my equipment i have that makes it that way at 3 o clock or higher. 
I've never had a noise issue with the Muff. It's almost dead quiet for me when I stop playing.
Active electronics or pickups seem to play a large role in minimizing the noise the Muff might make. What are your sustain settings, BTW?
I'll admit, the Muff CAN be noisy on high sustain settings, but I've never seen a highly distorted fuzz as being practical on bass (it sounds better to me on guitar if it's going to be THAT distorted).
Active electronics or pickups seem to play a large role in minimizing the noise the Muff might make. What are your sustain settings, BTW?
I'll admit, the Muff CAN be noisy on high sustain settings, but I've never seen a highly distorted fuzz as being practical on bass (it sounds better to me on guitar if it's going to be THAT distorted).
Well I have passive bass and I the sustain at twelve o'clock or lower and I have serious noise issues!
my ns2 stopped making the weird static noise on some notes when threshold is set to 3 o clock cuz i raised my decay to 9 o clock. yay
Three o'clock?!
I always run mine pegged all the way down at seven! I wouldn't like it at all, delayed so much like that.
I dunno; I think something's wrong with yours (?).
Joe
No remote-sensing!
I'm tellin' you guys: it's a huge, huge difference.
Picture it: the NS-2 looks at the pure, dry bass signal (input terminal) - BEFORE any noise gets added to the signal. The envelope detectors truly and surely 'know the difference' between what you're actually playing, and whatever radical mess might be eventually at the other-end of some effects chain (appearing back at the 'return' jack).
Another bonus of this scheme is that with a regular in-line gate (like the hush pedal), every time you change effects settings - especially changes that effect the overall gain (therefore probably the noise level) - you have to re-adjust the gate threshold! With Remote-sensing you can do anything you want in the loop; the expander action stays 'calibrated' to your bass!
With the NS-2 (or decimator, surely!) you can run many more times the gain than you could ever reasonably use without it. I have a sound that involves a ton of compression before the signal hits TWO series-connected distortions - without the NS-2, this sound would be far un-useable, as far as I'm concerned.
Yup.
Joe
I had a HUSH pedal...
It cleaned up the noise well, but it took off some noticeable treble and did some slight tone altering regardless of how low or high you set the treshold.
You might like it, but that tonal change bugged me.
I was also looking for one of this pedals to get rid of my J-pup hum, is there any "specially indicated for" pedal for this?
Sorry Nils!
Sorry Nils!
Latest posts
-
-
Post a funnier picture than the one above - Parallel Universe Edition- Latest: Gopherbassist
-
-
-
