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Summoning Elite Troubleshooters

EMGs are supposed to be hum canceling. I’d start with the latter 2 first. Especially if he digs the tone of EMGs. If not, plenty of alternatives to look at but first check the string to string spacing.

I live in a noisy environment as well and some of these amps I record through have RF rejection on the input which is really nice and they provide the connection to ground for the shielding to do its thing. Just take the DI and send it in and sounds great.
He already mentioned that he has some Nordstrands on the way.

Can you tell us what some of those amps are? I knew I remembered some amps specifically being good at this.
 
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He already mentioned that he has some Nordstrands on the way.
Close...I'm very interested in them, but now I'm leaning towards the 96 art ones, as they have a similar design and are about $100 less. I'll at least try them out. The difference in hum resistance really blew my mind. If they pan out, I'll probably add the preamp that @bdplaid mentioned.
 
Many thanks to 96 art for sending me two pickups to test with!


Wow that’s pretty bad. Can you get interference on your radio or tv also? What part of the world do you live in? In my area, I would call the city and request a service call because there is a faulty power transformer causing excessive interference and hope it changed something for the better.

You could walk your little amplug test rig out to the power pole and see if it’s even louder still to confirm the source is what we think
 
@James Collins I saw that video before. Some of his suggestions only work for rock and metal, which I only play sometimes. They don't work with music involving quieter, clean, sustained notes. I always use smooth Jazz when I'm testing home theaters I install for this reason, because it offers a vast tonal spectrum while still allowing you to hear everything. The one suggestion he has that I'm about to try, in line with everyone here on the edge of their seats, is shielding. Given everything I've learned during this process, I'm shocked that a guy with his experience didn't focus on the critical importance of properly grounding the shielding.
I think it is because a noise gate works, and he doesn't have to modify all of his guitars. He can just plug in. I'm just surprised the level of work this had required. I just can imagine your guitar ever functioning in an electromagnetically noisy environment like a theater if it is the shielding problem you think you have.

Also, I've read most of this thread, but I don't think the physics of the power line outside your house add up. Electromagnetic field strength is proportional to current and inversely proportional to distance. Power lines carry low current (100s of amps at high voltage) to reduce energy lost to resistance. Transformers convert the energy to lower voltage and higher current for your house. The wires in your walls are significantly closer to your guitar and higher current by magnitude of 3 or more. The electric terminal being on that wall of the house is a more likely suspicion of mine as the source of noise than the power line.

I can't help but think you have never guaranteed proper grounding of your shielding. Do this experiment. Get a 1/2" by 10ft copper rod and drive that into the earth so only an inch is above the ground. Attach your ground from your circuit directly to this. Does your noise go away?

Using the amplug ensures none of your instrument shielding is grounded. If your wall outlet has no ground, same thing is going to occur. If your house is old and relying on a less stable ground than several feet of copper rod placed as described above, it is probably using connection to your water pipe. In that case expect noise.
 
Close...I'm very interested in them, but now I'm leaning towards the 96 art ones, as they have a similar design and are about $100 less. I'll at least try them out. The difference in hum resistance really blew my mind. If they pan out, I'll probably add the preamp that @bdplaid mentioned.
The Audere is awesome, however as the 96 art pickups worked so well, and they seem to be a custom builder, I'd ask them if they could make something specifically designed to reject EMI.
 
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Wow that’s pretty bad. Can you get interference on your radio or tv also? What part of the world do you live in? In my area, I would call the city and request a service call because there is a faulty power transformer causing excessive interference and hope it changed something for the better.

You could walk your little amplug test rig out to the power pole and see if it’s even louder still to confirm the source is what we think
Ya take a listen to the more recent video with the cast iron test. There you get to hear the comparison between the three different pickups. I'm in a small town in the northeast US. Wicked old and wicked crowded. The close proximity of neighbors - primarily heroin addicts (SWAT busted down the door next door three times in the last year) - means pinpointing the source may prove to be tough, and I won't be parading a nice looking bass in front of them so an outdoor Amplug test is out :woot:

I think it is because a noise gate works, and he doesn't have to modify all of his guitars. He can just plug in. I'm just surprised the level of work this had required. I just can imagine your guitar ever functioning in an electromagnetically noisy environment like a theater if it is the shielding problem you think you have.

Also, I've read most of this thread, but I don't think the physics of the power line outside your house add up. Electromagnetic field strength is proportional to current and inversely proportional to distance. Power lines carry low current (100s of amps at high voltage) to reduce energy lost to resistance. Transformers convert the energy to lower voltage and higher current for your house. The wires in your walls are significantly closer to your guitar and higher current by magnitude of 3 or more. The electric terminal being on that wall of the house is a more likely suspicion of mine as the source of noise than the power line.

I can't help but think you have never guaranteed proper grounding of your shielding. Do this experiment. Get a 1/2" by 10ft copper rod and drive that into the earth so only an inch is above the ground. Attach your ground from your circuit directly to this. Does your noise go away?

Using the amplug ensures none of your instrument shielding is grounded. If your wall outlet has no ground, same thing is going to occur. If your house is old and relying on a less stable ground than several feet of copper rod placed as described above, it is probably using connection to your water pipe. In that case expect noise.
That's some good info. I completely forgot the whole point of a transformer. Over the years they just became something that explodes in the middle of the night. I'll take a look at where that leg from the transformer to the house is. So is the noise you hear definitely caused by the low voltage/high current from the inside wiring or pole-to-house leg, and not the high voltage/low current from the power lines? I wouldn't know the difference. I do know that killing the power in the house and walking towards the power lines (and subsequently the transformed leg) gets noticeably louder.

As mentioned above, I don't want to attract the attention of my neighbors, so outdoor tests will be minimal. It's not that I fear for my safety at all with these guys, I just don't want the stress and drama of showing them why ;)

Even if I did the copper rod test, I'm thinking that the biggest money suck would be paying an electrician to upgrade the wiring and outlets. They may be legal now, but I've learned that industry standards are a ridiculous measurement of quality. I still can't believe that backstabbing outlets instead of wrapping terminals is legal.
 
Ya take a listen to the more recent video with the cast iron test. There you get to hear the comparison between the three different pickups. I'm in a small town in the northeast US. Wicked old and wicked crowded. The close proximity of neighbors - primarily heroin addicts (SWAT busted down the door next door three times in the last year) - means pinpointing the source may prove to be tough, and I won't be parading a nice looking bass in front of them so an outdoor Amplug test is out :woot:


That's some good info. I completely forgot the whole point of a transformer. Over the years they just became something that explodes in the middle of the night. I'll take a look at where that leg from the transformer to the house is. So is the noise you hear definitely caused by the low voltage/high current from the inside wiring or pole-to-house leg, and not the high voltage/low current from the power lines? I wouldn't know the difference. I do know that killing the power in the house and walking towards the power lines (and subsequently the transformed leg) gets noticeably louder.

As mentioned above, I don't want to attract the attention of my neighbors, so outdoor tests will be minimal. It's not that I fear for my safety at all with these guys, I just don't want the stress and drama of showing them why ;)

Even if I did the copper rod test, I'm thinking that the biggest money suck would be paying an electrician to upgrade the wiring and outlets. They may be legal now, but I've learned that industry standards are a ridiculous measurement of quality. I still can't believe that backstabbing outlets instead of wrapping terminals is legal.
I don't remember how much the copper rod grounding for my house was. I had to have the work done for a different reason, but it solved my problem. You've spent an inordinate amount of time testing everything. I listened to your kettle test, not sure if I heard much of a reduction, in the noise, but I may be misremembering it. One thing you haven't done is ensure a good ground. This forum ensured me that my ground wasn't the issue and it was shielding. But what I think this forum missed was maybe my shielding was the problem because it wasn't grounded.
 
You can rent a ground rod driver at Home Depot for about $50 for half a day. An 8 foot ground rod is like $15. Add in a couple bucks of other parts and you're out the door for well under a hundred bucks. Though I suppose it doesn't need saying out loud that you don't want to screw with stuff like this if you're not confident in what you're doing.

I'm in a small town in the Northeast as well, but my small town is very much the rural kind. My 3 acre parcel is the smallest on the road. I could probably play bass outside all day long at full volume without anyone knowing!
 
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He has another video that explains the circuit and how it works:



It strikes me as essentially an active humbucker - it uses a second coil to pick up noise, flips it, and then FETs to buffer the two signals. It definitely works in his demo vid but unless I'm missing something the video is demo'ing it on a single coil pickup?
 
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If this is the case, then it's proof a dummy coil will work. Which sort of good news. If the op can install a dummy coil (might need one for each pickup, assuming the originals are wound opposite from one another) he can get his original EMGs to work.

If this is so, I'd rout an area on the back in which to put the dummy coil, then cover that with a plate.

I also read about the Suhr dummy system, which uses a dummy coil but it's not simply a pickup, but has a totally different shape, I assume for size and packaging requirements. Originally, Suhr envisioned the dummy coil as the same shape as the pickguard but under it.