Perhaps he meant one of those bent sheetmetal covers that goes over the strings and pickups, although I would find that in the way all the time.
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.
Summoning Elite Troubleshooters
- Thread starter Crosscheck67
- Start date
-
- Tags
- 60 cycle hum emg emi ground hum
If this was the case, it wouldn't null in any position. Have you tried a different amplifier? Perhaps your amp is kicking up an unusual magnetic field from a poorly shielded power transformer. What shape is the ground pin on your AC power cord for the amp?
Oh man there's so much to catch you up on brother. Trust me when I say this thread is worth the read. The amount of technical knowledge these guys have imparted to me (as I stand here rocking back and forth on my clown shoes) made this topic one of accidental genius.
I believe you quoted and asked about stuff several pages back. It's a 14 page thread
Yep. Did you actually get your problem solved? In skimming through the posts, I see paranormal, misplaced high tension power lines, building ground rods, and a whole host of other things brought up.
Early on you mentioned other instruments were noise free, so whatever the issue is, it was specific to your bass.
Early on you mentioned other instruments were noise free, so whatever the issue is, it was specific to your bass.
Just for the sake of completeness,
Sorry, I had to finish laughing at dwizum's post.
Short answer is Yes/No
Couldn't eliminate, or even reduce noise. Going to try another brand. Can't stress it enough; incredible amount of valuable knowledge worth the read.
Short answer is Yes/No
Couldn't eliminate, or even reduce noise. Going to try another brand. Can't stress it enough; incredible amount of valuable knowledge worth the read.
Except all the valuable knowledge didn't conclude what the problem was.Short answer is Yes/No
Couldn't eliminate, or even reduce noise. Going to try another brand. Can't stress it enough; incredible amount of valuable knowledge worth the read.
What I would do is remove the pickup, and wire a 100K resistor in place of the pickup, and see if the problem persists. This will narrow down if the noise is being picked up by the pickups, or the electronics / wiring within the bass.
The consensus was the pickup, but not what it was, specifically, about the pickup. I'm not sure that EMI in the air was ever measured. Ectoplasm was also overlooked.
The 96art pickups have I believe grounded poles, and because they were the most noise free, I think that indicates excessive EMI. Please correct me if I am wrong. Fair comment, though.
Check out the three video tests I did. They were pickup direct to jack. Bypassed everything else. Pages 5, 8 and 9.
I watched the video and the pickups all sounded noisy even when shielded inside the cast iron. Sometimes when I read this thread I feel like I'm reading something different than everyone else. Wiring the pickup to the jack only excludes the preamp and potentiometers. Doesn't exclude your grounding or your amplifier. No sense arguing about the cause though, unless the new pickups have the same problem.
Oh no worries man, we don't argue here, we discuss. Personally I noticed a huge difference in hum between the 96 art vs the other two while listening with headphones to the Cast Iron test. If it was an amp issue, then my Audient iD44 USB interface, my Vox Amplug and my EBS Magni 500 are all defective or problematic, as they each produce the noise the same way. As far as grounding goes, I'm still learning. I understand to a point, but I can't think within the language as others here can.
I think @dwizum did a great job of explaining the context of grounds with regards to the Audere preamp, but I just want to emphasize something.Given that, I'm trying to flesh out what you mean by connecting each cavity directly to the jack. You have an alternate method as well, but after all this effort I'm only interested in the "absolute best" method
"Directly" is a funny word in this context. As long as your control cavity shielding is connected to the ground lug on your jack, and your pickup cavity shielding is connected to your control cavity shielding, it's all directly connected to each other. Our minds tend to think of something like that as a path connecting things, but it's better to think of it as just one thing by itself.
(You could, if you wanted to, have a wire going from each cavity shield to the ground lug on the jack, but that would create a rat-nest of additional and unneeded wires in your control cavity. I strongly recommend that you don't want to do that.)
One test I do to see if everything is connected is to set my multimeter to the hundred ohm setting, then test for continuity/resistance between the external part of the jack and a wall of a pickup cavity, and between the jack and a tuner. If I have zero ohms between those three spots, then everything is directly connected between them. (It doesn't necessarily prove everything was done correctly or even done at all, but it's a good quick test with a high probability indication.)
Conventional jazz pickups are wired out of phase with each other, so when using both pickups they tend to cancel out any common mode EMI noise.
Have you tried connecting both pickups simultaneously direct to the jack and powering them up?
I would be curious to know if EMG sells these in a matched set with the phase reversed on one pickup. Perhaps you got two "left shoes" instead of a complementary set.
I actually like the idea of the resistor-in-place-of-pickup test. Just out of curiosity at this point.
I buy the "two left shoes" possibility, but since we're talking about Jazz pickups where the neck and bridge are different sizes, I think it would be hard to accidentally end up with two of the same (since one or the other would be an incorrect size), right?
I buy the "two left shoes" possibility, but since we're talking about Jazz pickups where the neck and bridge are different sizes, I think it would be hard to accidentally end up with two of the same (since one or the other would be an incorrect size), right?
@BlueTalon I just tested those locations (although I used the bridge instead of tuners as I have no strings on right now because of recent tests). I tested all over the place. Using a Thsinde auto meter, I got an average of 0.4 ohms depending on how much surface contact the leads made.
@byacey I haven't tried both pickups direct to jack, but I have to make individual pickups stand on their own as I mostly play bridge pickup solo. I only add the neck pickup when I need that fatter tone for Motown, Reggae, etc. As @dwizum stated, I have the dreaded Fender we-have-to-be-different-than-everyone-else measurements for my pickups. Bridge is slightly longer than neck.
@byacey I haven't tried both pickups direct to jack, but I have to make individual pickups stand on their own as I mostly play bridge pickup solo. I only add the neck pickup when I need that fatter tone for Motown, Reggae, etc. As @dwizum stated, I have the dreaded Fender we-have-to-be-different-than-everyone-else measurements for my pickups. Bridge is slightly longer than neck.
EMG makes a set of replacement pickups for Mexican-made Fender jazz basses where the pickups are the same size. Getting the wrong one of those pickups mixed in with a normal L/S set of J pickups would be highly unlikely, but it is at least theoretically possible.
Excellent.
It's not dreaded, it's idiot-proofing!
People at the factory would have to really try hard in order to successfully mess that up.
I didn't know that. If it's the case, do you think EMG could have missed this when I sent everything back to test on their bench?
