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Tapewounds causing electrical hum
- Thread starter tkozal
- Start date
DiabolusInMusic
Functionless Art is Merely Tolerated Vandalism
Black beauties make no noise on my completely shielded P bass. So laugh away. In fact, no strings make any added noise on my shielded basses. I have yet to test tapewounds, but I expect them to not add hum, as once again, my bass has no hum with ANY strings on it. Therefore, it doesn't require any connection from the string in order to do anything.
Yep, Roger is correct in describing what is happening, but I think he is wrong in both his solution (avoid all coated strings) and his expectation that this is normal for reducing noise. For many instruments and many pickup configurations, you don't need to limit your string choices... you just need to add shielding.
I'm sure there are some instruments out there with pickups that are so noisy that you just can't shield the cavities enough to prevent this noise... And I'm also sure that many players just don't want to deal with adding shielding or modding their bass at all. If you're in one of these two camps, I suppose limiting your string choices is an acceptable option.
I personally wouldn't tolerate such an instrument, myself...
I just thought of another reason why this MIGHT happen... Make sure the ball ends of your coated strings are making electrical contact with your grounded bridge.
The inner core of the coated string absolutely does need to be grounded, or the string itself will act like an antenna introducing noise straight into the pickup.
Perhaps some people have bridges where the ball ends are not making electrical contact... maybe due to a paint on the bridge, or plastic cover, or something to that effect. Conductive strings would still make ground contact by sitting on the bridge saddles, but of course coated strings would not work this way.
Just take an ohmmeter and see if you get continuity between the string ball ends and another spot on the bridge.
The inner core of the coated string absolutely does need to be grounded, or the string itself will act like an antenna introducing noise straight into the pickup.
Perhaps some people have bridges where the ball ends are not making electrical contact... maybe due to a paint on the bridge, or plastic cover, or something to that effect. Conductive strings would still make ground contact by sitting on the bridge saddles, but of course coated strings would not work this way.
Just take an ohmmeter and see if you get continuity between the string ball ends and another spot on the bridge.
^ holy crap Troph that's what I said first !!!!Your post is light on theory supporting your claim, and strong on bad advice.
Looks like I do know what I'm saying, Sadowsky concurs. Read the article soverytired linked. I guess YOU can still learn something after all. Maybe YOUR theory is....bunk.
For what it's worth, I had the same problem when trying these strings (and tried them on several basses). I was never grounded when playing them unless I was touching the bridge or knobs. The supplier (I won't name which one) actually refunded my money, indicating that they knew this was an issue.
It takes that right pickups to get away with using them. Usually with no exposed poles?
It takes that right pickups to get away with using them. Usually with no exposed poles?
DiabolusInMusic
Functionless Art is Merely Tolerated Vandalism
Does your bass have hum regardless of string choice? I imagine it does and you were just using the touch of the strings to complete the shielding.
Troph, I'm pretty sure that the core of the string not being grounded is indeed the issue. In my case its definitely NOT the fact that I'm not grounded.
I hadn't thought about the ball end though... I only considered the bridge saddle. Now that I think of it I would expect this to be grounded but it doesn't appear to work that way. Will multimeter this when I get home.
Apparently you still don't understand what I'm saying. No one here has ever denied that grounding the player eliminates the player as a source of EM radiation. (Although several posts at the start of this thread were confused about how this process actually works...) Mr. Sadowsky just described this phenomenon yet again, although he didn't bother to explain how it works. There is nothing wrong with his description of this grounding effect, in and of itself.
Where we disagree is the idea that this "player-string grounding noise elimination" is normal and necessary to achieve a quiet bass signal. It just isn't.
If you want to continue to live in denial about your shielding problem without even trying to explain why you think the science I have described is wrong, that's fine with me. You can shout "bunk" all day long, but you haven't disproved a thing...
This would be interesting if it turns out to be the problem for you. I haven't encountered this problem before, but in theory, it's a possibility.
You haven't disproved my statement either. If you were to put in as much time reading as you do writing massive posts you would find I said that shielding is always a good thing. The OP said when he switched to tapes the problem arose. I never tried to say shielding is bunk and should be discarded only that in the case of the OP the change was caused by the strings. I also related the fact that I had just swapped out DR coated on my fully shielded bass and it is once again dead quiet.
OP, yes shield your bass it is always the thing to do. Even shielded you will find tapes are going to be somewhat noisier. End of story.
OP, yes shield your bass it is always the thing to do. Even shielded you will find tapes are going to be somewhat noisier. End of story.
On my Yamaha (as yet, looking unshielded) with tapes, I found a big difference in noise just by flipping the ground switch on the amp (Peavey TNT 130). Enough to move improving its shielding much further down the list. Sometimes the simple things do work.
(Rejoining the discussion)
Do ANY of the boutique bass makers produce their basses WITHOUT the ground wire using typical high-impedance pickups?
Troph claims emphatically that the string grounding is not necessary with proper shielding. I'd think that if that were true, at least a few handmade basses would come without it and depend on proper shielding. Is that a far fetched assumption?
We know Sadowsky uses the ground wire per the article linked. I don't know if they shield their controls / pickups.
Do ANY of the boutique bass makers produce their basses WITHOUT the ground wire using typical high-impedance pickups?
Troph claims emphatically that the string grounding is not necessary with proper shielding. I'd think that if that were true, at least a few handmade basses would come without it and depend on proper shielding. Is that a far fetched assumption?
We know Sadowsky uses the ground wire per the article linked. I don't know if they shield their controls / pickups.
strange, because what the coating of the strings do is isolate you from them, so it should be equivalent to not touching the strings (or bridge).
It's one thing I don't like about tapewounds, but they can sound good...
I never said such a thing. I said that player grounding (e.g., by touching the strings) is not necessary.tbplayer59 said:
It's a very good idea to ground the string cores, given the fact that they are good conductors and are situated only a few millimeters above the coil windings of the pickups. If not grounded, strings can absolutely act like antennae and will absolutely induce noise into the pickups.
I've read that when humbuckers were new (1950s), Gibson made guitars without grounding the bridge/strings. But even humbuckers can't reject all induced noise, so eventually Gibson grounded their bridges too. It's simple, cheap, and it doesn't require the player to change behavior.
The player, on the other hand, is not a great conductor, and is not located a few millimeters above the pickup windings. Most of the EM radiation from the player enters through the back of the guitar, which is why a good shielding job can eliminate most of this noise.
Forcing the player to maintain constant contact with the strings is also not very practical. Players like to move their hands around, gesture, clap, drink beer, etc, so whenever this happens, the ground connection will be lost, and noise will enter the signal chain due to the lack of shielding. If you really want to ground the player in order to avoid shielding your instrument, a separate grounding strap attached to the input jack is a much more practical solution, IMO.
There's nothing to disprove. Your statement that shielding will not solve the OP's issue has no scientific basis, and you haven't bothered to provide any.
I never said shielding is bad man! I'm saying that I have experienced what OP is with a shielded bass. Crikey.
Fair enough. I have no doubt that there are a few exceptions to any rule. For instance, there are probably some instruments where the pickups themselves are somehow just overwhelmingly sensitive to noise, and the small amount entering from the front of the pickups (the only unshielded area on a well-shielded instrument) is enough to cause an unacceptable noise level. I haven't yet encountered it, but I'm sure it's possible.
So far, I have a 100% success rate in addressing this type of noise issue with a careful and thorough shielding job... I think I've done 6 basses (mostly P and J basses) and 2 guitars (both strats). If I were to encounter an instrument where the shielding didn't solve the problem, I'd either try a pup swap or sell it if it weren't worth the effort. I simply won't tolerate an instrument that requires physical contact at all times to stay quiet!
