It’s about bloody time John, 😂 I’ve been banging on about this for years now. Wireless can have its issues yes, but the benefits to your workflow are just resounding! Well done posting this!
I've had a similar noise in my house. I already use both a 2.4 and 5 GHZ wireless setup as well as traditional cords. It affects all my guitars, even with humbuckers. I've heard it suddenly "turn on" and yes, usually in the evenings. I'm playing and everything is great and then "bop" the noise starts. I walk around the house and ask if anyone turned on an appliance or light and nope. I've gotten expensive power conditioner power strips and such, but that didn't fix it. I finally pulled the mains to the house. No electricity on at all. I use a Yamaha THRII30 amp so it was on battery power and the offending noise was still there. It must be outside my house. Ugh. Samurai Guitarist also had this issue and walked around the neighborhood with amp and guitar until he found the source in a power box in some ones front yard and the electric company had to come out and fix it. My local music store also had this happen. Everything was fine and then suddenly all their guitars sounded horrible. They contacted the strip mall owner and went in late at night and pulled all the power for every store. They turned on the music store and it was quiet. Then one by one they returned power to each shop. Suddenly it happened. A restaurant a few spots down had just remodeled and put in new lighting and it was the problem. This is also why it only happened later in the day.
Did the wireless units help in your situation if your guitar was plugged directly into the wireless transmitter (rather than a cord to your first pedal and the wireless to the amp etc) ?
If you have cable ground loop issues, try an 1:1 insulation transformer in the cable. Wireless can cause additional noise problems when RF noise is inserted into the pickups. Sometimes this can be avoided by changing the antenna direction of the wireless transmitter though. Often cheap electronic power supplies of LED lamps and alike can cause serious noise problems as well.
That kind of aggressive buzz is usually caused by a dimmer switch somewhere in the house. I have to click off my dimmable lighting when recording or using any AC-powered gain pedals. Fluorescent lights can sometimes cause it as well.
Being a communications engineer in my previous life, I dealt with many forms of interference (RF) noise or power noise. Power related AC hum can travel up the ground side of your cabling or if close enough to outside power lines or even in house lighting, can radiate into your pedalboard system or pickups as you well know.
True, but that noise you are hearing is random high frequency hash rather than some harmonic of 50hz. You can hear the 50hz hum underneath the induced EFI buzz and they are completely different. I have the same issue in my own house.. Since the wireless unit bypasses the specific buzz issue he has, but the 50 cycle hum is of course still there (it's a single coil guitar of course) it is probably not being induced in his guitar pickups through proximity, nor into his pedalboard, I would presume? I have some experience in doing data cable plant installation and testing in my former consulting life, and have had to deal with real POTS copper voice installations at client sites and even the firm I currently work for (I got us moved entirely off copper before we were even going to be forced off of it by Verizon here) and the kinds of induced noise we would hear on those Centrex trunks was sometimes laughable.. Most of the time it did seem like stable derivatives of 60 or 120 hz on those POTS lines.. I think this is different. Sounds like Switch mode power supply noise a bit maybe, and I think it is coming up through the signal ground of his gear as long has he has a direct electrical connection between the guitar and the first piece of gear in chain which includes ANY piece of gear that is connected to mains power.
Very interesting! Is the cable acting like an antenna and picking up stray RF from the environment? Would a different cable with better shielding solve the problem? What about shielding in the guitar cavities? Cheers!
@@jackprice7828 I have some wa-14s that pick up RF occasionally, still can't find a solution to save my life. Luckily it's not so loud that it'll interfere with my recordings but its certainly there
Guitarist Larry Mitchell used this NUX wireless system at a house concert at my home last year. Part of his show is to wander around and interact with the crowd. It sounded so good that I ordered it. Their system is really smart. The case doubles as a charger. Sound quality is great, and the apparent benefit of eliminating that hum.
Every place I've lived contributed to excessive noise on guitars. I changed to using Noiseless Pickups, Humbuckers, and Piezos long ago. I also use a Furman RP-8 Power Conditioner as a central hub to plug my gear into so I can avoid ground loops. The "Scott Uhl" Channel has many videos testing, comparing, tips and useful insights about using Wireless Setups. The one thing I'm uncertain about is if the WiFi signal transmits the same "frequency range" as a guitar cable. 🤷
In 35 years of session, festival, bar and theater gigs I've never had the need for all these gizmos. A good guitar, a great amp and a very light smattering of essential effects with an isolation cabinet does the trick. I see people working so hard to recreate the tones of good gear when they could just get good gear in the first place and can't help but shake my head and wonder if this is all more about selling gimmicky stuff than sounding good... That being said; I love your guitar work and insight.
@@intenzityd3181 b.s. I've tried everything from Katana to Spark to Helix and you can get close, but not quite there. Hours of futzing with tone to kind of get there, compared to plug in and play just doesn't make sense. Tme is valuable.
For those of us who absolutely detest cables of any sort around our feet when we are playing (especially live), wireless systems are a true bonus. I too do front of house sound in the band and I do the sound in the duo I play in, so a wireless system is a MUST. If you are really worried about a difference in tone or latency, try some different systems. I'm sure you won't be able to tell the difference. I use the Boss WL50 system which is permanently fixed to my pedalboard. A small advantage of this is that I can put the transmitter into the receiver to not only establisg the best frequency, but to charge as well 👍
If the interference only happens when the sun goes down then it may be that your Inverter is the problem. During the day the system should be charging your battery bank and then feeding any excess power to the grid; if your on the grid that is. At night it changes to Drawing from your battery bank/s and 'inverting' that DC to give you AC mains. Could be that it's faulty, badly earthed or needs extra filtering. An inverter being run over (or very near) it's upper current limit could do this also. Under heavier loads the 'sine' shape of the AC wave it produces could be compromised.
John's system does not have a battery bank when I asked him about it. All the excess power generated is feeding the grid, I believe.. But there IS an inverter coming from the panels, yes? They are DC, and the inverter has to keep sync with the grid power, I wonder if it is just defective and it only shows up as the power it generates falls below a certain level relative to the grid?
@@christopherjbutler There are lots of things that can go wrong with an inverter, and its likely the cap bank which exists to clean the AC signal for lack of better words. Most inverters have cap banks that can be swapped out, but its a matter of testing to find out which one is the issue.
I got a set of Amazon Basic wireless system on prime day for $35 and I love them and recommend them. I get a about 5 hours of battery time out of them and have no latency under 30 feet.
My Guthrie Charvel came from the factory without a grounding cable from the bridge to earth and was unusable plugged in. I soldered one in myself and that helped, but it is still a noisy guitar, especially playing live. Getting a Line6 G10 solved all issues with noise with it.
Ive been doing this for years in my studio. With a cable the noise makes my tones unusable for any recording. And im not talking 60 cycle hum from single coils. All my guitars have hum with a cable. And the hum disappears with my wireless rig. Been on Shure GLXD for 6 years. Eliminates the noise and simplifies my workflow. Some purists freak about not having a cable, especially for recording. But ive recorded so much for so long with both cable and wireless and have determined it's made zero difference from an audio quality perspective, and from the noise perspective it's been a huge positive.
I noticed that using these wireless dongles (nice and inexpensive) reduced the single coil buzz (no cable acting as an antenna I guess). But then I noticed that every now and again the signal would break up/drop out occasionally which annoyed the hell out of me. I eventually realised that the downstairs small room I use as an office and a practise area had my new internet wifi router a few feet away from the guitar receiver. I tried them in my room up the stairs where I keep most of my kit and I didn't get this problem. I did a bit of research and found the BOSS WL-60 which when it turns on, finds the wifi channel that is the quietest/least used and then puts the guitar over that. That fixed the drop out issue downstairs. It was a bit more expensive than the dongles but by then I liked playing wirelessly and just wanted a product that worked in every room in my house even next to my WiFi router. My two and a ha'pennies' worth on this topic.
I'm pretty sure that's not latency of the wireless system, just the sound waves themselves. Sound is slow and it doesn't take a lot of distance to really feel it
Came here to say just that. The wireless system doesn’t add latency with distance. It’s the distance between the speakers and your ears that’s causing the latency you’re hearing.
@@leesbassment6393 yeah sure, the wireless system transmits at the speed of light, whatever latency there is is fixed - unless you are playing at huge distances from the speaker, like disaster area playing from a nearby moon
I foot away from the source is 1mS. You can feel latency from about 10mS/10 feet upwards, dependending on your own sensitivity. I regularly have people with modellers mistaking the time it takes a noise gate to open with latency. Not suggesting JNC is doing this here.
Guitars and cables really can act like antennas, i even remember actually receiveing radio through my old Marshall. I have used a digital wireless for 15 years now and i also use modeliing which may possibly also hinder these problems since its no the same as an all analog amp.
Yes, latencies will occur, even if you use a long guitar lead, but it is because from where you stand when you play, is a position that you'll never hear any clear delay. When you're even just twenty or thirty feet away, the sound waves will naturally have a perceptible delay. Watch a drummer on an out door stage from a long way off, and this will be more noticeable.
John check to see if there are any lights turned on (in all rooms) that use dimmer switches. Turn the lights off and see if this fixes the issue. It did for me. It was one specific room with a dimmer switch that was causing the issue. The sun goes down and lights go on! I'd be shocked if this wasn't the problem.
I have the Nux B2 on the coffee table, in front of me. Nothing wrong with them. I must say, I imported a wireless system, from a small family business in the UK, called Smooth Hound, about 8 years ago. The quality is up there with high end guitar cables. Highly recommended for live use.
Sometimes there's a coating on the bridge of the guitar if it's made from cheaper metal mix to prevent it from rusting and it'll prevent the bridge from actually grounding if it's insulating, sometimes scraping it away and resoldering or just replacing the saddles and screws with stainless steel helps
Grounding is working, you can hear the buzz mute down when he touches the strings.. Even if scraping the coating would make the noise go completely silent when touching the strings, when you play, any time you hands leave the stirings for a second, the noise leaps to full volume if you are playing with any kind of overdrive.. :( However that is a cool thing to keep in mind, re the coating, in general for better grounding!
Glad you got around to testing the wireless solution since we talked about it back in May, I think it was? That's when I figured out that it works in my studio. It is still baking my noodle about what it could specifically be at your house that's doing it John. My house the same type of noise but it is there 24x7 My house is going to involve turning off all the circuit breakers save for the dedicated circuits running to my studio and seeing if the noise is not there, then turning them on one by one.. And I fear the noise will be there even if my guitar and my amp / audio interface are the only things in the house that are connected to the breaker panel. That means a ground issue affecting the whole house, perhaps coming from outside the house. But yep wireless "solved" the problem or at least proved it was not RF in the environment that was causing this particular high frequency hash noise A wireless unit works, As does using lead from your guitar to a battery powered practice amp without anything mains powered involved in the signal chain, or a NUX Mighty Plug Pro headphone amp. Glad it worked for you as well! What I am taking away from what happened to you, (which appears to be the same thing as my situation) There is noise which is NOT 50 or 60 cycle hum, and the noise is there regardless of hum cancelling positions on your guitar, regardless of what direction you have the guitar facing etc The noise is NOT ambient RF with your guitar picking it up from the air, or the same thing would happen with the wireless as well. It seems in both of our cases, that the guitar is getting induced noise coming from having a physical electrical connection to gear that is mains powered at least SOMEWHERE down the signal chain from it. I presume from the neutral or the earth ground feeding to the gear is where the noise is being carried in. Something may be inducing noise into your house over your earth ground connection to the water pipes, perhaps, and may be related to lighting or something that comes on in the neighborhood when the ambient light drops? Not sure how your solar system hands off to the mains, and I am not versed in how solar power and the inverters and the grid actually interact.. But I would think that while solar power is being generated through the inverters the panels use might be MORE likely to cause induced line noise when they are generating power than when not.. But who knows, there may be something wrong with that integration system to your house and it shows itself when the voltage from the panels drops.. I would still at some point try to figure out if the noise comes on suddenly at full strength or does it gradually get worse over time as the day ends... If it is sudden, it would seem like something switching on in the neighborhood or in your house, if it comes on gradually, then maybe it is related to how much voltage and current are coming from your panels.. It would be good to check out if the noise is there on a stormy day where the sky gets dark with clouds in the middle of the day etc... Anyway, yeah, as long as your guitar (or mine, the noise has that same harsh hashy edge to it) has that physical connection, it seems to act as both an RF SOURCE and RECIEVER for the particular noise you are hearing... I think the guitar is picking up the noise on the signal ground when using a lead as opposed to the wireless unit, and inducing it into the pickup coils, which is sent on the hot signal wire to the rest of the signal chain. Put your hands on the strings and you introduce a local ground reference which seems to shunt the noise mostly, but not completely. The string ground wire to the bridge is meant to help with general ambient EFI / RF interference and seems to help here as well. But this induced noise is overwhelming and you can't even play normally because at times you will take your hands off the strings as you change position etc.. and with gain, the noise is way to loud to end up with a good recording. Noise gates are not a good solution for this either.
John I will just say this, 2.4Ghz will run into interference from lots of appliances like the tablet the sound guy is using, microwave ovens, TV remotes and sound systems for the hearing impaired in public halls. 5.8Ghz will not.
I use 9v rechargeable battery bank to power my pedals to bypass this. Sometimes an old school transformer based PSU in good condition also works. Switching mode PSUs can be a real pain.
Wireless systems are great - I’ve used Boss ones for years, and the only complaint I have is it slightly colours my tone. It’s a touch darker sounding when using it, but I’m not sure if this is down to it trying to simulate the loading of a longish cable, or because the amps are ‘seeing’ different impedance values; either way it’s a pretty acceptable trade off for the convenience.
The Waza Boss Air headphones are pretty rough with noise as well and they also have a tendency to drop signal with too much interference which makes them all but unusable.
Noisy dirty power! Its a problem everywhere. I believe in the UK you have 220VAC, not sure. But even in the US I notice my power noisier depending on what might be running in the way of things like AC, refrigerators, washers, etc. Or sometimes even by houses around us. That wonderful distinctive "buzz".
If you are connecting via usb, some motherboards drop switching noise from their vrms into the ground and that comes through. A USB isolator (or better motherboard/power supply) fixes it.
John has this problem regardless of what mains powered equipment he is plugging into directly with a guitar cable, including directly into amps, or his PC audio interface etc. (we have been chatting about it on and off over the past couple years, both of us have a similar noise issue, his is just tied to the sun setting every day for some reason)
My Taylor T5Z is the quietest guitar I’ve found for recording. The stacked hum-buckers and preamp seem to dog the trick. All my other guitars of more traditional types make some buzz.
K-Lines are well built and high end, I would assume they are.. But the noise is not there when he uses the wireless system, so it is not being picked up from the ambient RF or EMI in the room in the air.. The noise is being induced through the guitar lead into the guitar.. I don't think shielding would help.
Is it an Opto-Isolator? or a 1 to 1 Isolation transformer kind of thing? There's a Palmer PLI-01 which I was looking at for my same issue at my house (except it is 24x7).. Only thing is that passive device might not be designed for the impedance of guitar pickups and might load them down too much. Checked out the intro video for the Hum Debugger.. it appears to be an intelligent signal processor that finds the hum and the harmonics on the hum and removes them like a guitar de-noiser plugin might.. This might work. But the problem is the noise is concentrated in the high frequencies and is not a stable frequency center.. But the EHX sound demo video is pretty impressive with that guitar they put a line transformer right next to.
DC transformers in lights will interfere with your signal. Or rather, their field will. So first, check for that. Any wall warts at all are tiny transformers, and LEDs can be the worst offenders of all. Issues with your house's path to ground seems the likelier culprit. Find an electrician, and he can measure what's called "power quality." In order to get electricity to go long distances, they dramatically decrease the current and dramatically increase the voltage of the power lines. Then, the big transformer outside your house converts it back to normal voltage and current. It's possible you have dirty power at that transformer and need a capacitor, but it's unlikely. If so, the power company will provide and install it. From there, two feeders go into your panel; one for each phase or leg of the alternating current, each pulsating out-of-phase of course, at 60Hz in America and 50 in most other countries. Then the breakers split it all up into different circuits on one leg or the other of the phase (using both poles of an alternating current is far more efficient, but the house has to try and achieve balance which is never really possible, and that is the tradeoff for that efficiency: interaction between unbalanced loads on the path to ground.) In a three-phase commercial building, everything is going to work differently than this and a lot more engineering goes toward power quality, but in a house you can end up with a lot of issues--capacitance values that your utility company can read and address if you call them--and one of the main issues comes from something unique to a single phase setup: an unbalanced load. When they designate which circuits to put on what breaker number, they try to account for balancing the house's total load between the two legs. The window a/c, dryer and oven are so big, they pull from both legs and are automatically balanced. But anything that doesn't need a special plug in the wall, unbalances the house's total load. Any unbalanced load (mismatch of resistive load between AC legs) is sent to ground. This path to ground is where your concern probably lies. That should be enough information to get you off the ground. No pun intended.
Oooh, that unbalanced load being sent to neutral thing is interesting.. Perhaps not for John (problem only happens at sundown for him) but for my house, where the problem is there 100 percent of the time.. I am going to analyze my breaker panel spreadsheet right now.. (out of utter frustration a couple of years back I got a Klein Tools ET310 AC Circuit Breaker Finder , a friend with a walkie talkie and a lot of time and crawling behind and above things, and I have identified every single outlet and fixture and switch by floor and have a spreadsheet with all the details, clipped to the door of the breaker box, and up in google docs LOL) came in very handy many times since then. The problem is lessened on the home run 20 amp circuits I pulled to my studio compared to the older 60's wiring circuits in the house which in some cases have spliced in grounds in junction boxes later in their runs, borrowed from other newer 3 wire Romex runs to those areas of the house. I presume that stuff was done in the 80's era refit with grounded 3 prong outlets in most of the house There are two refrigerators in the house, as one example, and there's a kitchen and a kitchenette.. All the heating, the stove and ovens, and even the clothes dryer are natural gas, so I don't have those kinds of loads, but this is intriguing.. Thanks!
@@christopherjbutler Yes and ground loops are a major problem in houses with renovation of any sort, you described a case study scenario of grounding issues from new work and old work together.
@@CraigFlowersMusic Yep, that part of the house wiring is where I am expecting the issue to likely be coming from.. if not something coming in from the breaker panel earth bond to the water pipe coming into the house.. I have heard horror stories of a neutral going bad to one house in a group of houses fed by a pole transformer and that house using the ground path through the water pipes, and up into the musician neighbor's house and through their panel back to the pole.. He figured it out after turning off the main breaker and using a battery powered guitar amp and walking around the house until he noticed the noise getting really really bad near his water pipes.. He called the power company and had he not, and had tried disconnecting the ground wire from the water pipe, or if the water company came and needed to replace the water meter it would have killed someone. Hey Craig, are you anywhere near Long Island NY by any chance?
I have the same problem at my house, (I suggested to John to try using the wireless as a fix when we were chatting about the same noise problem in my house except 24x7 in my case) even my EMG SA equipped strat exhibits a little bit of that noise unless I am touching the strings. EMGs are the only ones that really work to combat this. Humbuckers will do it too, although I don't think quite as badly.
One pub I play in has bad electrics. It plays havoc with all digital pedals.. analogue are fine. Sure its the hand driers in the toilets. As seems to be in sync with them. 🤷♂️
It’s about bloody time John, 😂 I’ve been banging on about this for years now. Wireless can have its issues yes, but the benefits to your workflow are just resounding! Well done posting this!
I've had a similar noise in my house. I already use both a 2.4 and 5 GHZ wireless setup as well as traditional cords. It affects all my guitars, even with humbuckers. I've heard it suddenly "turn on" and yes, usually in the evenings. I'm playing and everything is great and then "bop" the noise starts. I walk around the house and ask if anyone turned on an appliance or light and nope. I've gotten expensive power conditioner power strips and such, but that didn't fix it. I finally pulled the mains to the house. No electricity on at all. I use a Yamaha THRII30 amp so it was on battery power and the offending noise was still there. It must be outside my house. Ugh.
Samurai Guitarist also had this issue and walked around the neighborhood with amp and guitar until he found the source in a power box in some ones front yard and the electric company had to come out and fix it.
My local music store also had this happen. Everything was fine and then suddenly all their guitars sounded horrible. They contacted the strip mall owner and went in late at night and pulled all the power for every store. They turned on the music store and it was quiet. Then one by one they returned power to each shop. Suddenly it happened. A restaurant a few spots down had just remodeled and put in new lighting and it was the problem. This is also why it only happened later in the day.
Did the wireless units help in your situation if your guitar was plugged directly into the wireless transmitter (rather than a cord to your first pedal and the wireless to the amp etc) ?
If you have cable ground loop issues, try an 1:1 insulation transformer in the cable. Wireless can cause additional noise problems when RF noise is inserted into the pickups. Sometimes this can be avoided by changing the antenna direction of the wireless transmitter though. Often cheap electronic power supplies of LED lamps and alike can cause serious noise problems as well.
That kind of aggressive buzz is usually caused by a dimmer switch somewhere in the house. I have to click off my dimmable lighting when recording or using any AC-powered gain pedals. Fluorescent lights can sometimes cause it as well.
Being a communications engineer in my previous life, I dealt with many forms of interference (RF) noise or power noise. Power related AC hum can travel up the ground side of your cabling or if close enough to outside power lines or even in house lighting, can radiate into your pedalboard system or pickups as you well know.
True, but that noise you are hearing is random high frequency hash rather than some harmonic of 50hz. You can hear the 50hz hum underneath the induced EFI buzz and they are completely different. I have the same issue in my own house..
Since the wireless unit bypasses the specific buzz issue he has, but the 50 cycle hum is of course still there (it's a single coil guitar of course) it is probably not being induced in his guitar pickups through proximity, nor into his pedalboard, I would presume?
I have some experience in doing data cable plant installation and testing in my former consulting life, and have had to deal with real POTS copper voice installations at client sites and even the firm I currently work for (I got us moved entirely off copper before we were even going to be forced off of it by Verizon here) and the kinds of induced noise we would hear on those Centrex trunks was sometimes laughable.. Most of the time it did seem like stable derivatives of 60 or 120 hz on those POTS lines..
I think this is different. Sounds like Switch mode power supply noise a bit maybe, and I think it is coming up through the signal ground of his gear as long has he has a direct electrical connection between the guitar and the first piece of gear in chain which includes ANY piece of gear that is connected to mains power.
@@christopherjbutler agree
Very interesting! Is the cable acting like an antenna and picking up stray RF from the environment? Would a different cable with better shielding solve the problem? What about shielding in the guitar cavities? Cheers!
@@jackprice7828 I have some wa-14s that pick up RF occasionally, still can't find a solution to save my life. Luckily it's not so loud that it'll interfere with my recordings but its certainly there
@@SlyRyFry There are so many RF sources around us even in the giga hertz bands these days.
Guitarist Larry Mitchell used this NUX wireless system at a house concert at my home last year. Part of his show is to wander around and interact with the crowd. It sounded so good that I ordered it. Their system is really smart. The case doubles as a charger. Sound quality is great, and the apparent benefit of eliminating that hum.
Every place I've lived contributed to excessive noise on guitars. I changed to using Noiseless Pickups, Humbuckers, and Piezos long ago. I also use a Furman RP-8 Power Conditioner as a central hub to plug my gear into so I can avoid ground loops.
The "Scott Uhl" Channel has many videos testing, comparing, tips and useful insights about using Wireless Setups. The one thing I'm uncertain about is if the WiFi signal transmits the same "frequency range" as a guitar cable. 🤷
In 35 years of session, festival, bar and theater gigs I've never had the need for all these gizmos.
A good guitar, a great amp and a very light smattering of essential effects with an isolation cabinet does the trick.
I see people working so hard to recreate the tones of good gear when they could just get good gear in the first place and can't help but shake my head and wonder if this is all more about selling gimmicky stuff than sounding good...
That being said; I love your guitar work and insight.
All you need is a modeller, none of that.
@@intenzityd3181 b.s. I've tried everything from Katana to Spark to Helix and you can get close, but not quite there. Hours of futzing with tone to kind of get there, compared to plug in and play just doesn't make sense. Tme is valuable.
For those of us who absolutely detest cables of any sort around our feet when we are playing (especially live), wireless systems are a true bonus. I too do front of house sound in the band and I do the sound in the duo I play in, so a wireless system is a MUST. If you are really worried about a difference in tone or latency, try some different systems. I'm sure you won't be able to tell the difference. I use the Boss WL50 system which is permanently fixed to my pedalboard. A small advantage of this is that I can put the transmitter into the receiver to not only establisg the best frequency, but to charge as well 👍
If the interference only happens when the sun goes down then it may be that your Inverter is the problem.
During the day the system should be charging your battery bank and then feeding any excess power to the grid; if your on the grid that is.
At night it changes to Drawing from your battery bank/s and 'inverting' that DC to give you AC mains.
Could be that it's faulty, badly earthed or needs extra filtering.
An inverter being run over (or very near) it's upper current limit could do this also.
Under heavier loads the 'sine' shape of the AC wave it produces could be compromised.
John's system does not have a battery bank when I asked him about it. All the excess power generated is feeding the grid, I believe.. But there IS an inverter coming from the panels, yes? They are DC, and the inverter has to keep sync with the grid power, I wonder if it is just defective and it only shows up as the power it generates falls below a certain level relative to the grid?
@@christopherjbutler There are lots of things that can go wrong with an inverter, and its likely the cap bank which exists to clean the AC signal for lack of better words. Most inverters have cap banks that can be swapped out, but its a matter of testing to find out which one is the issue.
I got a set of Amazon Basic wireless system on prime day for $35 and I love them and recommend them. I get a about 5 hours of battery time out of them and have no latency under 30 feet.
My Guthrie Charvel came from the factory without a grounding cable from the bridge to earth and was unusable plugged in. I soldered one in myself and that helped, but it is still a noisy guitar, especially playing live. Getting a Line6 G10 solved all issues with noise with it.
Ive been doing this for years in my studio. With a cable the noise makes my tones unusable for any recording. And im not talking 60 cycle hum from single coils. All my guitars have hum with a cable. And the hum disappears with my wireless rig. Been on Shure GLXD for 6 years. Eliminates the noise and simplifies my workflow. Some purists freak about not having a cable, especially for recording. But ive recorded so much for so long with both cable and wireless and have determined it's made zero difference from an audio quality perspective, and from the noise perspective it's been a huge positive.
I noticed that using these wireless dongles (nice and inexpensive) reduced the single coil buzz (no cable acting as an antenna I guess). But then I noticed that every now and again the signal would break up/drop out occasionally which annoyed the hell out of me. I eventually realised that the downstairs small room I use as an office and a practise area had my new internet wifi router a few feet away from the guitar receiver. I tried them in my room up the stairs where I keep most of my kit and I didn't get this problem. I did a bit of research and found the BOSS WL-60 which when it turns on, finds the wifi channel that is the quietest/least used and then puts the guitar over that. That fixed the drop out issue downstairs. It was a bit more expensive than the dongles but by then I liked playing wirelessly and just wanted a product that worked in every room in my house even next to my WiFi router. My two and a ha'pennies' worth on this topic.
I'm pretty sure that's not latency of the wireless system, just the sound waves themselves. Sound is slow and it doesn't take a lot of distance to really feel it
Came here to say just that. The wireless system doesn’t add latency with distance. It’s the distance between the speakers and your ears that’s causing the latency you’re hearing.
@@leesbassment6393 yeah sure, the wireless system transmits at the speed of light, whatever latency there is is fixed - unless you are playing at huge distances from the speaker, like disaster area playing from a nearby moon
@@leesbassment6393yes! Speed of sound is a lot slower than electronics.
I foot away from the source is 1mS.
You can feel latency from about 10mS/10 feet upwards, dependending on your own sensitivity.
I regularly have people with modellers mistaking the time it takes a noise gate to open with latency. Not suggesting JNC is doing this here.
Please explain to me how a digital audio device that converts the signal DOESNT have any latency?? Please Id LOVE to hear what you come up with.
Guitars and cables really can act like antennas, i even remember actually receiveing radio through my old Marshall. I have used a digital wireless for 15 years now and i also use modeliing which may possibly also hinder these problems since its no the same as an all analog amp.
Yes, latencies will occur, even if you use a long guitar lead, but it is because from where you stand when you play, is a position that you'll never hear any clear delay. When you're even just twenty or thirty feet away, the sound waves will naturally have a perceptible delay. Watch a drummer on an out door stage from a long way off, and this will be more noticeable.
Been using the Boss wireless for years. Wife loves not tripping over cable.
I’ve got a wireless system and tbf this was one of the reasons I went for it. No regrets.
John check to see if there are any lights turned on (in all rooms) that use dimmer switches. Turn the lights off and see if this fixes the issue. It did for me. It was one specific room with a dimmer switch that was causing the issue. The sun goes down and lights go on! I'd be shocked if this wasn't the problem.
I have the Nux B2 on the coffee table, in front of me. Nothing wrong with them.
I must say, I imported a wireless system, from a small family business in the UK, called Smooth Hound, about 8 years ago. The quality is up there with high end guitar cables. Highly recommended for live use.
Recently purchased some cheap ones on eBay and was getting a lot of noise, but when I plugged in my cable it was quite as a lamb, so returned them.
Sometimes there's a coating on the bridge of the guitar if it's made from cheaper metal mix to prevent it from rusting and it'll prevent the bridge from actually grounding if it's insulating, sometimes scraping it away and resoldering or just replacing the saddles and screws with stainless steel helps
Grounding is working, you can hear the buzz mute down when he touches the strings.. Even if scraping the coating would make the noise go completely silent when touching the strings, when you play, any time you hands leave the stirings for a second, the noise leaps to full volume if you are playing with any kind of overdrive.. :(
However that is a cool thing to keep in mind, re the coating, in general for better grounding!
I have been using the same wireless system for a few years , I have never had any issues for the price I paid its very good bang for the buck.
Really enjoy your channel. Love that yellow strat, what make and pickups are in it?
Glad you got around to testing the wireless solution since we talked about it back in May, I think it was? That's when I figured out that it works in my studio.
It is still baking my noodle about what it could specifically be at your house that's doing it John. My house the same type of noise but it is there 24x7
My house is going to involve turning off all the circuit breakers save for the dedicated circuits running to my studio and seeing if the noise is not there, then turning them on one by one..
And I fear the noise will be there even if my guitar and my amp / audio interface are the only things in the house that are connected to the breaker panel. That means a ground issue affecting the whole house, perhaps coming from outside the house.
But yep wireless "solved" the problem or at least proved it was not RF in the environment that was causing this particular high frequency hash noise
A wireless unit works, As does using lead from your guitar to a battery powered practice amp without anything mains powered involved in the signal chain, or a NUX Mighty Plug Pro headphone amp.
Glad it worked for you as well!
What I am taking away from what happened to you, (which appears to be the same thing as my situation)
There is noise which is NOT 50 or 60 cycle hum, and the noise is there regardless of hum cancelling positions on your guitar, regardless of what direction you have the guitar facing etc
The noise is NOT ambient RF with your guitar picking it up from the air, or the same thing would happen with the wireless as well.
It seems in both of our cases, that the guitar is getting induced noise coming from having a physical electrical connection to gear that is mains powered at least SOMEWHERE down the signal chain from it.
I presume from the neutral or the earth ground feeding to the gear is where the noise is being carried in.
Something may be inducing noise into your house over your earth ground connection to the water pipes, perhaps, and may be related to lighting or something that comes on in the neighborhood when the ambient light drops?
Not sure how your solar system hands off to the mains, and I am not versed in how solar power and the inverters and the grid actually interact.. But I would think that while solar power is being generated through the inverters the panels use might be MORE likely to cause induced line noise when they are generating power than when not.. But who knows, there may be something wrong with that integration system to your house and it shows itself when the voltage from the panels drops..
I would still at some point try to figure out if the noise comes on suddenly at full strength or does it gradually get worse over time as the day ends... If it is sudden, it would seem like something switching on in the neighborhood or in your house, if it comes on gradually, then maybe it is related to how much voltage and current are coming from your panels.. It would be good to check out if the noise is there on a stormy day where the sky gets dark with clouds in the middle of the day etc...
Anyway, yeah, as long as your guitar (or mine, the noise has that same harsh hashy edge to it) has that physical connection, it seems to act as both an RF SOURCE and RECIEVER for the particular noise you are hearing... I think the guitar is picking up the noise on the signal ground when using a lead as opposed to the wireless unit, and inducing it into the pickup coils, which is sent on the hot signal wire to the rest of the signal chain.
Put your hands on the strings and you introduce a local ground reference which seems to shunt the noise mostly, but not completely. The string ground wire to the bridge is meant to help with general ambient EFI / RF interference and seems to help here as well. But this induced noise is overwhelming and you can't even play normally because at times you will take your hands off the strings as you change position etc.. and with gain, the noise is way to loud to end up with a good recording. Noise gates are not a good solution for this either.
John I will just say this, 2.4Ghz will run into interference from lots of appliances like the tablet the sound guy is using, microwave ovens, TV remotes and sound systems for the hearing impaired in public halls. 5.8Ghz will not.
I had the exact same issues & wireless worked for me as well. I’ve now ditched the cable completely!
I use 9v rechargeable battery bank to power my pedals to bypass this.
Sometimes an old school transformer based PSU in good condition also works.
Switching mode PSUs can be a real pain.
Wireless systems are great - I’ve used Boss ones for years, and the only complaint I have is it slightly colours my tone. It’s a touch darker sounding when using it, but I’m not sure if this is down to it trying to simulate the loading of a longish cable, or because the amps are ‘seeing’ different impedance values; either way it’s a pretty acceptable trade off for the convenience.
The Waza Boss Air headphones are pretty rough with noise as well and they also have a tendency to drop signal with too much interference which makes them all but unusable.
Noisy dirty power! Its a problem everywhere. I believe in the UK you have 220VAC, not sure. But even in the US I notice my power noisier depending on what might be running in the way of things like AC, refrigerators, washers, etc. Or sometimes even by houses around us. That wonderful distinctive "buzz".
If you are connecting via usb, some motherboards drop switching noise from their vrms into the ground and that comes through. A USB isolator (or better motherboard/power supply) fixes it.
I had a similar hum and changed my power supply. That fixed it. I also use a Furman power conditioner.
John has this problem regardless of what mains powered equipment he is plugging into directly with a guitar cable, including directly into amps, or his PC audio interface etc. (we have been chatting about it on and off over the past couple years, both of us have a similar noise issue, his is just tied to the sun setting every day for some reason)
I'm hearing Electric Joy by Richie Kotzen. I love this way of playing :)
Martin Miller intro 🤘🏻
My Taylor T5Z is the quietest guitar I’ve found for recording. The stacked hum-buckers and preamp seem to dog the trick. All my other guitars of more traditional types make some buzz.
Hey,mid it works, it works 🤷🏻♂️
Things get noisey in my bedroom after dark too 😂😂
What model is this wireless system? Thanks
I was going to ask if you had solar panels and then you mentioned it. Does seem like it's connected to that system somehow
Is your guitar shielded ?
K-Lines are well built and high end, I would assume they are.. But the noise is not there when he uses the wireless system, so it is not being picked up from the ambient RF or EMI in the room in the air.. The noise is being induced through the guitar lead into the guitar.. I don't think shielding would help.
An end in itself indeed
Have you tried an EHX HumDebugger?
Is it an Opto-Isolator? or a 1 to 1 Isolation transformer kind of thing? There's a Palmer PLI-01 which I was looking at for my same issue at my house (except it is 24x7).. Only thing is that passive device might not be designed for the impedance of guitar pickups and might load them down too much.
Checked out the intro video for the Hum Debugger.. it appears to be an intelligent signal processor that finds the hum and the harmonics on the hum and removes them like a guitar de-noiser plugin might.. This might work. But the problem is the noise is concentrated in the high frequencies and is not a stable frequency center.. But the EHX sound demo video is pretty impressive with that guitar they put a line transformer right next to.
Had a similar problem but it was 24/7, tried the wireless solution to elimenate the ground issues, didnt fix anything for me
Does the wireless system have some sort of noise cancellation built in?
been using boss wireless for so long I forgot other people even have this isssue
DC transformers in lights will interfere with your signal. Or rather, their field will. So first, check for that. Any wall warts at all are tiny transformers, and LEDs can be the worst offenders of all. Issues with your house's path to ground seems the likelier culprit. Find an electrician, and he can measure what's called "power quality." In order to get electricity to go long distances, they dramatically decrease the current and dramatically increase the voltage of the power lines. Then, the big transformer outside your house converts it back to normal voltage and current. It's possible you have dirty power at that transformer and need a capacitor, but it's unlikely. If so, the power company will provide and install it. From there, two feeders go into your panel; one for each phase or leg of the alternating current, each pulsating out-of-phase of course, at 60Hz in America and 50 in most other countries. Then the breakers split it all up into different circuits on one leg or the other of the phase (using both poles of an alternating current is far more efficient, but the house has to try and achieve balance which is never really possible, and that is the tradeoff for that efficiency: interaction between unbalanced loads on the path to ground.) In a three-phase commercial building, everything is going to work differently than this and a lot more engineering goes toward power quality, but in a house you can end up with a lot of issues--capacitance values that your utility company can read and address if you call them--and one of the main issues comes from something unique to a single phase setup: an unbalanced load. When they designate which circuits to put on what breaker number, they try to account for balancing the house's total load between the two legs. The window a/c, dryer and oven are so big, they pull from both legs and are automatically balanced. But anything that doesn't need a special plug in the wall, unbalances the house's total load. Any unbalanced load (mismatch of resistive load between AC legs) is sent to ground. This path to ground is where your concern probably lies. That should be enough information to get you off the ground. No pun intended.
Oooh, that unbalanced load being sent to neutral thing is interesting.. Perhaps not for John (problem only happens at sundown for him) but for my house, where the problem is there 100 percent of the time..
I am going to analyze my breaker panel spreadsheet right now..
(out of utter frustration a couple of years back I got a Klein Tools ET310 AC Circuit Breaker Finder , a friend with a walkie talkie and a lot of time and crawling behind and above things, and I have identified every single outlet and fixture and switch by floor and have a spreadsheet with all the details, clipped to the door of the breaker box, and up in google docs LOL) came in very handy many times since then.
The problem is lessened on the home run 20 amp circuits I pulled to my studio compared to the older 60's wiring circuits in the house which in some cases have spliced in grounds in junction boxes later in their runs, borrowed from other newer 3 wire Romex runs to those areas of the house. I presume that stuff was done in the 80's era refit with grounded 3 prong outlets in most of the house
There are two refrigerators in the house, as one example, and there's a kitchen and a kitchenette.. All the heating, the stove and ovens, and even the clothes dryer are natural gas, so I don't have those kinds of loads, but this is intriguing.. Thanks!
@@christopherjbutler Yes and ground loops are a major problem in houses with renovation of any sort, you described a case study scenario of grounding issues from new work and old work together.
@@CraigFlowersMusic Yep, that part of the house wiring is where I am expecting the issue to likely be coming from.. if not something coming in from the breaker panel earth bond to the water pipe coming into the house.. I have heard horror stories of a neutral going bad to one house in a group of houses fed by a pole transformer and that house using the ground path through the water pipes, and up into the musician neighbor's house and through their panel back to the pole.. He figured it out after turning off the main breaker and using a battery powered guitar amp and walking around the house until he noticed the noise getting really really bad near his water pipes.. He called the power company and had he not, and had tried disconnecting the ground wire from the water pipe, or if the water company came and needed to replace the water meter it would have killed someone.
Hey Craig, are you anywhere near Long Island NY by any chance?
@@christopherjbutler I.B.E.W. Local 453, Springfield MO.
Maybe try a set of noiseless pickups...?
I have the same problem at my house, (I suggested to John to try using the wireless as a fix when we were chatting about the same noise problem in my house except 24x7 in my case) even my EMG SA equipped strat exhibits a little bit of that noise unless I am touching the strings. EMGs are the only ones that really work to combat this. Humbuckers will do it too, although I don't think quite as badly.
One pub I play in has bad electrics. It plays havoc with all digital pedals.. analogue are fine. Sure its the hand driers in the toilets. As seems to be in sync with them. 🤷♂️
Sounds more like circumventing the problem. You should talk to someone with a little knowledge in electronics to help you properly sort this out
Nice seeing the Titans mug @johnnathancordy! 👍😎