[BackToBlack]

Ok Guys and Gals. Try this one on for size. I run my electric strat through my distortion pedal, yet when I crank up the tone and distotion up on the pedal, out comes this unbearable buzzing from my amp. I can't crank up even crank up tone, high, or gain without that dang buzzing. I am thinking this happens because I have a whimpy 19 watt amp. Do I need a bigger more powerful amp?? Thanks.

[allthumbs]

Try turning up the volume on your amp. You may be way over driving your amp if your cranking up your pedal.

[BackToBlack]

So, if I'm pumping too much into my amp, that may create the buzz? It seems like a need to upgrade from a practice amp.

[P-90]

Distortion/overdrive pedals tend to boost the noise level a lot. I think what allthumbs was trying to say was that getting more gain from your amp and less from your pedal might reduce it quite a bit.

High-impedance circuits tend to have more problems with noise pickup, but that shouldn't apply to a solid state amp unless something is funky with the grounding, or the design is unusually bad. In other words, I'm not at all sure that your amp is the problem, I lean towards considering it the least likely suspect.

Do you happen to be using single-coil pickups?

[BackToBlack]

Yes P-90, I have 3 single coils. I am trying to get a very electric sound, but when I turn up the gain, I hear everything ranging from my fingers touching the strings to releasing a tring.

[fly135]

"I hear everything ranging from my fingers touching the strings to releasing a tring."

Ahh, the joys of hi gain. You are just going to have to learn to control that. Also you might try different pup settings and lower the tone control. One of the advantages of a MultiFx box is that they usually have a dynamic noise reduction stage that helps with this.

[P-90]

Yeah, if you can stand using switch position #2 or #4, and/or staying away from fluorescent lights, your problems might well go away. I find that my guitars are extremely position-sensitive when using a lone single-coil -- if I'm holding it perfectly upright, no hum, but if I let it tilt slightly it hums like mad, and doubly so with a fuzz or overdrive pedal turned up.

I'd experiment with those sorts of things before I'd rush out to buy a bigger amp, because the bigger amp would probably do nothing except to let you hum at previously impossible levels.

[Stratrat]

You're going to get at least some hiss from just about any amp - especially if you've got distortion engaged and the gain cranked up. As Fly135 said, a lot of the multi-FX pedals have a noise gate which you can use to get rid of some of it. You could also add a noise gate pedal to your chain if you don't want to go multi-FX. Like P90 said, a higher wattage amp will just let you hiss even louder than you do now.

[Noodler]

Any system is going to have some noise. Hiss (white noise) is all the little quantum movements and cannot be removed completely from any system, but can be filtered out. Turning up the gain to full, you are magnifying everything, and that includes noise. The appeal of high gain is that it allows you to do things like legato runs and artificial harmonics easily because the guitar becomes so sensitive to your every little touch. It also greatly amplifies every little mistake you make too, so it takes some practice to play at high gain settings (called "the unforgiving factor").

A noise gate can greatly reduce that noise when you aren't playing, and for metal can also get you a better chunk, by cutting the notes a bit shorter and giving a faster attack. Line 6 Uber Metal has one built in for that reason, and it gives great chug.

Sounds like you are using too much gain though. That is the guitar is too sensitive to your touch for your liking. I bet if you reduce the gain or guitar volume to more realistic levels (and the drive/gain on your pedal) you'll be happier and it will sound better.

I agree with the others. Noise has nothing to do with wattage.

[P-90]

Originally Posted by Noodler

Any system is going to have some noise. Hiss (white noise) is all the little quantum movements and cannot be removed completely from any system, but can be filtered out. Turning up the gain to full, you are magnifying everything, and that includes noise.

Another issue that every electric guitarist encounters is that the noise floor, in any normal amplification circuit, is determined by the very first stuff that comes after the guitar. If you plug into a quiet preamp, you won't have very many noise problems no matter what you do after that. If you plug into a pedal with normal quality parts (cheap, believe me, the average pedal's electronics cost less than $2) and maybe a wallwart instead of a battery, you are likely to have major noise problems, which will be pretty difficult to suppress later in the amplification/effects chain. Plugging into a quiet, clean preamp or overdrive, even if it only boosts the signal a little bit, can get you around a lot of headaches.

[Noodler]

Another huge difference I've found is the tranformer you use to run your pedals. One I've got is a Sweda, it is quite old and has adjustable voltages and many different adapters. That thing produces no noise. Zip. It can make a mini-amp have no noise at full gain and volume. I guess that's why Boss charge so much for their tranformers (PSA series wallwarts)?

So P-90, that would make your cable supremely important then?

Paul Reed Smith says that the cable that comes after your fx has no effect at all on your signal, because your stomp boxes are low-impedence, it's like the second cable isn't even there! Interesting, huh?

[P-90]

Originally Posted by Noodler

So P-90, that would make your cable supremely important then?

Well, yes and no. A cable that is well made and shielded will usually help, but I wouldn't pay a lot for any cable which claimed to be more than that. Just the same, if you have a quiet power supply and a quiet input stage, that may eliminate enough noise that you finally notice the noise contributed by things like the cables, and the guitar's wiring and pots (potentiometers -- volume and tone knobs). That's where active pickups have an edge -- they boost the signal right at the pickup, so any noise that crops up between there and your amp will largely be drowned out by the (already powerful) signal. Picking up 5 millivolts of hum is terrible if your pickup only puts out 20 millivolts of signal, but if your pickup's putting out 1500 millivolts, nobody will ever notice those 5 little millivolts, they'll be like a quiet conversation going on in the middle of a really loud concert.

It is likewise possible to kick cord noise's butt by building a tiny, low noise preamp into the jack that plugs into the guitar, but for some reason the industry doesn't think this is a product that anyone would want, so they have never existed as anything more than a DIY project: FET Preamp Cable

[Noodler]

Yes! I've been looking for a project like this to have another go at electronics. Last thing I built was a crystal set as a teenager. Even I can build that pre-amp. After that I want to try a stomp-box from a place that sends out kits.

[Noodler]

Originally Posted by Stratrat

You're going to get at least some hiss from just about any amp - especially if you've got distortion engaged and the gain cranked up. As Fly135 said, a lot of the multi-FX pedals have a noise gate which you can use to get rid of some of it. You could also add a noise gate pedal to your chain if you don't want to go multi-FX. Like P90 said, a higher wattage amp will just let you hiss even louder than you do now.

My multi FX is ye olde and noisy. I bought a Behringer (cheap as chips) Noise Reducer today, so I'll post how it goes with high gain settings and after that multi fx unit when I try it.

I wonder how Back to Black is going with it?

[Noodler]

OK, so I tried Stratrat's Noise Reduction pedal idea this evening. Here's the result:

1. Definite clean up of hiss at high gain while touching guitar (Earthing it). Quiet as a mouse in fact.
2. Some tone suck.
3. Some compression on clean settings, which is nice and unexpected!

New problem:

It seems at really high gain, you'd better have your guitar Earthing perfectly. The Noise-Reducer made my dual humbucker guitar quiet as a mouse at full gain, but as soon as I wasn't touching metal on guitar, oh, the hiss! (Even with noise reducer on).

I wonder if hi-gain just makes any shielding issues you have come top the fore?