I've never used one of these so can't comment.

Try looking at your lighting circuit. Dimmer switches are usually the culprits, replace them with standard switches and lower your bulbs' wattage if you want ambience. Switch the lights off to check!

Try checking your guitar is earthed properly (cavity lined with foil, backs of pots soldered with a piece of thick wire to the bridge), and ensure you use humbucking pickups or single-coil pairs out of phase.

Use some initiative and trial and error. Turn everything off including lights, get the gain right up on the guitar and switch things on one by one to find your culprit.

Every studio and building is different. You need to use initiative to find the problems in yours. If the worst comes to the worst, take the guitar and amp elsewhere and try it there, see fi the problem travels. If it does, get the amp serviced.

J

The EBTECH addresses ground loops, a different problem than what you are experiencing ( EMF / electro magnetic interference) .. sometimes a grounding strap (like that which is used in assembling electronics) clipped to the bridge of the guitar can help. Also as you mentioned, turning the guitar player to sit within the null of the EMF can help ..

Every room will have some EMF being generated in it, if there is electricity present. Hum bucking pickups were developed in the 50's to address this problem. On the other hand, there's nothing that sounds as good as a single coil pick up ... so we do the best we can with the techniques mentioned and a little judicious use of noise gates ..

...there's nothing that sounds as good as a single coil pick up.

I wouldn't necessarily say that...

patrick_like_static wrote:

...there's nothing that sounds as good as a single coil pick up.

I wouldn't necessarily say that...

Well I would ... ohh yeah, I did!

I, personally, hate the sound of single coil pickups 8)

My cousin is a violinist and she plays live with a wire woven through to her string ballends that runs up her arm, down her back under her clothing and to the ground - its the only way she can play in some venues without hum overshadowing her playing. Quite how safe she is in this condition I couldn't say :D

The earthing strap Kurt describes would have the same effect technically as the wire soldered to the bridge and then the pots (all decent guitars should have this anyway but the nature of the pot construction means the joints are never wonderful and they tend to come loose eventually - 'silvering' the entire pot back before you start is worth doing) will have the same effect, linking your strings to your cable shield and then to earth.

If your earths are no good in the first place this won't help. You can buy a small plug-tester very cheaply at any DIY store.

And I still believe the Duncan Classic '59 is the best sounding pickup around - and its a humbucker. KMSTV. (Kurt's milage seems to vary).

Let us know how you get on,

Jamie

thanks for the help! great advise. Will check it out as soon as I get a electric guitar to test.

regards,
Sidhu

8-)