Hello, I recently accuired an electric bass with the following active circuitry:
http://www.artecsound.com/se3.html
It sounds great when the Balance pot is in the middle of the two pickups, but as I turn it either way, I get a high frequency hum introduced. There is no noise when the balance is in the middle. Anyone know what I can do to try and fix this? Thanks,
Justin
Hello, I recently accuired an electric bass with the following active circuitry:
http://www.artecsound.com/se3.html
It sounds great when the Balance pot is in the middle of the two pickups, but as I turn it either way, I get a high frequency hum introduced. There is no noise when the balance is in the middle. Anyone know what I can do to try and fix this? Thanks,
Justin
Heya G!
First off I’m not pretending to have any clue what’s wrong here. :)
When you say high freq., how high?
Is the level of hum directly proportionate to the amount you turn the knob away from dead center?
Hard to know exactly what’s going on without a schematic for the EQ, but if it’s humming at a frequency that you never hear out of a bass, I would guess that something on the EQ is fried. (personally I would take the shotgun approach, replacing all opamps)
If the hum is in the normal freq. range of your bass, I would look for questionable connections, ground loops, and especially wrong wiring to the pickups.
If this is a used bass there is no telling how it was abused in it’s past life, someone could have mistakenly plugged it into a hot speaker output just one time and smoked the opamps on the eq board.
Hehe I did a show once where the guitarist tried to power his active eq from a battery eliminator (wall wart). This scenario + tube amp make fire, much to the suprise of the guy who was stupid enough not to bring a battery to the show.
I gave him fair warning, he was enough of an idiot to call me stupid just before he flipped the switch and let the smoke out. :)
Please let me know what you find! ;D
Best!
Smash
Through very careful research, I’ve come to realize that the noise varies with the orientation of the bass. If I swing it to the left, I get no noise at all. I guess it is some sort of radio interferance or something like that. Thanks for your help Smash…
Justin
Was it factory installed or is it possible, that your pickups are connected “out of phase”. - So when your balance pot is in the middle position you’d get something like a humbucking noise cancellation?
Greets, Roger
I am almost sure that your bass has single coil pickups, and this type of pickup is very sensitive to outside interference such as the magnetic field of a monitor, for example. When built to be used in pairs, the other pickup’s coil is wound in reverse direction, with the magnets also in reverse polarity. When both pickups are on at equal volume, they cancel out the interference noise of each other, but add the actual sound signals to each other. So you get the sound, but not the interference.
So your bass is probably all right. But if the noise really bothers you, you can get humbucker pickups (one pickup has two coils inside, cancelling the noise by itself). The sound will also be different - single coil and humbucker pickups basically don’t sound alike.
Welcome to the paranoid world of guitar customizing and upgrading! ;D
Have you tried cleaning the pot? This is common on guitars for the sound to get staticy if the pot is dirty. There is even special pot cleaner you can get.
Hi!
Are you playing the bass with your PC turned on?
A CRT monitor is a huge source of noise for us guitar players…
Turn off the monitor when playing. Also some halogen-kind-of light produce noice to the pickups.. turn them off!
Hi!
Are you playing the bass with your PC turned on?
A CRT monitor is a huge source of noise for us guitar players…
Turn off the monitor when playing. Also some halogen-kind-of light produce noice to the pickups.. turn them off!
A Bass pickup array should not pick these up like a normal lead guitar because they are designed to only pick up the lower 2/3’s of the audable spectrum and not the whole spectrum, but it is worth trying. If this IS the case you might want to buy some new pickups.
A Bass pickup array should not pick these up like a normal lead guitar because they are designed to only pick up the lower 2/3’s of the audable spectrum and not the whole spectrum
I disagree!
Good bass pickups also transmit the upper part of the audable spectrum. Especially if you like funky slap sounds you really need pickups with good heights (up to more than 10-12kHz!) Â
Hi!
Are you playing the bass with your PC turned on?
A CRT monitor is a huge source of noise for us guitar players…
Turn off the monitor when playing. Also some halogen-kind-of light produce noice to the pickups.. turn them off!
Hey that was it! I have to play the bass through my computer, cause I’m in South Korea and my bass amp is in El Paso. Texas. The noise goes away when the monitor is off. So would a flat panel LCD fix that problem? Maybe that would be a good excuse to upgrade my display. Thanks uclaros!
The noise goes away when the monitor is off. So would a flat panel LCD fix that problem?
Yes, with a flat panel your problem will go away.
I had the same problem with my CRT and a electric guitar. The problem went away when I stepped back 2-3 meters from the CRT.
So before buying a new monitor you could try to play the bass at the other side of the room… ;D