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I think we could make a tuba really buzz if we tried hard enough.

Are you using single coils? I have found that lighting sources and all sorts of stuff really make my strat go crazy.
I am actually thinking of fully shielding every guitar I own.

I do use a noise gate (built into a boss ME-25) at the end of my chain and it helps a ton if you use it right, it can actually bring in its own noise if you dial it up too high as you can actually here it trying to intervene

Also have a Buffer 2nd in my chain to clean everything up.
I don't have issues with one spot pedals (currently using 3) but I found that they cannot sit directly next to the powersupply for my digitech time bender, not sure why but depending on where they are oriented they can cause other things to buzz a bit, may want to just try isolating evertyhing from everything else.

Just don't have any quiet parts in your songs. Problem. Solved.

hbombgraphics wrote:I think we could make a tuba really buzz if we tried hard enough.

Are you using single coils? I have found that lighting sources and all sorts of stuff really make my strat go crazy.
I am actually thinking of fully shielding every guitar I own.

I do use a noise gate (built into a boss ME-25) at the end of my chain and it helps a ton if you use it right, it can actually bring in its own noise if you dial it up too high as you can actually here it trying to intervene

Also have a Buffer 2nd in my chain to clean everything up.
I don't have issues with one spot pedals (currently using 3) but I found that they cannot sit directly next to the powersupply for my digitech time bender, not sure why but depending on where they are oriented they can cause other things to buzz a bit, may want to just try isolating evertyhing from everything else.

Hmmm... all good points. Yeah, the pups are single-coils (it's a passive Fender Jazz bass), so that definitely contributes. And I do have a Boss TU-2, which should help with buffering (I assume), but it's the first pedal in my chain. Interesting about the proximity effect on the power sources. I actually had that problem with my Wolf Computer for one show when I was powering it with a Boss wall wart, and everything else on the daisy chain - it made another pedal (I can't remember which one) hum like a sumbitch. That was a one-time issue, though.

kosta wrote:Just don't have any quiet parts in your songs. Problem. Solved.

This man, he has a point.

jrmy wrote:

hbombgraphics wrote:I think we could make a tuba really buzz if we tried hard enough.

Are you using single coils? I have found that lighting sources and all sorts of stuff really make my strat go crazy.
I am actually thinking of fully shielding every guitar I own.

I do use a noise gate (built into a boss ME-25) at the end of my chain and it helps a ton if you use it right, it can actually bring in its own noise if you dial it up too high as you can actually here it trying to intervene

Also have a Buffer 2nd in my chain to clean everything up.
I don't have issues with one spot pedals (currently using 3) but I found that they cannot sit directly next to the powersupply for my digitech time bender, not sure why but depending on where they are oriented they can cause other things to buzz a bit, may want to just try isolating evertyhing from everything else.

Hmmm... all good points. Yeah, the pups are single-coils (it's a passive Fender Jazz bass), so that definitely contributes. And I do have a Boss TU-2, which should help with buffering (I assume), but it's the first pedal in my chain. Interesting about the proximity effect on the power sources. I actually had that problem with my Wolf Computer for one show when I was powering it with a Boss wall wart, and everything else on the daisy chain - it made another pedal (I can't remember which one) hum like a sumbitch. That was a one-time issue, though.

kosta wrote:Just don't have any quiet parts in your songs. Problem. Solved.

This man, he has a point.

"I saw this awesome show where the bass player never stopped playing even during breaks!"

This type of stuff is why Eric Johnson is both brilliant and insane

20ft speaker cable is something I would totally avoid on a guitar head and cab mostly for keeping the tone. not sure if that 20ft cable is actually causing problems with hum though. you forgot to mention if your cables are really cheap or what. if you upgrade every cable in your setup, you will usually notice a difference in signal to noise ratio as well as more brightness and attack. even if it doesn't fix it completely, its a welcome improvement for other reasons.

FullCustom wrote:I know one-spots can be pretty noisy, especially when they are powering multiple pedals. If you have a isolated supply for your pedals and a power conditioner with line filtering. You should have no problems with noise even with single coil pickups.

This. I love the simplicity of the one-spot but God is it noisy. I used a friend's Pedal Power 2+ and hum was decreased well over 70%. I really need to just pony up and get one along with a decent pedalboard.

My one spot has never cause any issues as for noise...at least that's what I thought. During typical playing, its unnoticeable. But if you go plug my board into my test amp, which I use for the headphone out, you will hear all sorts of buzz/hum/whine. Thus there must be noise normally as well, it's simply harder to notice without headphones.

It could also be that your other amp doesnt play nice with a dirty ground or doesnt have any power filtering at all. Its really a combination of how the one spot interacts with your gear. That same amp will play nice with other pedals still using the same one spot. All 3 things together cause the problem.

Just turn your amp up much, much louder, and whenever anyone asks about the buzz and hum, just say "WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THIS BUZZING NOISE? YOU WANT ME TO PLAY BASS? OKAY" and just fuggin' play, man.

theavondon wrote:Just turn your amp up much, much louder, and whenever anyone asks about the buzz and hum, just say "WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THIS BUZZING NOISE? YOU WANT ME TO PLAY BASS? OKAY" and just fuggin' play, man.

This should be reworked into a life philosophy

I live by the code of "just fuggin play, man".

I feel like we need a mug and t-shirt with that slogan

theavondon wrote:I live by the code of "just fuggin play, man".

hbombgraphics wrote:I feel like we need a mug and t-shirt with that slogan

Yup. Definitely. LET'S DO IT!

Also, EYG, Jero & all of y'all bring up some good points - my cables are o.k., but probably not great. I should definitely switch to an isolated power supply (been thinking that for quite a while now, this just reinforces that). And I don't think this will bug me much when playing live - the band's just been writing a lot of new material, which usually involves learning the songs at lower volumes and sitting pretty close to the amps, so I'm just really noticing the hiss.

another thing is to make sure the pedal power supplys are plugged into the same wall socket as the amp to prevent ground loop hum

Aight, so I'm bringin' this one back from the dead. Long story short (if you don't wanna read the first post): I got a new amp, which when I plug my bass in direct is dead quiet. No background noise. The cooling fan is louder than the hiss out of this thing. Beautiful. Plug in the board: plenty o' hiss, no matter how few pedals are in the chain, whether they're daisychained power-wise or not.

WELL.

Last week I got a TC Electronic Flashback. Messin' around with it to find the settings I like (just about all of them), I put it at the end of my chain. Realized that whenever I turned it on, PRESTO: background hiss gone! But it didn't affect my clean toanz at all, and there was no volume drop. Signal remained nice & clear. So I turned the delay level all the way down, and used it as a gate for that practice. It worked perfectly, but seems a little ridonkulous as a long-term solution.

So... any hypotheses as to why that would happen? Is it something I could replicate with a cheap dedicated noise reduction / buffer type thing?