Electrical gurus - EMI noise in my home studio

[MG-Chris]

I've posted this on a couple of forums, but I know you guys know just about everything, so hopefully you can help me out.

This is a new issue that popped up in the last couple of weeks, and before I call an electrician to check/replace my house ground, I figured it was worth throwing out here. I'm getting EMI noise on every one of my guitars, through both my Axe-II and my 6505+. My house is a side-by-side two family, and fortunately my brother is on the other side which helped me eliminate some variables.

Here's what I've tried:

- Different guitars (15 of them)
- Different cables (planet waves, mogami, monster)
- Different power cords
- Different outlets
- Different outlets in different rooms (completely different circuit)

- I killed the main power on my side, and ran power to the other side, with only the amp plugged in. Noise is still there. That's with the main breaker on my side flipped off.

- I killed the power on the other side, just the amp on my side running, noise is still there. (This eliminates the possibility that it's coming from the other unit in the condo - unless my brother is hiding a 100-inch CRT and a generator somewhere..)

So just me, in the room, with any guitar and any cable through either my Axe-Fx or my 6505, I get EMI noise. It's not 60cycle, it's a bit higher. It doesn't matter where either rig is plugged in, and it's directional. If I turn the guitar away from the front of my house, it goes away _almost_ entirely. Through the Axe-Fx, the noise is there in my wedges, studio monitors, and headphones. (Each of which I disconnected and ran separately - eg: The Axe-Fx with ONLY headphones plugged into it, the noise is still there.)

The amps themselves are silent without a cable plugged in.

The only other things that are powered are my hardwired alarm/fire system, and my cablemodem (which pulls power from the line). That's where I'm going to look next - I have been having some Comcast issues, but while that's a possibility, I am getting a LOT of noise, and that'd have to be some serious power coming through the cable line.

What else should I check?

Again, for a checklist:

- Noise on both amps.
- Noise on every guitar.
- Noise on every cable.
- Two completely separate home electrical systems, same problem.
- Amps quiet as a mouse without a cable plugged in.

Current is a strong/consistent 120v, and I checked my outlets with a tester which indicated that all of the grounds are good. House is about ~15 years old. I have a 500w isolation transformer inline as well.

Here's a clip. This is with no boost/drive.

Hum-default by factanonmusica on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

And the waveform:

Any insight on what I should be trying next would be mucho appreciated. I don't think drinking a bunch of beers will solve it, but I'm going to give it a shot just in case.

 

[outloaf]

I went through hell with that crap for a year and a half... Unfortunately you can either build a faraday cage or move. I moved. Is there a transformer near your house?

P.S. That sound haunts my dreams.

 

[rlcramer]

I hate to make such a useless, non helpful post, but I live with this same fucking nightmare. Ever since I moved into my current house, I haven't been able to record a single fucking noise free guitar or vocal track EVER! It gets my blood boiling just thinking about it.

I look forward to the day when I have enough money to move to a new house. I've tried EVERYTHING. Killing the mains, running off of a UPS, recording in every room, basement, garage, attic, etc. The noise is ALWAYS there, and it is the EXACT same frequencies as your clip. If anyone could figure this out for me, I'd pay them a lot of cash. And for the inevitable idiots who are about to flood this thread with "it's a ground loop," please save your breath....it's not even close to a grounding issue, or a cabling issue, etc.

Good luck to the OP - I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for any useful info...

Bobby

 

[Mutant]

When all else fails:

Any good portable interface + any laptop + forest far away from the city = absolutely no EMI noise.

Yes i am serious...

 

[outloaf]

When all else fails:

Any good portable interface + any laptop + forest far away from the city = absolutely no EMI noise.

Yes i am serious...

Amen!

 

[MG-Chris]

For anything else, I suggest you guys to check out the Hum Eliminator (or something like that) made by the compagny EBtech... It's good for a charge of a few amps so if you want to plug your whole rig you might want to calculate how much energy you need and maybe buy 2.

edit: here's the link for the small device. You may check the other products but I'm telling you about this one cause that's all you need I beleive. http://www.ebtechaudio.com/humxdes.html
It's design for ground loops issues but you might wanna give it a try anyway.

Other than that, I'd suggest to look for "isolation transformers". google around

I have the hum eliminator already, actually. It does nothing. That's more for noisy power. My power's clean, I have noisy, uh, air.

I tried the EH Hum-Debugger as well. It works, but it's basically a really lousy noise gate. There's no way you could ever record with one in your signal chain.

Thanks though.

 

[MKS]

• Are you sure your rig is hum-free? Have you used your equipment anywhere else?
• Have you tried temporarily shutting off your fans inside the computer? I once had a hum that was caused by the video card fan. The noise disappeared after installing a new video card.
• Do you have any old appliances running (freezer, fridge)?
• Have you tried shutting off your HVAC?
• Have you shut off any wireless networking?
• Any Fluorescent lights?
• Are you using a subwoofer? Try to disconnect.

 

[kev]

Wow dude, you're pretty far down the road with this. Looks like you've tried everything I can think of. I thought my scenarios were hell until I saw this! Do you live near a nuclear test site lol. I cant believe the ebtech hum eliminator has not worked the trick, that think has always been a gem.

 

[RedDog]

Those fucking energy saver bulbs kicked my ass for a while, but the only thing I can think of is if any of your neighbors (within a fifty foot radius) have flourescent lighting and/or there's a big ass transformer in your backyard.

 

[kev]

Didnt know energy bulbs caused interference! Better switch mine out...

 

[outloaf]

I really hate being a naysayer but there is nothing that can be done about EMI and guitar pickups. I found that the culprit is almost always a large transformer box somewhere in the vicinity of the house and it's interference can go as far as a half of a city block. I've walked around my old neighborhood with a guitar, distortion pedal, and my headphones to try and find places that I would at least get a null in the EMI..nothing usable. That being said, I had to go to my parents house to record guitar DI's and then reamp back at my place so I really do know the pain you're feeling right now.

 

[MG-Chris]

Thanks for the posts guys - even if they don't help my EMI issue, it feels a little better to know that I'm not alone, haha.

I just bought this house, so moving is out of the question. I have been planning on finishing the basement to use as a studio, so this may be a boot in the ass to get it done sooner. That said - have any of you tried/heard about using this type of shielding paint?

http://www.lessemf.com/paint.html

It's almost a hundred bucks a liter, but I figure it might be worth a shot to do the room (it's 15x15) and then paint over it. Other than that, I see some rolls of copper mesh on Amazon that aren't cheap - it's run me about a grand to do just the forward facing wall (where most of the noise is coming from). I'm not against ripping the sheetrock down and putting the copper behind it, but that's a pretty expensive gamble.

 

[::XeS::]

Wow as I did a research with the research tool for a similar problem, I see that you replied today. I guess we felt the need to talk about this problem on the same day.
I'm fed up.. but I have some solutions (just fed up still cause I ain't bought anything yet )

So yes man, I know what you mean about not being a ground loop.

I have a similar problem, I get the noise of my computer PSU as soon as the FireWire cable of my audio interface touches the computer. It does not matter if I touch the connector on the PCI card or the computer case itself, and trust me my computer and all my gears are well connected, well grounded and there's no ground loop (and I'm a Electrical Engineering student btw so I'm not yet a pro but I know I'm doing my shits correctly).

If it can help anyone, in my case, the problem is around the chipset of the PCI/FireWire card (which connects to the computer's motherboard). I do not have a Texas Instrument chipset, I have the VIA chip.

I need to find a PCI/FW with a TI chipset, which are the best for audio and avoid the electrical noise.

I have the same problem with TI chipset...it's a fuckin ground loop in my multi socket. It's a nightmare because before you find the cause of the noise you have to do lot of try....a ground loop can be caused by a device but you notice the noise in other devices...for example with my macbook I had lot of noise thru my monitors....it was the external monitor that kept the noise and it passed thru the socket, the interface, the firewire, into the monitors...

 

[LeSedna]

How loud is the signal ? Can't you cancel it with noise cancellation plugins like Waves X or Z noise, something more fancy than just a noise gate ? You can try with the integrated multitool plugin in reaper for free if you don't have something equivalent. If it's not too loud you can decently cancel such a noise and lose almost no quality. At least it's a backup solution.

 

[RedDog]

Didnt know energy bulbs caused interference! Better switch mine out...

The cheap ones were the worst, plug in and switch bulbs, see which ones are less noisy.

Oh, and wear rubber gloves..... Just do that for me.

 

[MG-Chris]

Just bumping this with some updates, in case I get lucky enough to have someone recommend me the magic bullet for fixing this. Gating everything at 50db blows.

Here's my home power on a scope. I grounded to the outlet casing, and put the hot probe on a power cord half unplugged. Safety first!

To make things weirder, outside of my house is dead silent, so the problem is definitely something to do with my home electrical system. The EMI that was outside before is gone, and I have looked awesome as fuck rolling around my front yard with a JP7 and a little battery powered Danelectro strapped to my hip, blasting out slayer riffs for my neighbors.

As soon as I walk back inside, the hum is there. The two points it's the worst at are my cable TV run that goes from my basement (from the street) up to my studio (second floor) and outside at the actual electrical meter.

5 feet away from the meter, no noise. The meter is on the opposite side of my house from my studio, so I'm assuming the power is just dirty as hell throughout.

If I unplug the cable from the street, the noise is still there. (I don't know why the EMI would hop onto the cable wire, but I assume it's because they share a ground?) I had hoped that this would be The Fix, but de-cabling my house didn't do it.

I've had the power company come by, but as soon as I pick up a guitar the guy's eyes just glaze over. All they seem to care about is that my lights are on.

Putting the scope on the power _should_ show the noise in the line, but that curve looks pretty clean to me. I'm not an EE by any means though, so it's possible that I'm just doing it wrong, hahah.

Any extra insight would be awesome. I'm going to start looking into whole-house line conditioners now, and if I "Try" one of those, it's about a $2000 crap shoot that I have to have hard-wired to my mains by an electrician. Yeesh...

 

[::XeS::]

Fuckin' EMI noise....Actually I'm doin' lot of tests too because everytime you don't understand what's the cause of the noise...

 

[korbiar]

so have you solved your problem ?

 

[sprack]

This isn't an old house with 2-prong only is it? You might also look into having your ground (electrical) tested. Sometimes the electrician gets lazy and makes a ground loop when they daisy chain. Another option is if its a newer house they can drill through the facia and tie a new ground line to the rebar in the foundation. If its an older structure the other option is to dig a 20ft trench along the house, bury rebar in it and tie that to ground.

Another culprit, do you have any light dimmer in your house?

Nevermind, just read your comments on the fractal forum. You've been through the ground tests.

 

[Plendakor]

It's not 60cycle, it's a bit higher.

It cannot be a little higher than 60Hz.