Guitar Pickup Noise

[rlcramer]

It seems like I've been tracing a noise problem in my studio for longer than I can remember. I was finally able to eliminate the possibility of ground loops - I ran my entire studio on a single UPS (no electricity, just battery power from the same UPS), and the noise is still there whenever I play my guitar,. So I've pretty much gotten things narrowed down to some type of emi or interference that my guitar pickups (and bass pickups) are hearing and translating into all of my tracks. I was able to take my guitar, a laptop and a portable interface down to another floor of my house, and the noise went away completely. So sadly - it seems to only be effecting me when I'm playing in my studio.

My question is - does anyone have any experience with these types of issues? I've gotten lots of recommendations from people saying that it's a bad cable, bad power, 60 cycle hum, etc, but I've been able to eliminate all of that stuff through weeks of troubleshooting.

If anyone has any ideas of something that might be causing this (radio station in the area, baby monitor for my next door neighbors house, etc) please feel free to drop in a suggestion. I'm a little happier now since I know I can at least take my laptop downstairs, and record clean tracks for reamping later in my studio, but I'd obviously prefer to get everything done in the same room if I can.

I'm hoping there is some type of fix, and this isn't something that I'll just have to live with.

Thanks,

Bobby

 

[Loki Laufeyiarson]

Could be some appliance in your studioroom that causes it. Have you tried turning almost everyhing (except for the things your REALLY can't do without while playing/recording) off and then one by one turn it on again while checking for the noise to reappear everytime? You could also try walking around in your studio with your guitar and listen where the noise gets louder.

 

[rlcramer]

Hey Loki - thanks for the suggestion. Don't laugh, but I actually shut down the main circuit breaker to my house one day so no street power was running through my house at all, and then I ran my laptop (on it's own internal battery), and my guitar plugged into an Apogee One interface (running off of an APC UPS that was on battery only) and the noise was still there while I was in my studio. The noise didn't seem to change much as I moved my guitar around my studio room. However, when I took the same exact "battery powered" setup to my downstairs, the noise went away completely.

It's bizarre...

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Bobby

 

[Loki Laufeyiarson]

This might sound weird, but have you tried walking around inside and outside your entire house with a compass and check if it points north everywhere? If the needle moves around, there are some magnetic fields that could interfere with your guitar. Shutting down the main circuitbreaker would be needed to make it a usefull check. Mapping out where the compass doesn't point north could help in analyzing where the problem is coming from.

 

[rlcramer]

Loki - I'll give that a shot. I've tried pretty much everything else that I can think of, so nothing sounds wierd to me at this point.

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll report back once I try it out.

Bobby