Guitar Hum

[zpyder]

I play an epiphone coronet, maybe some of you have heard of it, which has a slanted single and a humbucker (both Hot Rails).  I recently moved into a new house and I'm getting a very inconvienient hum/buzz out of my setup when I'm in my house.  My bassplayer is having the same problem.  Big problem since we've just begun recording sessions (at my house for now).  If you've even been too close to a computer monitor and heard that annoying hum, that is pretty much the sound I'm getting.  I've gone all over my house with amps, plugging into different jacks and standing in different places.  The buzz definately DOES change, but there appears to be no one single source (ie as I walk a straight line it gets better, then worse, then better again).  I live in an urban area with plenty of possibility of radio/cell phone/power line interference, and also I'm aware that the house I'm living in has some pretty screwy wiring.

I wonder what anyone thinks I should try first to rectify this problem - should I rewire and reshield my (and my bassplayer's) guitars... should I build some sort of power cleaning module for my AC source?

Any advice would be VERY much appreciated.

thanks!
zpyder

[Arn C.]

A big culprit is flourescent lights.  If you have any on in that area, turn them off when playing.  I guess you can shut one thing down at a time until you find the culprit, unless it is a combo of a bunch of them.

I know, I used to have to turn off everything except our gear when we did recordings.  Even the refrigerator coming on and off affected our recording.

I fianlly purchsed a triplite line conditioner/regulator with filtering for audio.  This works great except for the cost: $500 big ones!
Good Luck!
Arn C.

[zpyder]

Yea, I've pretty much turned everything off in my house... didn't think of the fridge though.  After having turned everything off and stil hearing the buzz loud and clear, I figure it might be related to the house's wiring... which I am not willing to do anything about really (rental).

The line conditioner you speak of... I'm certainly not going to shell out $500, but have you seen any schematics around?

thanks!
zpyder

[Mark Hammer]

1) This is kind of a Lounge topic.

2) Check into dummy coils.

3) I have an Epi Coronet too!  1964 "Batwing"