Guitar Hum
Posted: Mon 03/01/21 2:12 am
I'll start by admitting that I'm probably the worst guitar player you'll ever meet. I had a Harmony Stratotone when I was 13, then later acquired a Fender Jag. After 12 years of playing, I still stunk, so finally I quit. That was in the '70s.
Fast-forward to sometime in 2010, I realized my talent had improved with age. So, I bought a Peavey Predator and cobbled together a homemade amp from my tube amplifier hobby. Sadly, it turned out my playing wasn't better. I did discover that improvement was possible, but also that I didn't have the time. The Peavey went into storage.
Last year, my daughter decided to learn guitar, so the Peavey came out of hibernation. We bought a used, low power solid-state practice amp a few months later, then a kind person on Craigslist gave me a Peavey combo case with no amp. I've just installed a high gain Marshall-esque 36W amp into the case, and now we can really hear what this guitar sounds like. This leads me to my question, which has nothing to do with anything you just read except the guitar itself. It's a U.S.-made Peavey Predator from the '90s.
My question is whether the Peavey has something wrong with it, because it hums. I don't hear the hum on the Low input of the Marshall clone, but its raspy loud on the High input. I can also hear it on the practice amp. The hum cleans up completely when I touch the outer shield of the output plug on the guitar.
I don't know other musicians locally, so I'm hoping someone here will recognize this as a common symptom of something that's straightforward to fix. All help and advice will be much appreciated!
Jack
Fast-forward to sometime in 2010, I realized my talent had improved with age. So, I bought a Peavey Predator and cobbled together a homemade amp from my tube amplifier hobby. Sadly, it turned out my playing wasn't better. I did discover that improvement was possible, but also that I didn't have the time. The Peavey went into storage.
Last year, my daughter decided to learn guitar, so the Peavey came out of hibernation. We bought a used, low power solid-state practice amp a few months later, then a kind person on Craigslist gave me a Peavey combo case with no amp. I've just installed a high gain Marshall-esque 36W amp into the case, and now we can really hear what this guitar sounds like. This leads me to my question, which has nothing to do with anything you just read except the guitar itself. It's a U.S.-made Peavey Predator from the '90s.
My question is whether the Peavey has something wrong with it, because it hums. I don't hear the hum on the Low input of the Marshall clone, but its raspy loud on the High input. I can also hear it on the practice amp. The hum cleans up completely when I touch the outer shield of the output plug on the guitar.
I don't know other musicians locally, so I'm hoping someone here will recognize this as a common symptom of something that's straightforward to fix. All help and advice will be much appreciated!
Jack