Reduce noise

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mentalmuso
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Reduce noise

Post by mentalmuso »

Without dialing down the volume, as that's just silly. What mods could I try on my 18watt clone to minimize noise and overbearing hum when using a strat? I've heard grid resistors? Obviously it gets a lot better when using middle and bridge pickup together in a humbucking fashion. Attached is the schematic I used to build. I also added master volume and a treble and bass tone stack.
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Unit_1
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Re: Reduce noise

Post by Unit_1 »

If you're only getting grounding on your strat (or tele's and other single coils as well) then you can shield the cavity. I did this on my 78 swamp ash tele with lollar vintage pu's and it works....

(I haven't actually seen this one, there used to be one on StuMac's site, but I can't find it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXuVXrCxig
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Unit_1
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Re: Reduce noise

Post by Unit_1 »

Almost forgot, with the amp on and the guitar buzzing/humming you can rotate yourself (and the guitar) and find a hum free position. This also verifies that it's the guitar picking up EM from the trannies.

I used to do that before finding out about the shielding. Your coils are a big antenna, by shielding the cavity and the pick guard the only way to that coil is through the magnets. Farad shields are sometimes used inside amps and other devices for the same reason.
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Bieworm
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Re: Reduce noise

Post by Bieworm »

First thing to do is to determine if the amp is extremely noisy or whether it's the guitar. Is the amp noisy without a guitar plugged in?
There are a lot of things you can do inside the amp to reduce noise, but you first have to narrow things down...
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Bieworm
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Re: Reduce noise

Post by Bieworm »

Oh. And please post some pictures of the inside of your amp.
Of course when it's the amp that's noisy.. first suspects are the tubes
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