Many guitarists experience cable hum, although solutions vary depending on who’s suffering from it. Here are a few steps that could help.
First we must determine where the source of hum lies. Moving your guitar away from electrical devices within your home may significantly lower hum levels.
The Cable
Every guitarist who has played electric guitar has experienced hum at some point or another. No matter what you try to do to eliminate it, it seems to linger endlessly. Although frustrating, if you can identify which cable or effects pedal is causing the issue you can take a step towards solving it and creating peace onstage.
Pulling on cables where they plug into an amplifier or guitar frequently can wear down their electrical components prematurely, so using longer cables (or, even better, thicker-shielded wire) might be best to preserve their quality and life span.
As cable wraps or coils around large electrical equipment, they absorb some of the field created by this machinery, which may affect how signals travel through it and cause buzzing sounds to emerge from them.
Hum can also be caused when power cords are connected to different ground voltages. For instance, this can happen when your amp plugs into one outlet while mixer plugs into another outlet across the room; when these two cords come into contact with each other via their different ground voltages they could produce an audio file with 60-Hz current that creates a hum noise when recording audio files.
Integrating all your gear into one outlet equipped with a surge protector will greatly reduce any chance of electrical interference that could potentially cause hum or other issues.
If the issue lies within your guitar or effects pedals and does not go away, try switching cables or amps – there may be several possibilities out there that could help fix your issue! Give yourself time and try each option step-by-step until something does seem to help resolve the problem.
If the hum on your guitar stops when you touch its jack, this suggests an issue with its soldering job. This is often found with older guitars and is an easy fix by opening up and redoing its soldering job on its jack.
The Amp
Hum can occur when plugging your guitar into an amp due to ground loops. A ground loop occurs when an amplifier’s metal case connects directly with earth through your guitar cable – something which is common if both amp and mixer are housed within one room; you can address this by connecting each of them on separate circuits or using an isolation transformer.
If the problem continues, it could be that your amplifier itself is producing the sound – such as through broken grounding wires inside or faulty solder connections.
An electric power conditioner may help reduce interference and eliminate hum from electric guitar cables. Another solution may be purchasing an amplifier with built-in noise suppression – though this option might cost more, it may be worthwhile if hum is an ongoing problem for you.
Your amplifier’s hum problem could also be due to external sources of electromagnetic interference (EMI), like fluorescent lights and electronic devices. Furthermore, keeping all cables as short and secure when transporting or storing will prevent electrical current from bouncing around within them and creating damage.
If you are having issues with an instrument or pedal, try swapping out cables, taking out effects from your pedalboard, or swapping out guitar models that are less susceptible to hum. There may be an endless number of possibilities; with some trial and error you should be able to narrow it down and find what the source of your problem may be.
If the hum persists, it’s time for a change: invest in a high-quality guitar cable. Cheap models may become damaged quickly. Also be careful if both guitar and speaker cables are within one cord – as doing so prematurely could cause their breakage.
The Pickups
Electric guitars utilize pickups to convert magnetic fields produced by string vibrations into electrical signals that can then be sent through an amplifier for processing. Unfortunately, many of us experience a hum when playing our instruments due to these pickups being sensitive to 60 cycle or 50 cycle electricity cycles in our areas – this alternating current can result in buzzing sounds emanating from the guitar itself.
Good news – there are steps you can take to mitigate this issue! First, ensure you use quality cables – cheaper cables may have poor shielding which interferes with signals. In addition, consider purchasing a surge protector to safeguard all the electrical components in your rig from power surges.
Attentiveness to cable length can also help improve performance. As more electrical wiring must be traversed by longer cords, any excess can coiled up against an amplifier may create an electrical field which impacts signal flow down the line. Finally, consider purchasing and installing a Faraday shield into your guitar body as an additional protective barrier between pickups and electronics.
This type of shielding is highly effective yet low cost to install. The shield works like Faraday’s foil by creating an enclosed space around your guitar pickups and electronics, before being grounded to its chassis via a 3-prong power cord.
Installing a Faraday shield into your guitar may not completely eliminate hum, but it will significantly decrease it. This solution is great for people who wish to retain the single-coil sound without the associated hum. Changing out pickups that produce less hum could also work; though this task should only be attempted under professional guidance as to not damage your instrument – for instance Fender offers several Hot Noiseless Pickups that could work effectively here.
The Switch
If a guitar hums when not touching it, this could be caused by interference from other electronic devices or by grounding issues with its wiring or shielding. To properly assess what’s causing it, it’s crucial that various components of both guitar and amplifier setup are thoroughly examined to pinpoint its cause.
Electrical interference can create guitar cable hum by interfering with signal transmission through your signal chain. It could be anything from electromagnetic fields generated by other electronic equipment to loose solder connections in cables or even poor soldering itself causing issues. If this appears to be the source of your hum, try replacing or rolling up your cable so most unused portions are no longer nearby the amplifier.
Quality cables can have an enormous effect on your guitar tone. Lower-priced models often use less effective shielding (stranded as opposed to braided), leaving unwanted noises through. Furthermore, shorter cable lengths make these less durable options vulnerable when moving across pedal boards or other rigs. Therefore, investing in higher quality cables and rolling them up properly when not in use are best solutions.
An improper connection in your cables or audio jack may also contribute to hum. Most often, this problem can be easily remedied by unplugging and resoldering the connectors – however it would be wiser for a professional to inspect these as well as ensure everything is functioning as it should.
Ground loops can also contribute to hum, which occurs when multiple pieces of gear share one safety ground and can cause unwanted electrical current to pass between them. An easy solution would be disconnecting each chassis from its respective safety ground and connecting to different ones instead.
Hum can also result from your guitar pickups reacting to 60 cycle electric hum in your home or rehearsal space, and can usually be eliminated using either a noise gate or suppressor.