Help! Im going crazy!!

thesteve · 04-01-2010, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scared2mosh

Which is probably how much he'd spend upgrading his bass.

Fair enough. The SRX300 should be a step up, and the humbucking pickups should help somewhat with the hum. Still, I feel like this was the same model that I recorded with a few months ago and there was still some hum going on whenever I wasn't grounding the bass with my body.

scared2mosh · 04-02-2010, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thesteve

Fair enough. The SRX300 should be a step up, and the humbucking pickups should help somewhat with the hum. Still, I feel like this was the same model that I recorded with a few months ago and there was still some hum going on whenever I wasn't grounding the bass with my body.

Probably...

I played both when I bought the srx300 and being they were almost the same price I got the one with humbuckers. My only dislike is that I have to unplug the bass to keep it from killing the battery. Still I'd take that over a constant hum.

thesteve · 04-02-2010, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scared2mosh

I played both when I bought the srx300 and being they were almost the same price I got the one with humbuckers. My only dislike is that I have to unplug the bass to keep it from killing the battery. Still I'd take that over a constant hum.

Unplugging to prevent battery drain is something that goes on with any active bass. Still, unless you're leaving your bass plugged in for days at a time, it shouldn't be a big concern. The battery on an active bass should last 6-12 months under normal use.

That being said, I'm still not totally convinced that the level of hum the OP is experiencing is high enough to be of concern in a live playing situation. If it is, then the GSR200 is a far cheaper bass than I estimated.

thesteve · 04-02-2010, 02:25 PM

Hmm...backing up the bus a moment...

I did some additional reading on the GSR200. It looks like at least one version has an active EQ circuit. If you have tis one (four knob model), have you tried putting a new battery in it? The battery is probably located inside the electronics cavity.

marshall gibson · 04-03-2010, 11:45 AM

mine is the passive eq tho. so maybe its not a real issue and i should just ground with my body. is that why none of the bass players i gigged with ever took their hand off the bass?

thesteve · 04-03-2010, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marshall gibson

mine is the passive eq tho. so maybe its not a real issue and i should just ground with my body. is that why none of the bass players i gigged with ever took their hand off the bass?

Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to say what's "normal" and what isn't in terms of buzz. I know with my bass (Fender Jazz) with both pickups fully on it's in a humbucking-style mode so it's pretty quiet with my hands on or off. When I start rolling off either of the pickups it basically reverts to being two unbalanced single coil pickups and it starts humming. This hum doesn't change regardless of what I'm doing with my hands.

Rainer. · 04-04-2010, 01:23 AM

I'm agreed with Steve. If it's really a big problem to you, you can look into a noise gate pedal, but otherwise, buzz is usually a fact of life.

marshall gibson · 04-05-2010, 11:37 AM

Ok. i found that my tone knob controls all the buzz, so im gonna check it out real good an go from there. I thank you for the help tho.

whynot? · 04-05-2010, 02:48 PM

similar thing happened to me recently.
I took the cover off the front of the bass and it turned out that the thing which makes contact with the end of the cable (I dont know what any of this is called) wasn't making conact properly. Try jiggleing thast around a bit. push it foreward, pull it back, push it up, down, try it all and if none of it works, i dont know what will (but i dont know much)
another possiblity is that you have the tone up to high. try turning it down and that might work.
It could also be the volume. Turn it down and see if it stil buzzes. If it doesnt, and not just because you turned it down so low that you cant hear it, you could try with a better amp. If it is the quality of the amp, I recmommend getting a new one, but I have only been playing the bass for a year so check with other peeps if it is a wise idea to go and buy a new amp

BillSPrestonEsq · 04-05-2010, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marshall gibson

Ok. i found that my tone knob controls all the buzz, so im gonna check it out real good an go from there. I thank you for the help tho.

That means it is in the pickups.

Honestly, if touching your fingers to the strings stops it, I would check the ground wire to the bridge. IMO, you don't want to buy new equipment over this if it is a simple problem.

Tone up too high does not exist. Essentially, passive tone controls are just filters, so if the frequency of the buzz is high, bleeding your highs off to ground will of course bleed off the buzz as well.

If the problem is in the bass, (which it is, since it is expressable from the bass controls) a new amp would not solve a dang problem. It just creates a problem for your wallet.

You are going to have some buzz with the bridge most likely. It is a single coil. Single coils buzz. If you like how it plays but can't live with the hum, I would suggest shielding the sucker, checking all your grounds and then, if it is still a problem, look at pickups.

notreligus · 04-06-2010, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marshall gibson

Well I took it to my guitar guy today. We figured its a ground because when we touched the strings or the bridge with the guitar plugged in, the hum would stop. Let the strings open, and it would hum away. We thought it was a pickup ground, but we plugged another ax in and it did it with that one too. He didn't figure it out, so I'm still sorta lost as to whether its amp or ax related

That is because nearly all electric guitars are string grounded and will do the same thing. "Humbuckers" will even produce some hum when there is some kind of electromechanical interference nearby unless you are touching the strings or the bridge. The only sure way around this that I know of is to use active pickups like EMG that don't require string grounding.

Sheilding the control cavity can help a lot, but you need to keep the shield connected to ground. If don't know how to do this take the guitar to a guitar tech - not just someone who can change pickups but one that knows something about electronics.

marshall gibson · 04-06-2010, 09:26 PM

Well that makes sense. The next question. Can I shield the pickups myself? Also, if I can, can anyone explain to me how to do it? I'm trying to learn about my guitars and some lutherie here at the same time.

Thankfully its not the amp. I didn't wanna part with the thing

Also, bill, I did check the ground and regrounded it. So that fixed that

BillSPrestonEsq · 04-06-2010, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marshall gibson

Well that makes sense. The next question. Can I shield the pickups myself? Also, if I can, can anyone explain to me how to do it? I'm trying to learn about my guitars and some lutherie here at the same time.

Thankfully its not the amp. I didn't wanna part with the thing

Also, bill, I did check the ground and regrounded it. So that fixed that

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