Buzzing issues in my home!

[jonl]

I have an old house built in the 1920s and for some reason any guitar or amp or outlet that I use causes noise.I've had many amps and many guitars and have set everything up on three different floors of my house and I've always had buzzing/electrical noise coming from my amps. I grabbed an outlet tester this weekend and checked for ground and they are grounded. I do have a dimmer on my dining room light but we shut it off and on to see if that made any change but it didn't.

One thing that I found strange was if I turned on a surge protector across the room the noise got louder! I had a few things plugged into that surge protector but I didn't power them on.

Does anyone else have a house like this with noisey power? If so have you found a fix of any kind?

 

[John4021]

Older houses, AND I DONT CARE who rewired it, just seem to have dirty power.
If its from the pole to the house ,or the house itself, it is a pain in the ass.
Played in a house with old ass "knob & tube" wiring ,then another with newer updated service and the new one was noisy.

Hell, I had one place where you could hear the neighbor running a fucking table saw through the amp.
Now that's dirty power and the electric company said, "not our problem"

 

[Faded Abyss]

Alot of times issues like these are due to the electrical systems grounding. "Dirty power" ive heard people say this, and mention it being a problem on the east coast. To me, an amp is an amp, a volt is a volt, and a watt is a watt... does this dirty power mean that the voltage is fluctuating? Ive also heard power tools through my amp. very interesting. one amp I had would pick up radio frequencies and play mexican music. these are all grounding issues to me.

One option you could try is a 1:1 isolation transformer on the circuit or receptacle that your amp is plugged into. Maybe have an electrician check out your panel and tell you if the system grounding/bonding to your house is good

Someone once told me that your guitar can work as an antenna if the grounding (on the guitar itself) is bad.

 

[CaseyCor]

Someone once told me that your guitar can work as an antenna if the grounding (on the guitar itself) is bad.

This is true, although I can't say if the terminology is correct. I'm no expert in this area. I do recall getting the local radio station through my little Yamaha practice amp when I was a kid. $50 piece of shit guitar with shitty unshielded instrument cable will do that. Upgrading from $1 to $5 cables at the pawn shop in town solved that problem when I was a kid

If I cranked the amp and turned on my pretty much broken Boss Turbo Overdrive, I could get the local rock station loud and clear. Switching to EMG pickups and using the old cable only made it worse More output=more radio interference, at least in my childhood experience.

Back on topic, I think investing in a power conditioner will help with your hum issue. Make sure you're using good cables, and your guitars are shielded well. Do you have fluorescent lights, or dimmer switches in your home? Either of those could cause the hum issue.

 

[HilltopExplosion]

Someone once told me that your guitar can work as an antenna if the grounding (on the guitar itself) is bad.

This is true, although I can't say if the terminology is correct. I'm no expert in this area. I do recall getting the local radio station through my little Yamaha practice amp when I was a kid. $50 piece of shit guitar with shitty unshielded instrument cable will do that. Upgrading from $1 to $5 cables at the pawn shop in town solved that problem when I was a kid

If I cranked the amp and turned on my pretty much broken Boss Turbo Overdrive, I could get the local rock station loud and clear. Switching to EMG pickups and using the old cable only made it worse More output=more radio interference, at least in my childhood experience.

Back on topic, I think investing in a power conditioner will help with your hum issue. Make sure you're using good cables, and your guitars are shielded well. Do you have fluorescent lights, or dimmer switches in your home? Either of those could cause the hum issue.

Same here, I was picking up A.M. radio stations. Bad ground, cable, tube, effects.

 

[mjtripper]

I had an old house that did that and had to have an electrician install a new ground and a new (grounded) line to my office/studio for my amps and computers to behave. Kind of sucked but solved the problem for me.

 

[Mailman1971]

Yup!
My last home was real old as well. I had an EMG installed in one guitar when I first moved in.
Came home and it was buzzing loud. I took it back to the Guitar shop. Plugged in and it was dead silent.
Thats when I found out about the dirty electricity. I also picked up radio stations in my amps on certain days.
Not sure what to do so I just delt with it.
New place zero problems.

 

[southpark tube lab]

try a line condishoner some power lines act like raidio antenas.

 

[Bluplirst]

try a line condishoner some power lines act like raidio antenas.

lol

 

[barnesjd]

Ill be interested to learn if a power conditioner works for you. If it does, then it's a nice solution because it's portable and you won't have this problem anywhere you decide to play.

 

[southpark tube lab]

it works like a 60hz filter. high end tube audeo amps use them.

 

[paulyc]

90% of this kind of stuff is something so obvious you'll feel silly when you find it...bad grounding/shielding in the guitar itself, dimmer switch, bad ballast in a flourescent light fixture, etc...the last 10% could be power related. I bought a Trip Lite 2 rack space power conditioner from an industrial supply place (MSC or Grainger) that has isolated outputs...POOF, all issues with power gone.

 

[InFlames235]

Trust me - you're not going to fix this when you live in an old place. I also live in a 1920's/30's home in San Francisco and I've been trying for months on end to do EVERYTHING to fix it. i've bought power conditioners, ground lifts, better cables, etc. and none of it works because some places' wiring are just too messed up. In the end I decided to just go with an ISP Decimator and it's been a god-send. Ya, it covers up the noise instead of fixing it, but I've realized the only way I could actually fix this is by buying a dedicated electrical unit that's isolated from everything else and really didn't have that option in my apartment.