How noisy are your guitars?

[itsme]

When going: guitar --> cable --> amp. Both of my amps Stiletto Ace, and XTC are pretty quiet when the volume on my guitars are off. When I raise the guitar volumes to max and mute the strings, there is a fair amount of hiss. This happens with all my guitars. Really starting to annoy me at gigs. I'm not a gain freak either. Is there anything I can check for/do, or is this common to all you guys? BTW, I hate noise gates!

 

[blackba]

You could look into shielding your guitars. I would use the paint and not the tape, I found the tape dampened the vibrations in the wood of the guitar and made it dead sounding....

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Use the highest quality guitar pickups you can.

upgrade the electronics in the axe and the wire.

shield the guitar with conductive paint.

swap preamp tubes around until you have the least amount of hiss.

use batteries or isolated power supply with any effects.

If that's not enough I'm not sure anything else will help.

OR

Get a Decimator g string noise gate.

 

[kasperjensen]

Ground?

I know here in Europe it can cause some noise...

 

[Bob Savage]

Lately, they've been completely silent. No sound whatsoever.

When I actually play, there's very little white noise, but that will vary depending on how you dial in the amp.

 

[blackba]

You could look into shielding your guitars. I would use the paint and not the tape, I found the tape dampened the vibrations in the wood of the guitar and made it dead sounding....

Just out of curiosity, when you removed the tape, the guitar became "alive" sounding?

Yes. I shielded all 3 of my strats using tape and noticed that they sounded 'dead'. I took off the tape on one and noticed it just felt more 'alive'. Just by tapping on the body before and after the shielding tape, I could hear a difference that way too. The tape acted as like a dynomat type material (which is used to dapen vibrations in cars).

Learned a few lessons again though.
1. Leave well enough alone
2. Try one guitar at a time, don't do all you have until you are sure you like it.
3. No use shielding a guitar with noiseless SC sized pickups
4. I need to spend more time playing and less time tinkering.

 

[glassjaw7]

My LP and C-1 Classic are both completely silent unless my amp is turned WAY up. And even then it's still quiet.

 

[DiezelMonster]

my guitars are PAINFULLY noisey! I've done everything I can to minimize it, but it's just the raw deal of using the pickups I like.

I might try some other pickups in the future, but right now I deal with a gate!

C

 

[dfrattaroli]

Mine make tons of noise. Always calling me names and carrying on and what not.