Noise in Signal Help. Nosie Gate?

[Anxiety Serum]

Recenty the static noise of my guitar when not being played started be more noticeable to me. Not sure if something changed or I just noticed it more.

I tried multiple amps, cables, 2 guitars. There is a static noise when the volume is up on the clean channel or when a dirt pedal or dirty channel is on. Again there's always been some noise but now its louder or just bugging me more than before.

Strangely if I touch the cable plug (that's going into the guitar) or any metal on the guitar (tuners, strings, bridge, pickup ect.) the noise (just sounds like radio static) drops by 95%. Is that normal?

Do I just need a noise gate?

 

[midnightlaundry]

Ground to the Bridge?

 

[Anxiety Serum]

Ground to the Bridge?

With Both guitars?

 

[311boogieman]

Definitely sounds like a grounding issue. Doesn't necessarily have to be guitar's bridge but that's a good start.

 

[Dave L]

What's happening is that you have a lot of ambient noise in the room, interference coming from some source, and your body acts as a huge antenna for that stuff and relays it into the electronics. What's happening when you touch the metal is that you are grounding yourself via the guitar and dumping all that noise to ground, so the grounding works but the guitars might benefit from better shielding. You can probably observe the same thing by backing away from the guitar with the volume turned up.

I'd look for the source of the noise and see if better shielding helps - and barring that, add a noise gate.

 

[Anxiety Serum]

What's happening is that you have a lot of ambient noise in the room, interference coming from some source, and your body acts as a huge antenna for that stuff and relays it into the electronics. What's happening when you touch the metal is that you are grounding yourself via the guitar and dumping all that noise to ground, so the grounding works but the guitars might benefit from better shielding. You can probably observe the same thing by backing away from the guitar with the volume turned up.

I'd look for the source of the noise and see if better shielding helps - and barring that, add a noise gate.

Killer answer. Thanks for the help and the education.

My music room is my office, so there is everything from computer to TV to wireless cable box and signal repeater (from the cable outlet). Nothing I'd want to get rid of.

Both of my guitars are Les Pauls. I thought I read that shielding doesn't help with humbuckers since they are designed to fight this issue. Any thoughts there?

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOTTQF1XiwMOS00579cl0O9MYjV0eBSTBpNkDuU
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOTTQF1XiwMOS00579cl0O9MYjV0eBSTBpNkDuU

 

[Dave L]

Guitars with humbuckers 100% need good shielding, they just reject that low, steady 60 cycle hum which is a small part of the various noises you might pick up. The hissy, staticky stuff is something else.

 

[ghosty999]

The grounding info provided here is an excellent place to start. If that doesn't solve it, try looking into into what is around your equipment. Wifi Routers, TV, Microwaves, can add noise to a circuit. Also old buildings with old wiring can be a nightmare. Absolute last case scenario you can try a power conditioner right at the front.