Posted on 12/22/2018 8:40:19 AM PST by kjam22
So, with all of the bad and or scary news these days.... and in light of the fact the Deep State is still fighting back... I thought a nice little thread about fixing the Hiss that is often inherent in a Gibson Les Paul might be a nice change of pace.
I bought a new Gibson Les Paul (2017) Standard, and I have loved it. It plays GREAT. It sounds good, it is dead quiet, it looks good. I have owned older Les Pauls over the years, and I own two American made Strats. I love this new Les Paul as much as any of them.
I have been playing this Les Paul in a church setting using a wireless rig - Xvive U2. This is a great little wireless that does not interfere with the various wireless mics, lighting etc that goes on every Sunday morning. Well, a couple of weeks back while I was strapping on a choir member bumped into me and I dropped the Les Paul. It landed right on the input jack, with the wireless transmitter in it. Shattered the plastic transmitter and broke the input jack in the guitar.
I took the broken Les Paul to a local guy who is authorized repair for Gibson, Fender, and Martin. Interesting guy who has been in business in same place for 41 years. Looks and speaks like he could be playing for the Greatful Dead. But long story short he fixed the input jack for 17 bucks. Got it home and plugged in amp at home and I had Hiss. This guitar had never had hiss. It was always dead quiet. Changed chords, changed rooms etc etc. Hiss that quit when I touched the strings etc. I would say it was a little less than the normal amount people often complain about. But it hadn't been there before. After a while it dawned on me that I had never run this guitar with a cable. Just always used the wireless. So I replaced the wireless rig (day before yesterday) with the exact same unit and the guitar is dead quiet again. Kind of makes sense in that the wireless eliminates chord from amp which is plugged into house electric etc.
So long story short.... I am convinced that guitar hiss, buzz, whatever that sounds like a grounding issue can be fixed with a wireless rig. Just a nice thought for the day and hopefully a distraction from the real world junk....
check to see the pickups haven’t been jarred loose a little
If it eliminates your chords that's definitely going to be a big problem. ;)
LOL.... yes you are right. Let me rephrase and say it eliminated cords. Not Chords.... Thanks for catching that!
Sounds like your wireless gizmo is a V/UHF FM tranmitter rather than a digital type, because with digital you might hear broken-up or “pixelated” audio but not hiss. Hiss in an FM system means there’s not enough signal strength from the transmitter to fully quiet the receiver, just like when you’re tuned to a distant FM station. Putting your hand on the strings probably acted to couple a bit more signal, thus the hiss went away. So I’d say you have found the problem and corrected it.
We looked it over. Everything seems good.
Yes... It had a little hiss while using a cord. But not nearly as bad as some I have seen on YouTube etc. And changing cords made it better or worse etc etc. But putting the wireless in made it completely dead quiet.
Sounds like the ground wire got knocked loose when the guitar was dropped. The instrument should be grounded to the stud of the stop tailpiece with a wire going through a small hole in the control cavity.
He says that the wireless system elinminated the noise.
Cords do pick up interference, especially cheap ones.
At the risk of being a little off topic, I replaced the single coil pickups in a telecaster with quality stacked humbuckers. Quieted down the 60 cycle hum quite a bit. Lots a little brightness but not much.
Thelmannn wire.
As a fellow Les Paul owner who also happens to own two Fender Strats, am Epiphone Casino, Tele, and Rick 325, I can’t than you enough for the nice little diversion from the cares of the world!
You’re not n to something with the grounding. When you touch the strings you are grounding it. I’m guessing a grounding wire came loose when it fell.
Guitar pinglist ping.
Yeah.. when I dropped it... at start of practice for the Church’s big Christmas pagent and it broke I was really stressed. Fortunately I only live about 3 miles from there. Called my wife and she brought a strat and cables etc. Played the performance with that and took the Gibson in for repair the next day.
Argh make that you’re on to something with the grounding.
It requires disassembly of the guitar (An opportunity to set your action lower if need be) and the Buzz Kill is used to line the pocket beneath the pickups and any other areas including spaces around the output jack.
The stuff is a 4" wide roll of thin copper sheeting with an adhesive backing. Worked like a charm for me. YMMV.
This is making me think I need to find a project guitar one of these days - currently I have a PRS CE24 and a MIM Fender Strat. Both have the bridge upblocked, and I shielded the pickup cavity in the Strat and swapped in Texas Special pickups.
OTOH, I still need to replace my amplifier with one that sounds good at lower volumes since I just play in my spare room these days.
Yeah.... I thought that was the direction I might be headed. Like I say... it is not real bad hiss, but not dead quiet either. The wiring all looks in tact, and maybe the guitar was always like that. I don’t know for certain. But I do know using the wireless rig eliminates the hiss/hum all together.
I’m an electrical engineer. From my experience you have noise on the power supply. A higher quality amp would probably solve the hiss.
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