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....
Not sure I understand... all is well now?
Your LP plays fine now, no hiss or hum, using either a cable or using a new wireless transmitter?
Oh, the Nashville Tele will probably be my next...I don’t have a twang-er, being mostly an acoustic player and all but I have a few heavy pieces: ‘61 reissue SG, Custom Midtown and a strat.
But... you don't know if the hiss was there predrop or not because you always use the wireless.
Nice to know if it was good originally or not. Gibson's pre-bankruptcy quality has been an issue. I have a 2016 Studio with a bad ground and a 2016 Standard with noise.
Bad or floating ground problems suck. Even solder and soldering skill can fix or give you a ground problem.
New LPs have the circuit board. I wonder if it's now a replacement part.
Merry Christmas and good luck with it!
Think so? See my post #36 on this thread.
From one Tele owner to another.
You’ll probably enjoy a Nashville Tele - good variety of tonal options with the 3 pickups & 5-position selector switch.
“How do you like the TX Specials?”
I like them. I was looking for something with more punch than the weak stock pickups my MIM Strat came with (they had such low output that shielding the pickup cavity eliminated ALL of the hum!). They do work well for blues, and even with higher output than my guitar’s stock pickups they still have a good clean tone.
And the noise comes from a poorly filtered ps.
Oh, Ok. /s
smh
If you can find one, a Fender Blues Jr. is the bomb. All tube, 15 Watts, from clean to crunch.
I’ve been looking for one. Even used, they ain’t cheap.
You have a ground problem. Since you never played with a cable you didn’t notice it. The fact that you can eliminate the noise with your hand confirms what the problem is. Here’s what’s going on. Your ground wire under your bridge is not making good contact with the bridge. It has probably been pressed into the finish
(lacquer, epoxy, whatever) and simply needs to be repositioned. Easy fix. Pull the bridge, lift the ground wire out of the groove it’s been pressed into by the bridge, make sure you have clean bare wire that will your clean bottom of your bridge, lay the wire on top of the finish under the bridge and re-mount the bridge. This should do it.
Clean bare woe that will contact your clean bottom of the bridge.
Damn it! Wire, not woe. Damn auto correct.
You CAN’T get noise from a ground. You CAN get it from a poor ground connection with a poorly filtered ps.
I don’t fault your expertise for your response: I fault your training and experience.
Clearly this is an area outside of your scope. There are cases outside of my broad scope when I’ve been wrong; I admit that.
For reference: https://ourpastimes.com/how-to-fix-a-guitar-amplifier-hiss-12446601.html
Cool. Will try it
You’re very welcome. It worked on my 78 P Bass and my 2007 J Bass. Also Bloody Sam Robert’s advice on copper shielding your control cavity is excellent. That technique is tried and tested. Good luck!
Excellent! i reached the same conclusion earlier in this thread based on my own experience.
My conclusion was that the bridge (and therefore the strings) was isolated from ground and were functioning as an antenna pulling in white noise induced into the pickups. Ground the strings through the bridge and the "antenna" effect is eliminated.
Power supply hum is a distinctly different sound than "hiss", and can be eliminated by replacing the power supply filter caps on the amp. It is a common problem with older amplifiers, and can actually damage the main transformer of the amp if not corrected. Get good American-made capacitors because the Chinese stuff is junk that can be up to 50% off the stated value of capacitance.
Another poster has already pointed out that it might be worth the guitar owner's while to go over the solder joints of the repair that he or she had done to the guitar. Bad solder joints can make for a bad ground connection.
Good points. Maybe it really is a hum!
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