noise reduction

crazyrican · #1 06-30-2003, 07:20 PM

what's up guy's!! have any of you used the rocktron hush pedal? i'm planning on using it for a mono application with a mesa boogie dc-2 and an alesis quadraverb 2. i'm getting a very bad hiss from my amp(no effects used) and need the hush. will the pedal kill my tone or will it do its job? thaks guys!!

microdmitry · #2 06-30-2003, 07:27 PM

Do you get _hum_ or _hiss_? Hush pedal isn't going to help with hiss for this you'll need some kind of noise suppressor in the effect loop. It should help with hum, though.

crazyrican · #3 06-30-2003, 07:36 PM

thanks for the quick response!! it's more of a hiss. it becomes louder with the guitar closer to the amp. it never happened before, i just moved to a new apartment and when i turned the amp on the noise began, never in the old apartment not even with the guitar next to the amp. i think it has to do with the electricity(grounding) in the apartment, even my home theater system has that noise. do you think i'l be better off with a hush super c system instead?

Dan D Mahnn · #4 06-30-2003, 08:20 PM

Check all around for things causing it like TV's, PC monitors, flourescent lights, or anything thats running. Turn everything you can off and see if its still doing it. Its not uncommon for your rigg to be alot more noisey at certain places. One room my band plays is right next to high powered electric lines. Thiers constant noise in that room. Even in the PA.

A pro's tip for using a noise suppresor pedal is to have it first in line after your guitar. Its not intended to be used that way. The inteded way just s*cks. It messes with your sound and totally cuts off sustained notes. If you set the knobs low enouph so that it doesnt do those things then they dont work good at all in controlling the noise. When it senses the pure guitar signal it works much better. You can have the knob much lower to a less extreme setting but it'll still be sensative to the signal and work well. Of coarse youll have to have a real rigg. If your rigg is noisy as hell when the volume knob on your guitar is turned to 0 you have some real noise problems with your rig. A hush pedal would have to be turned way up to control it and at that point it'd completely butcher your sound.

bammbamm · #5 07-01-2003, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by microdmitry

Do you get _hum_ or _hiss_? Hush pedal isn't going to help with hiss for this you'll need some kind of noise suppressor in the effect loop. It should help with hum, though.

How is a hush going to help if he has a ground loop hum?!
I think you have it backwards micro.

A hush is a noise gate/ redux unit meant to drop out noise when you're not playing. Place the Hush pedal in your fx loop and you should eliminate the majority of your hiss during higher gain settings.

2ndly, if you set your hush pedal properly, you shuold be able to get your sound and still have the noise reduction you need. The way I dial in my hush settings on my replifex and intellifex units is: roll back the volume to 0 on your guitar under your typical tone settings, and increase the amount of hush until you just barely squelch out the noise, then slowly raise up your guitar's volume and see how it affects your tone, if done properly, you'll have a good balance between tone and quiet.

Bamm

crazyrican · #6 07-01-2003, 03:07 PM

thanks guys for the response. i just bought a rocktron hush super c just to make sure that i'll get rid of the noise.

microdmitry · #7 07-01-2003, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bammbamm

Quote:

Originally Posted by microdmitry

Do you get _hum_ or _hiss_? Hush pedal isn't going to help with hiss for this you'll need some kind of noise suppressor in the effect loop. It should help with hum, though.

How is a hush going to help if he has a ground loop hum?!
I think you have it backwards micro.

A hush is a noise gate/ redux unit meant to drop out noise when you're not playing. Place the Hush pedal in your fx loop and you should eliminate the majority of your hiss during higher gain settings.

2ndly, if you set your hush pedal properly, you shuold be able to get your sound and still have the noise reduction you need. The way I dial in my hush settings on my replifex and intellifex units is: roll back the volume to 0 on your guitar under your typical tone settings, and increase the amount of hush until you just barely squelch out the noise, then slowly raise up your guitar's volume and see how it affects your tone, if done properly, you'll have a good balance between tone and quiet.

Bamm

He doesn't have a ground loop hum. Ground loop hum occurs in racks where you have interconnect cables with shield connected to ground on both ends. Some studio effect units have special switch (usually called "ground lift") to help you exactly with that. It also occurs in some amps, that weren't laid out carefully enough, but then the loudnes of this hum wouldn't increase if guitar is closer to the amp.

bammbamm · #8 07-02-2003, 01:13 AM

You are correct, re-read what YOU asked about hiss and hum and see if that makes sense to you. Hiss can be reduced from a hush or gate, hum...not so much, like I'd said in the 1st place.

Bamm

microdmitry · #9 07-02-2003, 02:50 AM

Ahhh, newbies...

Hum can be eliminated by something hush-like just as well no matter where it comes from. In fact, Hush is a frequency-sensitive noise gate. If the only thing on its input is 60hz hum (or 50Hz depending on where you are), it will clamp it down. If there's some high frequency content - it will let it all through (hum, too, but you won't hear it).

The only thing I was saying is that his _pedal_ is unlikely to work in his effect loop because this is not where you usually put the pedals.

There will be some "tone suckage" in any case, because as soon as your high-frequency content becomes low enough for your hush to ignore it it will ignore it and clamp down. But this is where one has to make a compromise.

If the hum is severe I'd try to kind of "optimize" the environment (first of all, turn off all CRT monitors).

microdmitry · #10 07-02-2003, 02:53 AM

Oh, another thing is what I call hum and what I call hiss. Hiss is that "shhhhh" sound that any high gain amp will make when cranked. As one of my friends calls it "the sound of roasting potatoes". Hum is low-frequency cycle. There's also buzz which is distorted low-frequency cycle.

bammbamm · #11 07-09-2003, 11:10 AM

I am FAR from being a newbie...

2ndly, I already know the difference between 60 cycle HUM and high gain hiss.

If all he is using is the DC-2 for his gain, then the FX send should be the perfect spot as its coming right from the preamp then into his Alesis.

Rican, try it and let us know how it works for you.

Bamm

microdmitry · #12 07-09-2003, 12:40 PM

I was talking about the general dangers of using instrument level (-20dB) pedals in line level (0dB) effect loops. Effect loop has output and input 10 times larger in terms of voltage which can easily overload pedal's electronics.

I've looked up the docs on Hush, and they state it _can_ be used in the loop, but that's pretty unusual.

bammbamm · #13 07-09-2003, 12:45 PM

Welp, I have 2 different hush units, one rack and one pedal, you should have asked.
Bamm

Guitarlos2 · #14 07-09-2003, 10:03 PM

Anyone in here tried the Hum Eliminator box? Im unsure who its made by but its like a dark olive green box with yellow printing......and a friend of mine swears by it. Pretty vague I know, but seems to get the job done.

crazyrican · #15 07-15-2003, 08:27 PM

what's up guys? i'm getting extremely annoyed at the noise, it is getting to loud, so much so that it makes me not want to practice. i ended up buying a hush super c, the rackmounted hush. anyways i put it through the effects loop and it does absolutely nothing. my amp has a mix button, next to the effects loop i/o, i played around with that to see if it helped but nothing, it just made my tone bassier and with less volume. at the same time i tried different setting on the hush but got nothing, this produced virtually no noise reduction, this even with the gate threshhold all the way up. then i tried conecting the guitar to the hush and from there to the amp. well this took out the noise that i've been hearing but then there is another noise, a more low frequency noise that i had not heard before. with the volume relatively low you can hear it but in the back ground. when i raise the volume to 3 or more forget it, you can't even hear what i play. please guys help me out, i'm struggling!!! do you think maybe there is something wrong with the amp?