Buzz from Amp

Gear
1

Hey yall,

Beginner here with zero familiarity with my gear beyond watching some of the intro videos about set up from BassBuzz.
Per Josh’s recommendation, I have both my pickups turned up and everything on my amp (Fender Rumble 25) set to the middle.

My tone however remains fully turned off on my bass (Peavey Milestone) because any small amount of adjustment makes the amp have a buzz when no notes are being played. Anyone have any advice on addressing this. Can add more pics/vids or whatever for context and clarification.

Thanks

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2

Sounds like a wiring / grounding issue.

Open up the control cavity (or remove the pickguard) to expose the wiring. Takes pictures and share them here. Close ups of the tone pot.

Could be a loose grounding wire (probably off of the tone pot). Tone pot could be bad and need to be replaced.

Do you know how to solder? This is a great time to learn.

3

I agree. I’m an electrical engineer and if it’s a hum, you’ve got 60 Hz leaking into your ground. That’s what you’re hearing.

4

I ‘kinda’ disagree with the above, and ‘kinda’ don’t…

so, whenever you see buzz when tone is turned up (trebble), this is single coil hum, and, sadly, a thing.

that said, there are many things that can make this hum worse, or, better/livable.

The first thing to remember is you are practicing in a vacuum, no ambient noise, no bandmates, no loud guitarist’s hum drowning out yours, so, your hum seems terrible. This is common when playing/practicing home alone.

What makes it worse -

  1. Pickup/bass electronics quality/lack of sheilding (see what makes it better below for more info)
  2. ANY ambient electronics - from big appliance motors (fridge, AC, etc.) to PCs/USBs/wireless, lighting, you name it, the more the hummier. All these modern conveinences create interference your giant antenna of an instrument is picking up. Many people practice in front of their computer - this is terrible for single coil noise.
  3. Grounding issues in your house - feed to your amp / power feeds to all your devices

What makes it better -

  1. Check soldering of electronics as others have mentioned, but there might not be much there to gain
  2. Sheilding - properly, the entire cavity and back of pickguard, grounded to the bass ground, via tape or paint or both, etc. Several topics on this here.
  3. Noiseless pickups - yes, a thing, and yes, to fix this issue - tone changes, better or worse is a personal taste thing
  4. Playing in another postiion/room - if you can find a room away from all the noisy things, and it gets better - there you go, or - try moving around in the room you are in, turning/moving etc.
  5. Different/better quality bass - that has lots of design choices in electronics and pickups, etc. that specifically work to kill the noise, are not single coil in design (enter humbuckers - they ain’t called that for nuttin). Cheaper basses tend to have more single coil hum, in general btw.

What gets rid of it alltogether - not much, there is some inherent noise in electric instruments with single coil pickups. Welcome to the world of bass.

The most important part - don’t go nuts opening up walls and wewiring your house in a tin foil hat, acceptance and some known tricks are all you need.

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5

Well I have to add one more thing @John_E is :100: right, :joy:

2 Likes
6

Now you tell me this part…

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THank’s yall,

Talked to a local repair shop. They seem to think it’s a grounding wire issue because he asked if the buzz disappears when I touch the strings, which it does.

Gonna look into it with him since I don’t have a soldering kit but he’s gonna show me some of the insides so I can get more familiar!

Thanks for the input

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