Question on humming/feedback

[Bassdacious]

@howard

My active basses pick up the EM noise leaking from my PC when I face towards it. This usually is much more noticable on active basses because the bass preamp amplifies it.

This could be the cause too. I face my PC to read the music - might try to push it back a bit, but these old eyes may make that a real challenge

[Bassdacious]

@DaveT

You can play this same game with any volume knob in the system. If the knob makes the noise go up and down, the noise is before the knob in the signal chain.

Cool, thanks - I’ll investigate that today.

[Al1885]

You have a boat load of great suggestions already so I’ll add a few of the issues that I had to deal with in the past.

Finding the source of humming is always fun, lol. Well,if it’s not the mixer, then check shielding but not as important as the grounding itself. Check under the bridge especially if it chrome. The area where the ground wire touch the underside the bridge should not be shiny. You should sand that area out a bit to create better contact.

If it’s the metal knobs sometime that the problem itself. The. Either change to plastic knobs or put a spring between the under side of the knob and the metal washer.

Not all active pickups are equal. Most active function as a booster/gain, some like Emg the active function is actually work as a hum canceling feature and not so much as a volume booster.

[Bassdacious]

@Al1885

Finding the source of humming is always fun, lol. Well,if it’s not the mixer, then check shielding but not as important as the grounding itself. Check under the bridge especially if it chrome. The area where the ground wire touch the underside the bridge should not be shiny. You should sand that area out a bit to create better contact.

If it’s the metal knobs sometime that the problem itself. The. Either change to plastic knobs or put a spring between the under side of the knob and the metal washer.

Not all active pickups are equal. Most active function as a booster/gain, some like Emg the active function is actually work as a hum canceling feature and not so much as a volume booster.

Thanks @Al1885 - this is awesome information. All the information given has been top rate and I’m sure it will be useful at some point in the future. I think I nailed it down to the USB cord. I swapped it out for a different one and it seemed to resolve the issue, for today at least - I played them all for several hours with only the slightest hum. I’ll see how I go tomorrow. Cheers Al.