Amp noise

pseudojazzer · Post by **pseudojazzer** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 2:00 pm

Just a simple question.... How can i reduce natural (but unwanted) speaker noise from my amp?
I do a lot of recording late at night and subsequently sometimes record very quietly - but i find that when i record from my amp i can often get extraneous noise. It is not mains hum but sounds like speaker hiss. What happens is that if i use something like Waves de-noiser, i can get rid of the hiss/noise but it acts like a kind of gate and takes too much of the feeling of the playing away. When i record with a mic it is better... but for recording late at night i use the mono out at the back of the amp (with the speaker turned off). Is there anything else i could try? I really like the sound the amp gives (its a Gallien-Krueger) and it has balanced outs that i haven't used because i haven't got the Balanced XLR inputs for the scope but the unbalanced phono ins. Will using balanced outs to an unbalenced source be OK?
Thanks in advance,
Tom

Post by **garyb** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 6:07 pm

the problem is one of gain. ALL electronic circuits contain noise. amplifying the low input of a guitar amp also amplifies noise. possibly running the guitar direct thru a mic pre into something like GAM or guitar bluesman will be less noisy....the main thing is the ratio of the signal to the noise. as long as the guitar sound is much lousder than the hiss, you won't notice it in the track. that amp's direct out is just noisy.

voidar · Post by **voidar** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 3:51 am

The louder you run the amp the better s/n-ratio you will get.

pseudojazzer · Post by **pseudojazzer** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 1:50 pm

Cheers guys, so i understand i've got to turn up the amp loads before it hits scope. The amp has two gains on it - Volume and Output - these kinda work like pre and post - any ideas as to which of these would be best to turn up? presumably the pre? The hiss gets very slightly louder when i turn up either really - i can't tell just by listening which one affects the hiss more?

@GaryB - you are right, in the past i have preamped the guitar then used the bluesman, i am thinking about getting the GAM, but have just broken my preamp (a cheap and cheerful Audio Buddy)! It fell off the table and both leads connected moved in their sockets, so the connections have severed!

I opened it up to check it out but i think its beyond repair. Oh well! At least i've got the amp!!
Thanks again.

Lima · Post by **Lima** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:13 pm

Maybe is only a trivial suggestion, but if you use instruments with single-coil pickups, and your monitor is a crt one, be aware to turn it of before recording

Generally try to put your amply and your instruments far from any source of electromagetical interferences like videos, televisions, final amplifier of your main speackers etc....

Related to the guitar and not to the amp I can tell you a story that happens to me a couple of months ago:

I had bought my first electric guitar since a couple of days and I was excited to try it with the Celmo's Bluesman. I've connected it to my mixer and then to the pulsar. Then I've loaded the project and everything sounds cool. The day after I've made a second project with the celmo's speaker simulator demo and the bluesman and the result was a total crap! A huge amount of noise!

I've re-loaded the project with the bluesman alone and the noise still be there (less present but still there!).
So I've started to be disappointed: "possible that yesterday I've not noticed this?".

A couple of days later I've plugged my guitar to the pc because a friend wants to try it. He plays far from the monitor and the noise was a lot quieter... So I've done the test and changed the ferquence of monitor's refresh and the noise changed...

Now, when I need to record a track, I simply start the recorder and swich down the monitor .

pseudojazzer · Post by **pseudojazzer** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:52 am

Thanks Lima, nice tip! i'll try it! I am sitting quite close to all the other electrics in the room and there is probably some interference going on. top tip!
Cheers