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Old 09-03-2016, 10:53 PM
midwinter midwinter is offline
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Default Guitar Picking Up Radio? Digital Beeping/Clicking Something?

Hi all.

I just got home from a gig, during which my guitar—which has a freshly-installed B-Band in it with a handful of gigs on it—started making this weird digital/clicking sound like it was picking up a radio signal or a cell signal.

Nothing in my signal chain was the problem; it was definitely the guitar (we swapped out cables, plugged it straight into the board, etc).

This has not been an issue with any gigs with this system until tonight. Has anyone ever experienced something like this before? If so, is there something I can do to prevent this in the future?
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Old 09-04-2016, 06:15 AM
jonfields45 jonfields45 is offline
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If it is radio interference and assuming that it is well designed for RFI rejection, then something is acting as an antenna and something else is forming a parasitic diode to demodulate the signal (otherwise it would be too high in frequency to hear). A parasitic diode can sometimes happen at a metal to metal contact. I would contact B-band to see what they have to say, and if you are up to it, I would pull apart, clean, and reseat any connections inside the guitar made with screw terminals or connectors.
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Old 09-04-2016, 06:17 AM
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Possibly a cell phone. When I lay my cell phone near my powered speakers I pick up a popping and clicking at semi-regular intervals. I move my phone away and it stops.
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Old 09-04-2016, 07:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fazool View Post
Possibly a cell phone. When I lay my cell phone near my powered speakers I pick up a popping and clicking at semi-regular intervals. I move my phone away and it stops.
+1. If I get my Trance Amulet M-equipped Martin HD-28 close to my wireless, home-phone, main base station, I'll get a faint pulsing tone from my PA speakers. This only occurs within about two feet of the main base station and is sensitive to the direction in which I'm holding the guitar. I first noticed this when passing by the wireless home phone main base station on my way to my computer chair. The Fishman Prefix Plus T in my RainSong carbon guitars doesn't seem to be sensitive to this wireless, home phone main base station interference--maybe the carbon acts as a shield?
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Last edited by SpruceTop; 09-04-2016 at 08:21 AM.
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Old 09-04-2016, 08:01 AM
Vancebo Vancebo is offline
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Ditto on the cell phone. Easy fix is to put it on airplane mode. If it's the B Band, something is unshielded which would surprise me.
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Old 09-04-2016, 10:18 AM
midwinter midwinter is offline
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Thanks, y'all.

The sound guy had me take my cell out of my pocket and put it away. I also have a iPad (with data signal running and checking email while we play) mounted on my mic stand, but it didn't seem to make a difference. I put the guitar down and played other instruments for about 20 minutes, instead. When I picked it back up at the end of the night, the weird noise was completely gone.

Considering this didn't happen at any of the other gigs with this exact same rig, I'm going to assume that this was some isolated weirdness.

Thanks!
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Old 09-04-2016, 03:04 PM
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Cell phones can vary significantly in their power output depending on how far away the cell tower is. And sometimes a closer cell tower is full/down and your phone hands over to one farther away, where it has to put out significantly more power to communicate.
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Old 09-04-2016, 03:39 PM
midwinter midwinter is offline
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Fascinating!
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Old 09-23-2016, 02:19 AM
midwinter midwinter is offline
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It did it again tonight.

I'd hate to have to replace the B-Band I *just* installed with a JJB because of this....
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Old 09-24-2016, 01:51 PM
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Midwinter,
I have had a guitar pick up a radio station. Fortunately, it had a direct box with a ground lift switch. Flipping that switch on fixed the problem. Passive DI boxes are cheap ($20-40).
Tim
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Old 09-24-2016, 11:34 PM
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It's really, really weird. Guitar goes into a tuner > Empress ParaEQ > Yamaha mixer (for submixing) then out to FOH. Only seems to happen when I'm playing in a metro area.
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Old 09-29-2016, 12:24 PM
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Not to hijack the thread, but when I saw this I immediately thought of the scene in Spinal Tap.

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Old 09-29-2016, 02:04 PM
midwinter midwinter is offline
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Hello, cleveland!
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Old 09-30-2016, 07:57 AM
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Hey MW,
I would try a direct box with a ground lift. That worked for me. A radio station was coming in clear as day on a bass guitar in our band. We flipped the ground lift switch and it was gone.
Tim
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Old 09-30-2016, 09:25 AM
midwinter midwinter is offline
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I've got one I can throw in the chain on my submix board. I'll give it a shot.

****ed thing did it again last night.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Slim View Post
Hey MW,
I would try a direct box with a ground lift. That worked for me. A radio station was coming in clear as day on a bass guitar in our band. We flipped the ground lift switch and it was gone.
Tim
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