My ES is acting as a microphone - any ideas??

[carrth]

I'm having a bizarre problem with my Expression System and thought I would check to see if anyone here could help me figure out what's going on.

Wednesday night at a church rehearsal, when I plugged in my guitar (a 2003 Taylor 714ce Limited) it had the weirdest problem. Basically, the sound guy was picking up the drums coming through my guitar. When one of the guys came over to talk to me and investigate, the sound guy could hear our entire conversation coming through the house speakers. My guitar was basically acting like a microphone, amplifying all the noises around me. It wasn’t feedback as I would normally think of feedback – it wasn’t a loud humming or screeching noise. It was much more like an actual microphone. And, when I tapped on the top of my guitar with my fingers lightly, it sounded like someone playing the drums (incidental noise from touching the top of the guitar is normal but it was much louder than it normally is). The tone when strumming sounded pretty normal - maybe a bit tinny or echo-y - and wasn't distorted as far as I could tell.

My guitar is normally pretty low in the gain department. The last time I played (which was also my first time at this church), the sound guy told me he turned me up at the board quite a bit to get enough sound out of my guitar. But last night, the sound coming from my guitar was unbelievably hot. I was playing through the same kind of wireless belt pack as before but on a different channel. Also, this week, in addition to our in-ear monitors, there were floor monitors on stage for the choir that is singing with us. I’m not sure if that was part of the problem or not, though, because I’ve played with floor monitors dozens of times with my guitar and I’ve never had any problems at all.

I tried plugging my guitar into an amp at home this morning (a small electric amp but it's all I've got) and had the same problem. I turned the volume up on the guitar, turned the volume up on the amp, and had my son talk into the soundhole while I listened by the amp. Everything he said - or whispered - could be heard through the amp. Even when I turned the volume on the amp down to only 1/4 of the way up, I could hear him speaking as plain as day. I was running late for work and forgot to check if there was compression on the channel... could something like that cause this problem?

I called Taylor and they had never heard of anything like this happening. They said I could take the guitar to an authorized repair shop and have them look at it but that's a pretty far drive so I thought I'd check and see if anyone around here had ever heard of anything like this. I’m just baffled because I’ve never had a problem with my guitar in the 4 or 5 years I’ve had it and have played it amplified.

Has anyone else experienced a situation where the ES was picking up ambient noises (drums, conversations, sound from the house speakers, etc)? Any ideas of what could be causing it? Thanks in advance for any suggestions or ideas!

[kak1154]

The ES system has body sensors which pick up the vibrations of the top. The top is a large diaphram (sp?), so essentially a big microphone. What you are experiencing doesn't sound all that odd for the ES system. I know all of my Taylors are quite loud when tapping on the top of the guitar, moreso than other pickup systems (USTs for example).

It's hard to say whether the amount of microphonic behaviour in your case is out of the ordinary without being there, but some amount is to be expected.

[carrth]

I definitely agree about the noise that occurs when tapping on the top of the guitar not being a problem - that's always been present and I expect it to a certain extent.

What concerns me is that my guitar is amplifying the sounds around me on stage nearly as much as it's own sound. The fact that the sound guy had to stop the rehearsal because he was getting the overwhelming sound of the drums (which were located on the other side of the stage from my guitar) is bothersome - and definitely seems out of the realm of normal microphonic behavior to me. And for a pickup to amplify a nearby casual conversation so clearly... I've certainly never experienced anything like it before with my current guitar or any of the others I've used.

It's possible that the problem isn't with the pickup but rather some setting on the mixing board or the wireless unit I was using (perhaps the gain set abormally high somewhere in the signal chain?) but I am really clueless when it comes to those things so I'm open to other suggestions/opinions.

Thanks!

[Joe F]

That's a strange one!

My ES guitars act like microphones with regards to tapping on the guitar, strap squeaks etc.. but even if I talk loudly right into the soundhole, my voice comes through the system at a very low mumble level. Seems like if the gain through your ES had somehow gone nuclear, strumming the guitar would be obnoxiously loud and cause feedback. Does the guitar itself play at normal volume?

[carrth]

Joe - I didn't notice anything unusual with the actual volume of the guitar. It sounded pretty normal to me. Maybe a little louder but not overly so. The only difference was the insane amount of extra noise accompanying the sound of my guitar. In my in-ear monitors the tone of the guitar sounded pretty decent although it sounded a little weird (maybe tinny or reverb-like) through the house.

Thanks a lot for confirming that you can't replicate this behavior on your ES-equipped guitar! That makes me feel a lot better. Starting to feel like I'm going crazy here or a making an issue out of nothing (I know that's not the case, though, since it was so disruptive during practice)...

[dcopper]

Are you using the low Z cable or a regular 1/4 inch instrument cable? The lowZ has a much higher gain due to the low impedence. IF that is that case, try using a 1/4 inch cable. Your comments about your sound guy seem to suggest you are using the 1/4 inch cable.
davidc

[carrth]

Well, I played on Sunday morning and the "problem" was gone. I used the same type of wireless belt pack as on Wednesday (not sure if it was the exact same unit or one just like it) and the sound guys said they didn't change anything on my channel but all the extra sounds were gone and everything sounded great. While I'm happy that everything worked, I'm still really frustrated not to have a good answer to why it happened in the first place.

I will say, though, that a friend brought over his Breedlove and his nice Genz Benz acoustic amp on Saturday and that both guitars amplified ambient sounds through the amp if the volume was turned up loud enough (just as kak1154 said below). So, I think something in my signal chain was turned up really loud on Wednesday and it was somehow "magically" corrected by Sunday morning.

Oh well - thanks for the help and advice anyway!

[sthompson]

One for the "X Files."
st