On Jan 4, 11:06*am, Tim wrote:
On Jan 4, 9:52*am, Jack wrote:





On Jan 4, 10:23*am, Tim wrote:

On Jan 4, 9:13*am, Loogypicker wrote:

On Jan 4, 10:00*am, Tim wrote:

Its a long shot, but I was hoping that Gene or others with good
electrical experience might help.

Well, some friends of mine have a pretty good local band, and they
play at various venues around a tri-county area. OK, so I went up
town
to hear them Sat. and one member and I got to talking on their break
and he asked me so i thought I'd try to get some ideas here.

One place they play is an older brick building with everything that
can plague an older brick building.

I'm sure the wiring is sub-standard and I dont' know if it has
fluorescent lights causing fits or not. But all the amps and PA have
a
"hummmmmm" that they can't get rid of. The guitarists amp hums the
worst. Not totally obnoxious, but really annoying.

It seems that today's equipment(for the most part) doesn't have any
provisions for a "reverse" switch on the amps, and with three-prong
plugs it's kind of hard to do the old "turn-the-plug-around" trick.

Even with a reverse switch, I've seen instances where when flipped the
hum only got louder.

The manager says all the bar/ kitchen equipment is in good order, ,
but that's left to be seen.

So my question is, does anyone here know of any type of device/ power
bar etc, that can help compensate for this type of a problem?
All these players have good late model quality equipment and this is
the only venue they have this problem.

it's a good gig for them but event the patrons come and ask them
"what's the hum?" They don't know, I don't know.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Tim, sometimes, and just sometimes, even the cheap Furman power
conditioners will improve the hum. If the hum is pickup induced,
humbuckers seem to be better at reducing that noise. See if any of
them have an old Les Paul or some such with humbuckers and see if they
are as noisy. The noise could be because of something obscure, like
one bad flourescent fixture, one crappy neon beer sign, etc. Have them
move around and see if the noise gets worse or better. That would
indicate something close to them like a fixture or sign.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Good thoughts. I think it has domething to do with the lighing myself..
They have turned on amps one by one trying o see if there equipment is
the source of the problem, but they all hum, not only collectivly but
individually.

It's gotta be in the lights. But I'll suggest they try different
outlets and positions though.

It should be easy enough to check for the lights as the source by
simply turning them off for a moment.

I've seen some really bad wiring "upgrades" done to older buildings.
Grounded outlets installed with no ground connection, ground conductor
and/or metal conduit carrying the neutral current (!), the classic hot/
neutral reversal, etc. *A good piece of equipment to carry around is
one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/ELECTRICAL-REC...ET-PRONG/dp/B0...

Of course you can do the same thing with an VOM, but these things are
a great go/no-go quick indicator.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Didn't think of that, Jack. Turn off the lights first would be a good
eliminator to see if that was it. *I haven't been in the building
itself but I do think it's flourecent lighting.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If it's just the one venue, they may try running a dedicated circuit
to eliminate noise from different sources. But, I'm betting there's a
light or something screwing with the amps. One simple test to see if
it's the AC signal or airborne RF is to unplug the guitar from the
amp. If the amp still hums, it's PROBABLTY the AC side of things,
although as you well know, it still could be the amp picking up RF. If
not, I'll go back to my original bad light or sign!