Hello,
I'm having a problem with my bass guitar. I get a weird humming/drone sound which is not constant but a 'pulsing' effect. It happens sometimes straight away or within about 20mins of switching my amp on. It's affected by the tone control and the volume on my bass, but my bass still works (though the hum is quite loud, makes it impossible to play).
I've tried bass with different amps and leads - still happens, though not tried a different bass. I've searched for previous posts about the whole electricity/transformer issue. I don't have any phone chargers or anything in my room and the hum still happens in other rooms in the house. Not tried switching off the main circuit breaker yet, but in the meantime has anyone got any ideas?
Thank you.
If it's very old, I'd look at the capacitor in the tone circuit.
High quality capacitors look like a Chicklette (the chewing gum).
1 watt of pure tube tone - the Living Room Amp!
http://www.naturdoctor.com/Chapters/Amps/LivingRoomAmp.html
Paper-in-oil caps rule!
If the bass is old like mine? It could just be the wires are old, dusty or poorly connected. Might even be a mild short somewhere. You might wanna check that out just to be shure :)
You made a good start by trying it with different amps. That pretty much isolates the problem as being with the bass itself.
Next, I'd suggest looking at the GuitarNutsâ„¢ site, my "other favorite GN" besides GuitarNoise. There are checklists there for troubleshooting Strats and other guitars, and you could probably use one of those to see if your bass has a problem with one or both pickups, needs shielding, etc. http://www.guitarnuts.com/index.php
What make/model is it, and what's in it for pickups? (I still don't know a J-Bass from a P-Bass, but I know where to look them up. :wink: )
EDIT: Forgot to mention that it could be something with the household wiring in general. Even if there's not much you can do with that short of calling in an electrician, you can still shield the axe so that the noise can't get into it. Once you're getting just signal (no noise) out of your sound system, you can crank it up more. 8)
