Noisy Rig

[originalfunkbrother]

Hie All,

I have a problem with my Marcus Miller Jazz Bass IV. When plugged into the amp, it has a certain degree of noise
and when the cable moves theres a crackling noise as well. Its not a cheap cable but it has created some concern for me.
Does anyone know what the prob could be, I read a post in the other topic to do with hum and buzzing and it explained that
Fender guitars will, because of the single coil have some tolerable level of noise. But I wonder whether this in normal.

Thanks in advance,

Greg

[octavedoctor]

[quote name='funkygreega' post='391140' date='Jan 25 2009, 07:25 PM']Hie All,

I have a problem with my Marcus Miller Jazz Bass IV. When plugged into the amp, it has a certain degree of noise
and when the cable moves theres a crackling noise as well. Its not a cheap cable but it has created some concern for me.
Does anyone know what the prob could be, I read a post in the other topic to do with hum and buzzing and it explained that
Fender guitars will, because of the single coil have some tolerable level of noise. But I wonder whether this in normal.

Thanks in advance,

Greg[/quote]

This could be two things; you could have a crap cable or there could be dirt and/or corrosion on the plating of the jack socket.

The Marcus Miller uses a PJ configuration i believe. The P pickup should be relatively noise free but the J type won't be as it is a standard single coil (the P typ has its two halves reverse wound and reverse polarity), however the noise will be a low level hum rather than a a crackle or buzz.

There may also be some high frequency inductive buzz resulting from a lack of internal screening. See my website [url="http://www.edgeguitarservices.co.uk/electric/screen_1.htm"]here[/url] for a more detailed explanation of this.

I can't remember whether the MM has actives; if it does then the socket will be using something called negative leg switching to control the supply to the actives. This uses a stereo socket to switch the circuit on and off when a jack is inserted, avoiding the need to toggle the power supply manually. The ring and sleeve terminas are employed for this purpose but wear or a build up of corrosion on the sleeve terminal of the jack socket can cause a bad earth which not only interrrupts the signal, but causes intermittent supply outage as well.

The good news is that all of this can be fixed, although unless you want to change the J pickup for a humbucker then you are stuck with the 50 Hz hum...

[BOD2]

+1

The first thing to do is try a different cable. Even good cables can go faulty, so you need to rule that out first.