amps sound lousy at different times of the day...dirty power?

Guitar Heel

Guitar Heel

Demented Trick
I'm a little hesitant to pose these questions, as I'm not an electrician and know next to nothing about this stuff...

My amps, in totally different parts of the house, sound like shit at different times of the day. I haven't discerned any pattern to this. Half of the time, I plug in and the amp will sound fine, and other times, tons of white noise in the background with decreased instrument volume. This noise is made worse with gain pedals. Because I live in a townhouse, my amps are never loud, so this is occurring at low volume, with several different amps, with different guitars, on different floors.

I have bypassed my pedalboards on several instances to make sure that's not the problem.

So...is there a way for me to determine if the power is the problem? I'm not sure, but guessing my townhouse was build in the 80's (if that makes a difference). I have no idea when an electrician looked at it last, or if it's currently up to code.

I've been hesitant to play my "good" amps. I like all of my amps, but I've been playing the USA-made amps less because I worry that this will damage them. Is that something that can happen?

If it's determined that I do have a problem with the power in the house...what to do? I've looked at conditioners and voltage regulators. Again, I know nothing about them. They seem to be expensive (and unwieldy, as they all seem made for rack mounts), and some seem to have their own issues as well (noise if you're not pulling enough power, etc). So of course, I don't want to buy something for nothing.

Any advice would be appreciated!
 
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Chad said:
You could bring your good amps over to my house and I can run them for a while and make sure they are ok :grin:



Might be worth giving something like this a shot:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PST8--furman-pst-8-power-station
Click to expand...
See, I was waiting for you to say that power had nothing to do with my amps sounding shitty when I played through them... :grin:

Thanks for that. Certainly more in the price range of something to try out, and then send back if it's not the problem.
 
Like Chad said a power conditioner could help. But...

Townhouse eh? So what kind of guitar are you using? Could your neighbors have something going on (flourescent lights, fancy neon signs etc...) that could impact your tone? If you're using single coils or have a bit of a shielding problem that could be it.

Any noise will be exacerbated by gain pedals.
 
cvogue said:
Like Chad said a power conditioner could help. But...

Townhouse eh? So what kind of guitar are you using? Could your neighbors have something going on (flourescent lights, fancy neon signs etc...) that could impact your tone? If you're using single coils or have a bit of a shielding problem that could be it.

Any noise will be exacerbated by gain pedals.
Click to expand...
I play guitars with P-90s and HBs/lace sensors. I certainly get 60 cycle hum from the P-90s, but this goes well beyond that, and occurs when using HBs and Lace Sensors. No idea what my neighbors are up to...lol. I should look in their windows to investigate...for science!
 
Even though it's a remote possibility given the era of construction you could check that your outlets are indeed grounded. There are plenty of instructions on how to do this with a multimeter or you can pickup a cheap outlet tester (under 10 bucks) from a hardware store

Most likely you have something causing the interference and find that and unplugging it will probably solve your problem
 
Guitar Heel said:
I play guitars with P-90s and HBs/lace sensors. I certainly get 60 cycle hum from the P-90s, but this goes well beyond that, and occurs when using HBs and Lace Sensors. No idea what my neighbors are up to...lol. I should look in their windows to investigate...for science!
Click to expand...

Damn neigbors!!!

Is it consistent w.r.t outlets? Lerxst had a good idea...
 
I was wondering if when you are getting the bad sounds from your amp if it comes consistently from a particular outlet

My house was built in 1989 and I've had to replace quite a few outlets
 
cvogue said:
I was wondering if when you are getting the bad sounds from your amp if it comes consistently from a particular outlet

My house was built in 1989 and I've had to replace quite a few outlets
Click to expand...
Oh with regard to...got it. No, different floors of the house.
 
What times of day do the amps sound good vs bad?

I'd love to see what voltage is coming out of the wall at any given time. My bet is that there's a voltage drop as demand in your neighborhood increases and that probably coincides with when everybody gets home from school/work/whatever. Now vintage amps may actually like that better since they were designed around a 110V outlet voltage.

Varying mains voltage can also affect your bias.

The likelihood of this causing damage to the amps is slim. A higher voltage may cause your tubes to have a shorter lifetime. Just gotta be careful if any of those amps are OLD Music Man amps that eat modern EL34s as it is or if it's a Deluxe Reverb that's already pushing most 6V6s past their limit (which is why JJ 6v6s are the usual recommendation, since they love the high voltage).
 
Chad said:
You could bring your good amps over to my house and I can run them for a while and make sure they are ok :grin:



Might be worth giving something like this a shot:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PST8--furman-pst-8-power-station
Click to expand...
UPDATE:

I ordered this bohemoth. it looks like a power strip, but no, it's the size of a small car. anyway, Chad recommended that I check for dimmer switches, as that can cause noise. He was exactly right. that totally reduced some noise (which means mostly mid-day playing downstairs, as it's too bright full on). there's still some noise (and I get that there will always be some), and upstairs, the conditioner/voltage meter did nothing. might have even been a little noisier. downstairs, there may have been the slightest noise reduction. I used humbuckers for this test for the most clarity.

since the problems have been so random, I'm going to experiment up and down with and without at various points of morning, afternoon, and evening over the next few days. I know everyone is super excited to hear how this turns out. :)
 
Yeah, use an outlet checker first off. Those won't change over time, they are either wired right or not. Then of course, dimmers, fluorescent lights etc can cause this.
 
Guitar Heel said:
Chad recommended that I check for dimmer switches, as that can cause noise. He was exactly right.
Click to expand...

yeah, when you have the dimmer engaged it's actually switching the power on and off rapidly they can also wear out and cause even more noise. You can get conductive RFI even when you're not on the same circuit. There are products to filter out the RFI (lamp debuzzing coils) but often just leaving them on the un-dimmed setting will stop most of the noise. Newer dimmers should also have an internal RFI filter.
 
Lerxst said:
yeah, when you have the dimmer engaged it's actually switching the power on and off rapidly they can also wear out and cause even more noise. You can get conductive RFI even when you're not on the same circuit. There are products to filter out the RFI (lamp debuzzing coils) but often just leaving them on the un-dimmed setting will stop most of the noise. Newer dimmers should also have an internal RFI filter.
Click to expand...
yep, even before all of this amp stuff, I could hear the dimmer switches when not all the way on (I have strangely amazing hearing...it's the only sense that works).

BUT, didn't know that this could affect other things, like amps, so great to know. Thanks for the info on the other.
 
Guitar Heel said:
yep, even before all of this amp stuff, I could hear the dimmer switches when not all the way on (I have strangely amazing hearing...it's the only sense that works).

BUT, didn't know that this could affect other things, like amps, so great to know. Thanks for the info on the other.
Click to expand...

If you have dimmable LEDs with a non-compatible dimmer, the noise is even worse.
 
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