STK-S2 with 10-way freeway switch having a chaotic white noise at high gain

[blackwinterstrat]

Hello all

I have a STK-S2 in the middle position of my Fender Stratocaster HSH that sounds great when using for clean sound, but as I start cranking the gain, it has a beautiful high gain sound, that gets a really mess into muddy white noise after a sec. So for high gain, it's completely unusable.. The strange thing is, that it sounds amazing in the positions 2 and 4 ( my two humbuckers are black winter, bridge). The humbuckers sound great, all positions are working great, only in position 3, where the STK-S2 works alone, sounds terrible with high gain.

what could cause this problem, or is this Stack not able to handle high gain?

hope there is a solution for that.

cheers

 

[jeremy]

welcome to the forum!

the stk-s2 should be fine with gain. its not a very high output pup compared to the black winters of course. does it feedback with high gain or is it something else?

 

[blackwinterstrat]

it's not a high pitch or so, just the powerchord that I play ending in a sound like somebody is blowing in your ear.
that's only happening with high gain. I tried with low gain, like when it starts to break up and even then its doing the same noise. Only completely clean sounds clean without any artefacts.

 

[jeremy]

weird. can you record the sound youre talking about?

 

[blackwinterstrat]

I am for a week on holidays.

So will record the sound when I am back home.

I can do a comparison between Neck, Middle, Bridge.

 

[Mincer]

Yeah, that stack should be awesome for any gain you throw at it...and it should be quiet when not playing. What is the rest of the signal chain? Do you notice this with different amps?

 

[blackwinterstrat]

I have a REVV G3 and a BOSS ME-80 going into the power-amp-in of my Line 6 Catalyst 200.

Guitar-revv g3-boss me-80-catalyst.

I have three guitars, happens only with the fender at that specific pickup.

the others are a LTD M1000HT with fishman fluence moderns and a Solar GC2.6 with duncan solar pickups.

 

[Hank-]

You can hear the sea through your amp with that pickup in position 3.

Its not the pickup IMO. If it was hum or whistling then it would be the pickup causing it. White noise is different problem altogether.

 

[freefrog]

What comes to my mind is noise due to the location and amplitude of the resonant peak (probably lower pitched and less pointy with all the other pickups named above, AFAIK).

Is the stack connected to a tone control and does the white noise remain when this tone pot is lowered?

I don't find absurd the idea of a noise cancelling coil acting like a HF antenna (noise cancelling coils BEING noise sensors anyway) but if it's the case, I'd suspect some undetected issue in the wiring...

 

[blackwinterstrat]

thanks for all your replies.

I disconnected the tone pots, to see if the problem persists, but nothing changed.

the pickup is noisefree and sounds great on a clean channel.

let's wait, until I am back home next weekend and I will post a soundfile, so that you can hear, what it does on a clean and on a high gain channel.

 

[blackwinterstrat]

I am back and what can I say

freefrog was right, all my pickups are picking up noise as long as I am playing close to my PC and amp... as I am moving away, the noise disappears.

I recorded just the tone without playing directly from my Boss ME-80 into audacity over the usb to prevent any interference from the amp or mic's recording unwanted noise.

in the soundfile I am close to my amp and pc, switching all positions from middle to neck-middle to neck and back to neck-middle to middle and middle-bridge to bridge and back to middle. then I moved about 1 meter away from amp and pc and then back.

I tried to share the soundfile, but it is showing an error 403.

please give me a shout how to upload the file.

 

[blackwinterstrat]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CLO70racBCb79DCgixUZRTB8H7v1gyuU?usp=sharing

 

[freefrog]

I am back and what can I say

freefrog was right, all my pickups are picking up noise as long as I am playing close to my PC and amp... as I am moving away, the noise disappears.

I recorded just the tone without playing directly from my Boss ME-80 into audacity over the usb to prevent any interference from the amp or mic's recording unwanted noise.

in the soundfile I am close to my amp and pc, switching all positions from middle to neck-middle to neck and back to neck-middle to middle and middle-bridge to bridge and back to middle. then I moved about 1 meter away from amp and pc and then back.

I tried to share the soundfile, but it is showing an error 403.

please give me a shout how to upload the file.

Being right doesn't make me especially happy for you since such problems can be tedious and difficult to solve...

To me, your problem is or involves a grounding issue. I can obtain the same kind of noise from a digital MFX plugged directly to the board, as long as nothing is connected to ground. if I connect a cable from MFX or from board to ground, the noise stops.

That's why Boss added a "Ground terminal" screw to the GT1000... It doesn't always work since it changes the buzz in hum in some situations. But at least it makes the noise less noticeable.

Beware with grounding, that said: some digital devices hate to be directly grounded and want a ground lift to work properly (or they go in distorted sounds / blue screen of death). Sometimes it's necessary to ground a guitar device AND to connect it to the computer through an isolation transformer... I like Lehle devices for that, FWIW.

IME. YMMV.

 

[blackwinterstrat]

freefrog

I am getting ground loops with my LTD and active pickups, so will try to isolate the issue

 

[blackwinterstrat]

it is strange, that groundloop happens only if I use the active pickups with battery. if I connect it with an adapter to a psu, the groundloop is gone. I am connected only to my catalyst 200.

the fender has only noise with the guitar close to the pc, amp.

I think I only have to stay away from them to be noise free, but the closeloop is still strange, when I use the LTD with the active pickups on battery.

 

[freefrog]

it is strange, that groundloop happens only if I use the active pickups with battery. if I connect it with an adapter to a psu, the groundloop is gone. I am connected only to my catalyst 200.

If I was in this situation, I'd decipher the problem as due to something missing in the path to ground, and not to a ground loop.

I've no experience with the Catalyst but again, digital devices are picky with such things: I've a dozen of digital MFX's here. Some need an added ground terminal or they will buzz. Some others start to hum if I add the very same ground terminal to their signal path or if I don't pair them to an isolation transformer...