The Steel Guitar Forum

When I sit and play my lap steel, I get hum. Regardless of mu amp choice. If I play standing, the same. However. if I turn the guitar up so it sits on it's side, no hum. What the heck? Anyone know?

welcome to the wonderful world of RFI/EMI

your pickup, when at the angle that its quietist, is picking up the least amount of stray noise. I assume its a single coil pickup? A humbucker will help - but nothing is perfect.

Also, make sure you are nowhere near the power transformer of your amplifier - no matter what it is, it radiates more than its share of EMI and RFI.

...Here's a post that I just typed up but had not submitted yet. I hope you will find something helpful in it....

Just FWIW, I've been intending to try shielding pedal steel pickups when I r&r or replace them, but I almost always forget to do it. This time, while I had it out, I remembered to put a piece of copper shielding tape on the bottom underneath the pole pieces of this single coil pickup.

It made a big difference in this one. MOF, I hear no hum at all at normal to moderate levels and just a wee tad at WOT. [Auto mechanic's term for wide open throttle.]

I'd say it's definitely worth the trouble. Next time you do a string change, you might considering unbolting the p/up and sliding some shielding tape under it.

Another thing. To help keep power supplies from inducing hum into your system, if you have gear that has wall warts, try experimenting with the direction of the power supply in relation to your amp or guitar.

Keep them out of your rack case and try to locate them as far as possible from the rest of your electronics.

One more, if you have an open bottom pedal like an Emmons or other bar mount, shielding the electronics will help there too.

make sure you attach that copper tape to ground - otherwise it could add more hum

Thanks! It's a Wallace True Tone, btw. In a Melbert. I will give the copper tape a try.

My steel signal path hum was being caused by the toroidal transformer in the big Crown amp I had running in my sound system rack.

Guitar was right up close to the rack so I could reach the controls.

Turned the Crown off... hum went away.

Moved guitar further away.

Brian, I can send you a piece if you need some. I bought a roll of it years ago. I don't know if you can buy small quantities and it may be expensive to buy now. Just let me know. JO.

Well, Jerry thank you very much for the offer. But I bought a piece off the bay for a buck .10 earlier. I'll let everyone know how this comes out. Thanks all!

I got my copper tape. And what I want to do here is cover the bottom of the pickup with it, correct? Okay, now to attach it to ground can I leave an end of the tape long and stick it to the ground wire in the cavity? Will that work?

I thought the deal was to shield the cavity. That's what you do with 6-stringers.

I failed to notice you have a lap steel. My bad. Your situation may be different than was mine.
The ones I did are pedal steels with a metal mounting plate. There isn't really a cavity, just a shallow and open well. All I did was put the tape between the bottom of the pickup and the pickup mounting plate. The idea was to put a barrier between the bottom of the pickup coil and my off board electronics, amps etc. to suppress 60 cycle hum. It did the job for me that way.

I defer to the electronics experts here on the proper procedures and include a link to a web site that explains shielding.

http://www.electric-guitar-info.com/ele ... hield.html

Apologies for any mis-information on my part.