The Steel Guitar Forum

HELP,, I have a Emmons Legrande, and it is very quiet live onstage with the original pups, but when trying to record direct to interface/pc, I get a very bad hum on steel, impossible to record direct,(my preferred method).. without that lousy hum.. Have tried different cords, different volume pedal, (Hilton and stock Emmons pedal), moving steel away from pc monitor, to no avail.. Would changing pick ups out to e66's be a solution to hum??
Thanks in advance

Do you get the hum with a different guitar?

Does the hum go away or get louder/softer if you touch/don't touch the metalnparts of the guitar without playing anything?

Is there a tiny switch on your recording interface marked earth lift or whatever?

No my strat is quiet as a church mouse, So am inclined to think it is the single coils stock pups I have,, May go to BL e66 pups, had them on my p/p and were very queit

Are u using a direct box or something to match the impedance between guitar and board?

yes I am using a DOD direct box with a XLR going to interface to no avail

This discussion is also running in the Electronics section.

Since there are more replies in this one to date, I'll answer here.

First of all, is it hum, or is it noise? There is a difference. Guitar players often tend to use the terms interchangeably, and they are not the same thing (a pet peeve of mine, I'm sorry).
Maybe the easiest way to determine this is if you have a tone control on your guitar. Get everything so that it makes the problem, then turn the tone control down.
If it goes away or goes down a lot, it is not hum. It is noise/hash floating through the air that is above the roll off frequency of your tone control.
If the noise does not go away, then it is probably 60 Hz hum that is below the tone control roll off frequency and hence is not affected.

AC power: Are you using grounded outlets?
How many outlets are you using?
Are they wired up correctly (grounded, in phase, etc.)?

Pickups: You can try a humbucker as opposed to your single coils, but you may not NEED to. It is always nice to find the real problem first.

You say that your single coil Strat does not hum. (Assuming here that it is plugged in and routed through the same path.)
You say that your steel is REAL bad, though.
As was said, single coil pups can be real good or real bad depending upon their positioning to the source of hum.
If possible, get the problem happening, then if possible try rotating the steel to see if the problem goes in and out. If it does, then the humbucker may be the solution.

Good luck.

Mark Adkins wrote:No my strat is quiet as a church mouse, So am inclined to think it is the single coils stock pups I have,, May go to BL e66 pups, had them on my p/p and were very queit

But the Strat is single coil so if that's fine, I wouldn't assume single coil pickups are the problem.

Is your sound card or pc interface powered from USB? Or adapter/ wall wart?

If your volume pedal, effects unit, direct box, or anything touching the signal between the guitar and recording interface is running off ac mains, try plugging them all into the same ac outlet that your recording interface is plugged into