Hiss from mag pickups

[BobTheDog]

Hi Guys,

I have a E1-M here and am getting a lot of hiss from the mag pickups, absolutely none from the piezo.

Are they noisy pickups in general?

Cheers

Andy

[acorkos]

what kind of amp are you playing through, and what are your control settings? any effect pedals in your signal path?

[BobTheDog]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I have tried with it through a FireFace 800 into a Mac and also with a Flextone III amp.

No FX in chain at all.

First I thought it may be some form of EMI but I am not too sure now, I turned off all other electrical equipment in the room and still get the hiss. If I switch to the piezo using the blend knob the noise goes completely so I would guess it isn't the other electrics causing the problem.

I have included a frequency analysis of the noise, this is from the neck pu.

Thanks for your interest

Andy

[acorkos]

what about trying the different pickup selector switch settings and knob settings....try all the different combinations of settings and knob positions. does the hiss change at all? if so, you might find a problem with just one of the pickups or pickup wiring, or control knob wiring.

also, i would take the amp to another room and plug the guitar into it there, to make sure there aren't gremlins in your studio.

anyway, doing these things rules out a lot of what it isn't....helps narrow down the troubleshooting search.

[BobTheDog]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I have tried it in different rooms with exactly the same noise.

The noise is there on all mag pickup settings, the noise changes character slightly between the mag settings.

I have tried with all combinations of settings, nothing much changes it apart from of course lowering the filter frequency or tone.

I have also discovered that the foot unit produces a steady high pitched hiss when on even without the guitar connected, this I can live with but it makes me wonder slightly if the foot unit or PSU might be to blame in some way.

I have tried multiple guitar leads and also power conditioning units.

It doesn't sound like the sort of noise you would expect from magnetic pickups, also changing the angle or position of the guitar doesn't effect it at all.

I must admit I am a bit stumped!

Cheers

Andy

[gzap]

I get it a bit too.
Sounds more like electronic interference being picked up by the pickups with a bit of hiss thrown in.
Just on the magnetic pickups.

[antcarrier]

I have had my guitar for a couple of weeks now, and have also encountered all of these problems, and more! I have a paul vo guitar, running into a fractal axe-fx ultra (which is as noiseless as can be). This is all (including the foot pedal and speakers) plugged into a power conditioner. The piezo is quiet, and the mag pickups are super noisy. It sounds white-noise ish, but I also get a few spaced out theremin-esque squeals that change volume depending on where i set the vo power knob (they are loudest when at full). I also get a fair bit of the radio coming through. I believe the pedal is at fault for this as the radio can still be heard even when i am running the pedal into the axe, with no guitar (and no XLR) plugged into the pedal. The instrument cable between the pedal and the AF is definitely not the problem.

The ground/lift switch helps to reduce noise, but barely (and only sometimes)!

I am hoping I soon find a way to fix all this, as it is driving me nuts. I don't think I have ever owned a guitar as noisy as this one!

[BobTheDog]

I must admit I have the floor unit down as one of the culprits but I am sure not the only one.

For me the mag pups are basically totally useless for normal guitar playing due to the noise from them, the piezo is pretty good.

Maybe we could all get together and do a joint email to Moog about it?

Cheers

Andy

[cliffman]

I've been around and around with the noise. A few items...

- Whatever it is, it's quite constant. I compared my unit to the other one in the shop once I
noticed it. Also tried swapping the pedal out.
- It does appear to be related to the environment. Clean power helps.

- The noise is sort of like noise I've experienced with active pickups. Except these are
'hyper-active' pickups :) - Given the amount of energy/circuitry involved, I'm not too surprised at
the white noise/hiss. The 'theremin' bit is really annoying, however.
If you are in need of fun, try taking a contact mic and hold it over the pickups while you turn
the Vo knob. Serious electrical fields happening.

- It's very signal-to-noise sensitive. When I'm at the gig and playing at stage volumes, or at
or at rehearsal with a drummer or somewhat away from the amp, I really don't notice it.
At home, lower volumes, it's bad.
Careful attention to the relative gain in the setup seems to help quite a bit. And of course,
hi-gain devices or compressors generally sound horrible. (Nothing like compressed hiss)

- Definitely relates to Vo power settings. I hear less noise when the Vo power is turned up.
- Seems to be very input and/or preamp sensitive. Moog service told me the output impedance
is 'roughly' 2k, but varies quite a bit with settings ( Vo power?? Dunno)
- Stuff that's worked okay for me:
-- Plugging directly into a mixing desk
-- Sarno Freeloader
-- Z.Vex Super Hard On.
-- EHxl Knockout, dial the high end down a bunch.

Fortunately, I don''t need a lot of high frequency in my sound, so rolling off the highs a
bit doesn't bother me and helps the hiss. Worst case, I use a noise-reduction pedal.

Stuff that was Bad or useless:
- Old Fender amps.
- Big Muff Pi (hey, had to try it once)
- EBTech Hum Eliminator
- Dunlop Hum Eliminator.

Overall, I'm not crazy about the sound of the mags. The rest of the guitar makes up for it, however.
I wonder if it would be possible in a future version to have a well-shielded conventional humbucker mounted
separate from the Vo pickups.

[antcarrier]

I forgot to mention, along with all the other noises, I also get a zippy, fart-resemblant sound whenever i use 'mute' mode (mag pups only, there is no noise with the piezo). This makes it pretty much useless in a recording situation. This sound is also audible in the controlled sustain mode, but not as bad.

I am pretty frustrated... this is a $6000+ guitar that claims to be 'noise cancelling'. Well at least, DID claim to be noise cancelling before I bought it. I just visited the moog website, it has been modified and 'noise cancelling' is no longer advertised. grr.

[beard]

Is this a problem with just a few guitars or is it a problem with the actual moog guitar in general?

I have been saving since I heard about this guitar and been so excited that i'm close to owning one but all these complaints about various things (which are important factors for what I want to use the guitar for) make me not want to spend my hard earned money on this thing.

I don't mean to be negative as i am the least negative person around but if I bought a guitar that took 2 years to save for turned out to be relatively useless during recording etc then i'd want a head on a plate.

Please sort this out Moog or at least address this problem.

[BobTheDog]

I contacted Moog, they said that the noise is inherent in the design of the pups.

Inherently useless I would say.

I have given up totally on the pups apart from some use with the filters, the piezo output is very nice though and I use a VG99 via 13 pin for the guitar sounds which works very well.

[antcarrier]

Beard: don't waste your money on a moog guitar; you will be kicking yourself if you do. At the outrageous price it is, the problems outweigh the benefits IMHO. I took a risk and bought mine online. If I had got the chance to test it beforehand, I would not have bought it.

[BobTheDog]

Beard: don't waste your money on a moog guitar; you will be kicking yourself if you do. At the outrageous price it is, the problems outweigh the benefits IMHO. I took a risk and bought mine online. If I had got the chance to test it beforehand, I would not have bought it.

Unfortunately I have to agree!

[beard]

obviously i'm still going to try one out rather than take 2 peoples opinions who I don't know for gospel but... I'm very wary about this now. I'm going to see if anyone in the uk has one and going to take my amp and pedal board to try it out.

I will be seriously gutted if it's as bad as you say but not as gutted as I would be If I bought one and then got it home and it sounds bleep with my setup.

Thanks for the heads up guys.

Does Moog actually read these posts? Can't get worse advertising than this thread.