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487 Views 22 Replies Latest reply: Feb 13, 2012 5:30 PM by Brazzy RSS
celestial12 Just Startin'
celestial12
15 posts since
Dec 24, 2011
Currently Being Moderated

Feb 9, 2012 1:35 AM

Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

I don't know if my unit is defective or something but i have tried putting the noise gate in the first position and tried every setting on it.

Also i have tried changing my input settings to Input1-Guitar and Input2-Variax but none of this seems to help.

My current setup- Esp V401dx with Emg 81z through the HD500 into M-audio AV40s.

Any help will be appreciated!!

Tags: tone, tones, line_6, hd500
  • jimsreynolds Power User
    jimsreynolds
    1,359 posts since
    Jun 27, 43450
    Currently Being Moderated
    Feb 9, 2012 2:20 AM (in response to celestial12)
    Re: Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

    High gain amps in the real world tend to hiss quite a bit also.  Generally there are two good positions for a noise gate:

     

    1. Directly after the guitar.  This traps noise, hum and hiss from the guitars pickups
    2. Directly after the pre-amp

     

    The second point is relevant to you.  A High gain pre-amp just picks up a lot of noise from the environment and it comes through as hiss.  Using a gate as the first effect after the pre-amp usually kills the hiss dead.

     

    The HD500 full amp models do not allow you to put an effect directly after the pre-amp but you can achieve the same thing by putting a gate directly after the amp model in the signal chain.

     

    For high gain tones:  try a 'Hard gate'.  That can work pretty well.  Start with the 'hold time' and 'decay' set to 0.  Then adjust the 'Open' parameter until the hiss just disappears and then a tiny bit more.  Then adjust the 'Close' parameter so that it is slightly higher than the 'open' parameter.

     

    If all you are hearing is hiss (no hum or buzz) then try turning off the first (guitar) gate while you are dialing in the post-amp gate.  This may sound more natural if your guitar is reasonably quiet ... and with EMGs it should be!

  • DeanDinosaur Just Startin'
    DeanDinosaur
    260 posts since
    Jul 30, 2009
    Currently Being Moderated
    Feb 9, 2012 4:00 AM (in response to celestial12)
    Re: Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

    There has to be something wrong in you setup. EMGs should be quiter than most pickups.   By the controller pedal, there are a few switches; make sure they're set properly. The guitar pad switch should be set to normal instead of pad. That's all I can think of for now.

     

    To isolate the problem check your same patches using headphones plugged Directly into the POD. If the headphone mix doesn't have the hiss, you will know that the problem is improper setup input/output to your powered speakers.

  • phil_m Expert Line 6 User
    phil_m
    3,373 posts since
    Jan 25, 2007
    Currently Being Moderated
    Feb 9, 2012 6:29 AM (in response to celestial12)
    Re: Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

    Do you have the HD500 connected to your computer via USB too?

  • DeanDinosaur Just Startin'
    DeanDinosaur
    260 posts since
    Jul 30, 2009
    Currently Being Moderated
    Feb 9, 2012 6:37 PM (in response to celestial12)
    Re: Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

    At this point I would say the best way to identify the issue is by posting few of these patches to custom tone and let us try them out for you. If we get the hiss in our setups, that would mean your patches have way too much gain, but if we don't get the hiss then we'll take it from there...

      • DeanDinosaur Just Startin'
        DeanDinosaur
        260 posts since
        Jul 30, 2009
        Currently Being Moderated
        Feb 10, 2012 8:14 PM (in response to celestial12)
        Re: Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

        Just got home from work, and I looked at your patches and here's what I noticed before I play them on my POD (I will try them out tomorrow,had a long day at work):

        1- your mixer is centered yet your using both pathes. I would mute path B and use only path A with such patches, no need to double the signal.

        2-Just want to point out to you that once you place a compressor in the chain, it summs the stereo signal to mono, so the sound you will get in these patches is MONO, which is probably pretty good and more focused maybe with High gain but this is Just an FYI. I personally think MONO would be more suited for use with a guitar amp, but you're using powered speakers if I remember correctly.

         

        I will mess with your patches tomorrow and hopefully I can come up with something that might help the situation.

      • DeanDinosaur Just Startin'
        DeanDinosaur
        260 posts since
        Jul 30, 2009
        Currently Being Moderated
        Feb 11, 2012 6:06 PM (in response to celestial12)
        Re: Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

        great patches, sounded really good on my guitar . Your patches work fine for me after rasing the CH Volume, but without it I did get some hiss...

         

        I tried your patche and they sound good but I had to increase the amp volume. I think the problem is that your not giving enough juice to your powered speaker so to get decent volume your probably getting most of your volume from the speaker and you're amplifying the noise messing up your signal to noise ratio. Here's what I recommend for best signal to noise ratio:

         

        1- The Master Volume and by that I mean the phyiscal one for the whole unit , needs to be crancked at full to get the best signal to noise ratio . It's right by the controller and above the Looper switch (Just dial it all the way to maximum)

        2-Inside your patch bring the "Ch Vol" to around 50 or up the volume using the level on the Tube Compressor if that retains the same tonality since the amp is feeding into the COMPressor and that might change the tone.

        I believe this will improve the hiss situation.

        When I make patchesI go through a mixer so I can make sure I'm sending enough juice without clipping, you might want to consider that, even if you have to use a virtual mixer of a sound card etc.

        Hope that helps

  • line6antonio Line 6 Support
    line6antonio
    2,463 posts since
    Sep 26, 2006
    Currently Being Moderated
    Feb 10, 2012 5:14 AM (in response to celestial12)
    Re: Why do my high gain tones produce a hissing sound?

    hello

     

    if the hiss stops when you unplug the guitar, then this is the cause

     

    please try using a different guitar, preferably passive

     

    line6antonio

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