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i dont blame you :) i really tried a lot of stuff... lets return to basics... this buzz is present also on this rig: (GUITAR --> GUITAR CABLE --> POD HD500X --> HEADPHONES) <<< NO NOTEBOOK USED IN THIS SETUP, BUZZ IS THE SAME headphones were ruled out previously...

guys iam glad you like your variaxes... but i like my guitar's tone and feel... i dont think everybody who is trying to eliminate buzz from their rig should be forwarded to buy Variax... period... its a solution, maybe... but its not for everyone... ill see what the guitar builder guy has to say next week when i bring him my guitar and than i will decide whats next... right now i enjoy playing without Line 6 POD on a battery powered macbook with a Overloud TH2 software amp simulator... the guitar is absolutelly silent and the tone is like a bell of Notre Dame... if only i could translate this experience into a wall-powered Line 6 POD HD...

jandrio> i really dont know what Variax would prove... if i plug it and its dead silent what does it say to my problem ? it doesnt really prove anyhting because its a totally different technology than my guitar so the two are uncomparable... its like comparing diesel motor with electric... of course electric will be more silent... i know variax will be silent but that doesnt yield any suggestion as to what my problem is... also as i said i have absolutely no way to get my hands on variax in my city or country... these models are not "ON DISPLAY" in local shops they are only "ON ORDER"... there is NOT SINGLE VARIAX in my country to test in a shop...

Yeah thats what i discovered yesterday in the guitar centre... $3500 humbucker custom Gibson Les Paul and David Gilmour strats were buzzing more than my cheap guitar... there was no point of comparing nuances between my cheap guitar and this high end guitar because the high end had 3x more buzz to begin with and their buzz was ever-present no matter what i did... a cheaper FENDER Yngwie Malmsteen Stratocaster model (Dimarzio YJM pickups) - $2400 was much quitere than the most expensive $3500 models... there was simply nothing to compare... no common ground... the price of the guitar didnt mean anything in the buzz... every guitar buzzed in its unique way... thats why iam hesitant to try other guitars or invite firends to my house because in buzz, no 2 guitars behave the same... its like comparing apples and oranges... in the end you are not much more clever than before you started... btw the cheapest squier $120 was behaving much like my guitar (slightly more buzz when my hand was near pickups) while the most expensive guitars $3500 had 3x more buzz than my guitar ALL THE TIME, so as a benchmark they were "useless" because they buzzed more than my cheap guitar... so this kind of testing is pretty useless... it may uncover something but it most likely only brings in new kinds of buzz unique to those other guitars (and price doesnt matter here)...

DarkEdge> It is possible that you have a bad ground for your main electrical panel, the ground rod may not be deep enough or thick enough well i guess everything is possible now... maybe i could move to a different house :) just kidding but you may be right... this buzz seems like really hard to pinpoint... could be anything... DarkEdge> I'm doubting that it is the POD (but anythings possible at this point) i already ruled out POD... but not completely :) DarkEdge> I'm leaning more towards your equipment, be that a cold joint in your guitars electrical circuit, cord issue, wiring issue (again guitar). next week ill have my guitar checked by a local guitar builder... i got contact only yesterday yeah getting hold of another guitar or get out of house seems like a good idea... and i tried both yesterday... i went to a guitar centre in a different part of town and i tested several other guitars... but as you may read in my previous post where i went to guitar centre it may also prove nothing... i made this trip to guitar centre i refered to above but it was disaster their room was so noisy with RMI / RFI that any testing was useless... FURTHERMORE i discovered that its futile to compare one guitar buzz to another guitar... because all guitars had their own specific buzz issues so there was nothing to compare... every guitar was buzzing albeit in a different way and different circumstances... in fact my guitar was the most silent of them all...

ok i went to the guitar shop to compare my guitar with other guitars... i took my whole line 6 rig with me... my plan was to pick up some really expensive guitars ($2000 and more) - the once which most likely have very good wiring, grounding and shielding - and see if they exhibit the same buzz as my guitar when i put it in my lap... aka if i get the same buzz that: 1) appears only when you hold the guitar in your lap BUT it doesnt happen when the guitar stands alone in a guitar stand 2) dissapears when you touch anything metalic on the guitar or rig WELL IT WAS A COMPLETE DISASTER AND I COULDNT MAKE ANY VERIFIABLE OR REPEATABLE CONCLUSION OUT OF THIS VISIT 1) the shop was so dirty with RFI and RMI that all guitars i tried including mine were picking up all different kinds of buzz and clicking, beeping and crazy audio artefacts... the artefacts were changing as i moved around or turned around on a spot... so essentially even if there was this 20% buzz present i wouldnt hear it over all the mad RFI / RMI interference creating far worse buzzing than what i ever experienced at home... compared to the shop my home is a perfectly insulated recording booth... there was almost no point comparing nuance in buzz among guitars because the room was emiting so much buzz that it was one large cacophony that smeared all little differences i was about to measure with my ears... wrong begining... 2) next i discovered that EVERY GUITAR I PICKED UP HAD SOME KIND OF BUZZ, BUT EVERY BUZZ WAS DIFFERENT... there were no 2 guitars that would have comparable buzz or happening at the same circumstances... every guitar had an "original type of buzz" that behaved differently to all other guitars... impossible to compare... and they ALL essentially buzzed like hell... this is what i tried (hold your hats): 1 - FENDER CUSTOM SHOP David Gilmour Signature model - $3800 2 - GIBSON Les Paul Custom, Rosewood Fingerboard model - $3600 3 - GIBSON SG Standard Reissue with Maestro VOS model - $2800 4 - FENDER Yngwie Malmsteen Stratocaster model (Dimarzio YJM pickups) - $2400 5 - cheapest FENDER SQUIER Bullet Strat - $121 sadly all the high end guitars (and the cheap squier) had serious buzz and RMI/RFI artifacts present... i guess it was the room... guitars 1, 2, 3 had constant buzz present, however every buzz behaved differently and i couldnt even agree which way to sit - every guitar had a different sweat spot where the buzz lowered or rised or a new RMI/RFI artifact would polute the audio, guitar 4 had least buzz present (i guess because it was fitted with slightly unussual Dimarzio YJM)... what suprised me was that all high end guitars (1, 2, 3) had CONSTANT buzz present which was severly atentuated only when i touched the metalic part on guitar (bridge, pots) or rig... if you remember my guitar - the buzz appears only when i hold my guitar in my lap - it doesnt happen when the guitar stands alone in a guitar stand... the high end guitars had a BUZZ present ALL THE TIME... so in a way the high end guitars did behave differently than my guitar but i couldnt say it was improvment... the high end guitars buzzed ALL THE TIME and they picked up awfull lot of RMI/RFI dirt... not that guitars dont do that but for high end guitars they were really dirty... the room was a disaster... i soon gave up the experiment because there was simply no common behavior between any 2 guitars i tested... every guitar had a buzz of some kind and among all the MAD buzz emitted by the room it was useless to compare anything or try to spot small buzz nuances... the good news is that the shop manager gave me a contact on a custom guitar builder / repairman (they build guitars from scratch and also do extensive service) so next time i wont waste my time trying to compare guitars - that proved to be pointless method - and i will take my guitar to this guy and let him figure it out for me... next week ill make an apointment with him... for one... the result of this failure is that now i appreciate that buzz is a real b#tch to track down and eliminate and even a cream of the crop $3500 guitars with humbuckers and top quality wiring are not immune to it given bad room and whatnot... right now my 20% buzz with a cheap guitar that i experience in my home suddenly bothers me a lot less when i heard what a $3500 guitars with humbuckers can "buzz" like if you are unlucky with a room or something...

spaceatl> sorry i missed your post so replying now... for guitar i use guitar cables (Monster Jazz Guitar or Klotz Titanium) for recording the LINE 6 and interconnection to the "grounding device" (audio cable between Line 6 and "grounding device") i defintelly use studio quality audio cables not speaker cables... from CORDIAL and MONSTER... next thing ill do will be testing some more expensive guitars in a local guitar shop where i bought my guitar to see if the 20% buzz happens across other guitars...

jandrio> 1. so it has nothing 2 do with L6 hd500x, does it? not any more, at this moment this remaining 20% buzz exist even on rigs WITHOUT ANY LINE 6 PRODUCTS... but mind you that in the begining of my posts i was fighting 2 kinds of buzz... i labeled them "80% buzz" that i succesfully tracked and eliminated by connecting POD to a "grounding device" with a 3-prong power socket... now this "remaining 20% buzz" is no longer caused by POD grounding issues and happens on any rig that is connected to mains power... WITH OR WITHOUT LINE6 PRODUCT... however i feel obliged to fix this buzz problem in general so i continue posting here until the rig is buzz free... i believe that before i came on this thread it was dead thread with thousands of views but not much replies... there wasnt much info for the original poster's question (nobody for example mentioned the trick with "grounding device" which got rid of 80% buzz for me)... so i continue this thread as a "buzz clinic" in general until iam buzz free even though its not directly caused by LINE 6 PRODUCT anymore... thats doesnt mean LINE 6 PRODUCT cannot be utilized to FIX this remaining 20% buzz... we will see what the final verdict will be... 2. try also a JTV with the models on. there are no local shops that would have Variax (JTV) guitars on display so i could try them... such guitars are "ON ORDER" only in my city... but they have a very decent collection of American Fender, Gibson Les Paul, Gretsch, Gibson SC, etc. i wont even bother with cheap guitars... ill try to plug in the best they let me test on the spot... 3. having carefully + repeatedly read all ur posts, i understand from ur 1st post (#15) that u have already tested 3 hd500x + 3 guitars, havent'u? correct, i tested try 3 nice guitars and 2 POD HD500X... well spotted... but this was in the early days when i was having trouble with 2 kinds of buzz overlaping - the 80% buzz caused by ungrounded LIne 6 POD (due to supplied 2-prong power brick without grounding pin) and also the less noticable 20% buzz... back than the whole rig was buzzing like MAD because it was totally ungrounded... i believe back than i didnt even hear or notice the 20% buzz because it was masked by the 80% buzz that was all over the audio like plague... now when i succesfully established a trick how to drain 80% of buzz away into the "grounding device" the remaining 20% buzz stands out and its time to visit the shop again and do another round of guitar swaping to see if this remaining 20% buzz is guitar specific or if it happens across whole range of guitars... but iam glad you asked... its getting a bit confusing but i think i still keep track :)

jandrio> thanks i know both these videos... the problem is they may or may not address my kind of buzz... video 1 is too general and video 2 is not very specific about the buzz this guy had... its not clear enough from each video what type of buzz the presenter talks about... and there are many possible causes... its like chasing after some buzz from a YouTube video that you dont know nothing about and it may be caused by something else than in my situation... i should focus on my specific buzz and go step by step eliminating possible causes... i must be methodical otherwise i get lost in all the possible causes + combinations... next step that actually proves something is trying few other guitars on the same rig...

yeah i tried different cables - very good ones: KLOTZ Titanium - 3m @ $40 Monster Cable Jazz Guitar - 3.5m @ $69 iam planning to pack - GUITAR - GUITAR CABLE - POD HD500X (with 2-prong wall charger) - MOTU 828mkIII AD/DA (grounding device with a 3-prong power socket) - XLR --> TRS cable to wire POD with the grounding device - HEADPHONES ill take it to the shop where i bought my guitar and i will go through their selection of MOST EXPENSIVE guitars (American Fenders and Gibson Les Pauls) to see if the buzz is present when i put the guitar in my lap... if all guitars in the shop behave same than guitar is out of the question... and than i proceed to test the POD HD500X next ill take the whole setup to the other shop where i bought my POD HD500X (it was a different shop than where i got the guitar) and ill try their local spare POD HD500X with my guitar...

this thread could be now distilled to this: what do you do with a buzz that 1) appears only when you hold the guitar in your lap (it doesnt happen when the guitar stands alone in a guitar stand) 2) dissapears when you touch anything metalic on the guitar or rig 3) dissapears when you tie a wire from the guitar bridge to your naked body skin 4) this buzz only happens on a rig or laptop that is powered from mains power (when you use battery powered laptop with software amp simulation the buzz never appears) iam looking for a permanent fix without the wire attached to my body iam currently experiencing this buzz on a LINE 6 POD HD rig (powered from mains) and also LAPTOP BASED rig (using software amp simulator on a laptop powered from mains) SO THIS BUZZ HAPPENS WITH LINE6 PRODUCT AND ALSO WITHOUT LINE6 PRODUCT... when i run my LAPTOP BASED rig from battery (unplug laptop from mains) the buzz never happens HINT: MAINS POWER BEING USED IS A CRUCIAL COMPONENT TO THIS BUZZ

guys i doubt a digitaly generated noise would react to my touch on a metalic part of guitar and also such noise would most likely be permanently present and as you can hear (and see from waveform) its NOT PRESENT when the guitar rests alone in a guitar stand... crucially this noise is also generated when instead of Line 6 POD HD i use a macbook powered from mains socket with a software amp simulation (Overloud TH2) instead of Line 6 POD HD... this proves that this remaining 20% buzz is not LINE 6 specific and it also happens WITHOUT LINE 6 hardware in the rig... but i said that since post #35... iam trying to track down this remaining ghost buzz whatever its cause...

here is a frequency waveform... left side is without BUZZ, right side is with BUZZ... i dont know but i wouldnt say i could say from this that its "digital" or "analog"... to me it looks like the volume rise is UNIFORM across whole frequency spectrum... there is no single frequency band that would INSTANTLY JUMP OUT... its hottest around 2500-3000 but its constant even without buzz... as i say the volume rise IS UNIFORM across whole frequency range... also attaching 1 older recording waveform - this looks different because it was recorded with different gain staging - but the general ratio between "buzz free" signal and "buzz infested" signal remains same...

pianoguyy> if you mean Noise Gate as an insert effect... thats out of question for me... i want to fix the root cause of this problem not trying to mask it with digital effects... also Noise Gate for me hurts the audio (transients, compression artefacts)...

ok here is the recording of the buzz + a waveform picture... although i use a recording rig setup with a macbook as capturing device this buzz is ALSO present exact same WITHOUT NOTEBOOK on my simplest setup: (GUITAR --> GUITAR CABLE --> POD HD500X --> HEADPHONES) <<< NO NOTEBOOK USED IN THIS SETUP, BUZZ IS THE SAME we already ruled out headphones through previous A/B testing everytime i use POD HD500X i have it GROUNDED by passivelly connecting its XLR OUTPUTS to a HIFI STEREO AMPLIFIER which has 3 PRONG POWER SOCKET to ground the whole rig cause POD HD500X 2-PRONG power brick has no grounding capability... for the record i also tried different "grounding device" a MOTU 828mkIII AD/DA with a 3 PRONG POWER SOCKET - just interconnected passivelly with the POD HD500X... both "grounding devices" act the same... although both devices sucesfully remove 80% of buzz caused by lack of grounding of POD HD500X itself... the remaining 20% buzz that only appears when i put the guitar in my lap still remains... thats why i call it "20% buzz" because after i PROPERLY GROUNDED the POD HD500X, 80% of buzz is gone and this pesky 20% of buzz remain even on a grounded POD HD500X... what i did to capture this remaining buzz for you: 1) i rested the guitar in a guitar stand for few seconds so you can hear that the BUZZ IS NOT PRESENT when the guitar just rests in a guitar stand on its own without me touching it - BLUE LINE - this is significant part for me, because it means that the pickups are not collecting any signal dirt from the surrounding room causing any audiable buzz even on high gain... 2) than instead of putting it in my lap and back clumsily i just hovered my palm near the pickups without touching the guitar - you can hear the horrible buzz come in immediatelly as i put my hand (or any part of my body) near the pickups and hover it there - RED LINE little note here for fast trigger repliers: when i do this exact experiment while on a battery powered macbook (Line 6 is replaced by software amp simulation) there is no buzz when i hover my hand over the pickups... so before somebody says: - YOUR BODY'S OWN STATIC IS CAUSING THE BUZZ - YOUR BODY ACTS LIKE AN AMPLIFIER FOR AIRBORN RMI/RFI DIRT - YOUR BODY IS ACTING AS A SHIELD/GROUND FOR AIRBORN RMI/RFI DIRT AMPLIFIED BY PICKUPS please explain why the same body is not causing ANY buzz when the rig is running from a battery without being connected to mains (using software amp simulation instead of Line 6 POD HD500X)... 3) where do you hear the break in the buzz and see the pause in the RED LINE thats when i briefly touched anything metalic on the guitar and you can hear the buzz dissapears instantly, like flipping an ON/OFF switch 4) lastly i put my palm away from pickups and again leave few seconds of just guitar standing in a guitar stand - you can again hear there is no buzz present when the guitar is alone in a guitar stand... BLUE LINE ONE NOTE ON THE OVERAL HIGH NOISE OF THE RECORDING: the relativelly high volume noise and hissy noise you can hear through out the recording is deliberate because i wanted everything to be obviously captured without any doubt... so its a combination of high gain preset on POD HD500X + hardware gain on SOUNDCARD + lousy gain-staging between POD, SOUNDCARD INPUT, DAW, etc. just to be clear the hissy noise is deliberate recording choice and not a problem... what we are after is the BUZZ that comes several seconds into the recording... AUDIO IS ATTACHED TO THIS POST AS MP3 (duartion 30 sec) Output 3-4e.mp3