r2v2

phil_m> so I've kind of lost track of all the different iterations you've went through here

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...

My worst guitars for noise are my more expensive Les Paul and American Strat.

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...

I listened to the clip...If that is really HD500, guitar and cans...that's sounds like a bad wiring job in that guitar or you are using a defective cable or even perhaps a speaker cable (no twisted pair)...

 

Outside this being a crummy cable, the first thing that comes to mind is that none of the wires in this guitar are utilizing twisted pair...This is actually extremely important in a passive guitar...And if you want to do it perfect, it is a royal pain in the arse to dress it out properly twisted...Properly twisted means that "every" hot gets a ground from the star in every switch position, runs are twisted as tight as possible with as many twists as you can get and the NUMBER of twists in EACH run is an even number...

 

It's an art...But when you do it, electromagnetic noise will cancel...Shielding does NOTHING for an electromagnetic buzz, that only helps with electrostatic noise (this guitar has a lot of that too)...Most of the time when I have re-wired a guitar that sounds like this one it turns out that there are multiple ground paths in the scheme that were done out of convenience without insuring that ground it twisted around every hot and that the ground is conductive...The more switches an pots you have, the more difficult this becomes logistically...

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

What is the frequency content of the noise?  That looks like digital noise to me.  It has a very structured pattern.

Unfortunately, L6 is very noisy. They, on purpose, add in the 60hz hum for 'realism'. Its probably my only complaint about the units.  

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

It does sound like it's probably some noise coming through the power lines. Do you happen to have any lights on dimmers in the room where you have stuff set up? That's a relatively common source of this sort of hum.

ok today i spent 3 hours testing my flat power grid... this is what i did:

- i have NO DIMMERS on any lights (just simple ON/OFF swicthes)

- i went around whole house and unplugged EVERY DEVICE I COULD (except Fridge, Dish Washer, Electric Cooking Hob that i cant reach behind with my hand)

- i went to my main "power panel" and i switched EVERYTHING OFF and only enabled electricity in 1 single small room that i use as storage room...

- so the whole flat power grid was SWITCHED OFF (this includes wires to fridge, dish washer, electric cooking hob)

- i only had 2 wall sockets enabled in 1 small storage room (1 single toggle switch on the power panel was ENABLED)

- i connected my ussual rig in that small storage room

- i was testing during day light so no lights on (and the lights were cut off anyway from the main power panel)

NO EFFECT - the 20% buzz is still present even with EVERYTHING IN THE FLAT cut out from mains power (see above)...

so that i guess rules out 99.9% of OTHER DEVICES in my flat power grid causing the 20% buzz... they were all disconnected manually and the grid was shut down via mains power panel afterwards...

iam glad i did this test...

jandrio>

1) please check my posts again i never ever used USB port on HD500X... even the simplest rig without any computers or USBs (GUITAR --> GUITAR CABLE --> HD500X --> HEADPHONES) is exhibiting the 20% buzz when i put my guitar in my lap and dissapears when i touch anything metalic on the rig - so USB is out of question in my situation

2) yes i was going to HD500X setup page / AC Frequency (Knob 3) - i was trying both 50hz and 60hz settings - no effect at all

Buzz that gets less when you touch the strings is noise getting into your guitar's pickups.  When you touch the strings, your body is acting like an RF shield and that reduces the pickup.  Try moving around the room and twisting slowly without touching the strings.  The amount of noise will vary.  This is why they invented Humbucker pickups.  The other solution - active pickups.  I replaced the pickups in my Strat with EMG active pickups and the noise went way down.  You will also notice much less noise in positions 2 and 4 on the Strat selector switch.  This is because it is selecting two pickups that tend to cancel each other's noise.  (Humbucker)  Unfortunately, this is a fact of life with single coil guitars.  By the way, my Variax is dead silent except when using it's Mag pickups.

well its simply not true in my specific situation...

1) iam using a superstrat (2x SC, 1x HB) and i mostly play only on HB or the position 2 (2xSC canceling - noise rejection) and both of these positions have the buzz equally...

2) if its coming from pickups why its not present when i run from battery powered macboook... can you explain that please ?

3) your explanation is in contradiction to this article http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/noisebucket.php which says that YOUR BODY is acting like an interference source/antenna (not a shield) and touching strings actually grounds your body... iam not judging who is right here iam just saying there is million opinions on buzz but i still have it in my audio and it goes away when i run on battery macbook...

4) added this one... when its guitar pickups how come the buzz is NOT PRESENT when the guitar stands alone in a guitar stand... i have to take it in my lap for the buzz to appear... your explanation wouldnt make sense at all in this case...

can you explain 1) 2) 3) 4) ?

variax is nice technology but i dont have money for that... and honestly i would rather buy super cool american fender for the money than variax... just my opinion...

iam more and more inclined to the explanation that this remaining 20% buzz doesnt seem to have anything to do with my guitar quality or grounding (which was checked by a guitar mechanic) but its poluting my audio from the power grid since its not present when i run on macbook battery...

iam no electrician so iam not saying the buzz is coming right from power grid but its very likely somehow linked to the dirt in the power grid rather than dirt in the room that is being picked up guitar pickups... cause if it was dirt in the room than it would be present also on macbook battery setup and it would be present when the guitar rests in a guitar stand... right ? iam confused...

this is an audio output waveform coming from Line 6 POD HD500 into my battery powered macbook through audio interface... FYI headphones are completelly detached and iam not even wearing them...

you can see a steady level of buzz in the Line 6 HD500 output when i hold the guitar in my lap or when i hold my hand near the guitar pickups (A sections)

whenever i touch anything metalic on the guitar or the rig the buzz is gone (B sections)

today i borrowed this:

ART CleanBOX II

Ground Loop Eliminator

Product Description:

"Hum" in an audio system is often caused by loop effects which act like antennas. These loops can easily pick up a 60 Hz (or higher harmonics) hum transmitted by electrical wiring. Typically, these loops are connected via grounds, more commonly called "ground loops". The safest way to eliminate unwanted noise is with the CleanBOX II. Some examples of Ground Loops:

- The power ground of a synthesizer, connected to the signal ground of the synth, into a mixer's ground, then into a mixer's power ground.
- The signal ground of a send effect (reverb, delay) into a mixer, and the connecting power grounds of the mixer and the unit.
- The power ground of a guitar amplifier, connected to a signal processor which has a second guitar amplifier on the other channel, and then the second guitar amp's power ground.
- The CleanBOX II easily removes ground loops without any signal degradation.

to my understanding its isolating grounds IN AUDIO CABLES via a pair of isolated transformers (inside photo)...

GUESS WHAT ? IT DIDNT DO ANYTHING !!!

I tried it on Line 6 POD - audio cables, guitar cables and it didnt fix the 20% buzz

I tried it on Macbook (on charger) - audio cables, guitar cables and it didnt fix the 20% buzz

the only thing that happened with this "Ground Loop Eliminator" is that when its connected the grounding has "inverted polarity" (i dont know how to call it) so now buzz appears when i touch ANYTHING metalic on a guitar including strings... this box basically makes my rig buzz whenever i touch anything metalic...

well in a sense its logical but this box is simply not for me...

which leads me to logical conclusion that the remaining 20% hum is probably not related to GROUNDING at all... cause if it was GROUNDING problem than this box should kill it...

so now my next try will probably be some kind of "power conditioner/cleaner" like the TRIPP-LITE since this looks like this kind of buzz is not related to grounding but more like some noise in a power line or something on the power grid [+] live wire that gets propagated into my body and the rig and its drained out by me touching something metalic on the rig...

IT MUST BE COMING INSIDE FROM THE POWERGRID because this buzz is absent on a macbook setup running on battery... so cleaning the power grid output may be my next best hope to stop this 20% buzz from getting inside my rig...

my next possibilities other than running on macbook battery or pluging a wire into my pants is

-try ISOLATION TRANSFORMER on power line (ART CleanBOX II is an AUDIO isolation transformer)

-try POWER CONDITIONER/CLEANER - some box with various EMI/RFI noise filtering and what not to clean out whats going into my rig from POWER GRID...

talwilkins>

1) i play ambient stuff with a lot of open strings and a ton of delay and reverb... when you play an open string with a plastic plectrum there is no skin contact with strings so it buzzes like mad...

2) the buzz dissapears relatively to what string you touch (they all have different thickness thus conductivity/electric resistance) so for example touching Low E string doesnt get rid of the buzz completelly but touching High E string removes it completelly...

3) when you are for example changing notes and you let go of the strings for 1/5th of a second the split second buzz spike polutes your audio signal and since i have a lot of delay and reverb... the buzz is replicated for several seconds through the fx loop... very annoying and very noticable...

basically i take your post as humorous... because you "dont touch the strings" many many times during playing (even for a split second) and the buzz keeps appearing and dissapearing in split seconds here and there and it polutes your delay and reverb echo line for several seconds and BUILDS UP in the echo...

about that wire...

1) tried paperclip around the guitar cable jack and a metalic wire to a wall socket ground pin - DOESNT AFFECT THIS KIND OF BUZZ AT ALL

2) tried paperclip around the guitar cable jack and a metalic wire to touch my skin around weist belt - IT WORKS BUT this is same like touching anything metalic - its only a semi-permanent solution where you wear a wire tucked into your pants weist belt - THIS WORKS but that was proposed long ago now we are trying to fix this permanently without "runing a wire to my toe" or underware to paraphrase the OP...

no piercing, no metal or electronics in my body, mobile phone is not on me (its far away in a different room)...

today i also tried many past suggestions from this forum:

1) changing Z setting on POD HD500 - this doesnt remove the 20% buzz it only lowers the volume of the buzz, but it also heavily affects guitar sound...

- low Z (22k) is very dark tone with very atentuated highs - the buzz is very low but its there and still dissapears completely when i touch metalic part on guitar

- hi Z (3.5M) is complete guitar frequency response with all high frequencies but the buzz is very audiable

- Z setting doesnt do anything to the buzz itself other than attentuating the audio signal and therefore "masking" the buzz with lower volume output... thats not a removal of the buzz its just masking it and not very succesfully with very negative influence on audio high frequencies (high "e" strings gets atentuated on low Z(22k))

2) unpluging headphones completelly and putting them aside - someone suggested that headphones may work like RF antenna

- this didnt help anything... its not the headphones... i put them aside so not any part of headphones or its cable are touching me or anything on the rig (they lie 3 meters aside) and than i plugged the POD HD500 output to a sound card to record if the buzz is present without headphones... IT IS... the same 20% buzz that appears when i put the guitar near my body and dissapears when i touch anything metalic... headphones rulled out...

going with the transformer isolation proposition (and sadly its only a proposition not a 100% tested cure) i would have to order from around europe and have it delivered on my own expense only to find its not the solution to the remaining 20% buzz... right now iam quite hesitant to spend money and time on purchasing devices which are not quaranteed to fix my problem... sadly there is no local shop i would know of that sells these locally... ill keep looking...

jandrio> thanks for the tip but i guess the APC unit has very little features that would help me in my situation... its basically a full featured power backup battery but its "conditioning features" only limit to ironing out any fluctuation in voltage... but i went through the FEATURES panel and there is nothing about transformators, isolation, noise filters... zero... its more of a battery backup with very basic voltage leveling... but thanks for the tip

the tripp-lite and furman both look good... tripp-lite is the "best-featured" one but unfortunatelly both companies seem to be heavily focused on US 120V market with only a very small selection of products for EURO market... for example Furman has like 20% of their products available in EURO versions... well i guess both companies are US based...

iam still not 100% sure tripp-lite and furman products would definitelly help me with Line 6 POD since as we all know it only has 2 prong power brick so effectivelly the connectors on a power conditioner might not be connected properly without the grounding pin on a receiving device... who knows...

iam starting to see most benefit in using battery-powered macbook and TH2 Overloud... sounds like my POD HD with its grounding issues and 100 possible causes and solutions just got a super serious competitor in my Macbook... its a pitty i really like POD HD500X but i dont like it so much that i would put up with noisy audio when its not necessary (as evident with battery powered macbook)

i dont have time to spend days and weeks testing all possible devices that might help me and spend hundreds on various conditioners only to find out that they didnt help either...

unless Line 6 or someone else steps in a tell me how to get rid of the last 20% buzz iam affraid i will be much more happier with a battery powered macbook

for the record iam trying to get rid off the last 10-20% buzz that:

1) appears ONLY when i touch the guitar with my body (press it against my lap or belly)

2) dissapears when i touch any metalic part of guitar

this buzz is NOT PRESENT when i run on battery powered macbook, but it IS PRESENT when i run the macbook via a battery charger with 3 prong socket

playing around further...

unfortunatelly once i fix 1 kind of buzz another kind of buzz re-apears in the signal...

replacing 2 prong plug on the Macbook Air charger with a 3 prong cable got rid of the constant buzz... unfortunatelly this fix reintroduces the 20% buzz which:

1) appears ONLY when i touch the guitar

2) dissapears when i touch any metalic part of guitar

seems like i have no luck eliminating both types of buzz at the same time EXCEPT RUNNING MACBOOK ON BATTERY which is still the only way to get rid of both buzz types at once:

1) 50% constant buzz (probably comes from grid)

2) 20% additional buzz when you place the guitar near your body or when you hover your palm in front of pickups

the simple observation that both types of buzz (1 and 2) are non-present when running ON BATTERY, tells me that both types of buzz are related to power grid and grounding rather than GUITAR PICKUPS or BODY STATIC CHARGE (unlike it is suggested by You're just a big ole' Bucket O' Noise)...