Halp! My house is haunted....by microphonic alien-zombie-ghosts

[abstract]

As the title says, my house is haunted. That's why I'm up at 5 AM writing this. Not insomnia at all. Anyway, I got my new Aftermath 7 set (custom ceramic neck pickup; Nolly, best. neck. humbucker. ever.), gorgeous burnt-chrome covers, and they sound godly... until you hit "playing with a drummer" volume. This thread isn't about pickups so bear with me. I've got squealing. I've got howling. I've got ringing. I've got pots making so much noise you'd think they were the kitchen variety. I screwed in every which way with this guitar to try to eliminate the cacophony, was up just as late last night doing so. I ended up ditching all hope and dropping BKP an email. They said it was very unusual but of course they'd re-pot the pickups for free.

I was literally about to pop them out of my C7 and mail them back across the pond when I picked up my ESP for a noodle. Same shit, different guitar. I had already eliminated cables and pedals as suspects, so naturally I assumed it was the preamp tubes. I popped in my backup set of 12AX7s... Same shit. And here's the kicker. My old man's going to put his old Musicman amp up for sale, so he took it for a test run that same day with his LP.... Well, guess what? Do I even need to say it? I will anyway because I'm pissed at and/or afraid of the electromagnetic monsters living in my house. The "Feedback-Of-Doom" out of a low-gain amp that has hardly been run in the past few years, and that same ringing/super-resonant sound in yet another guitar. We tried every guitar and amp in the house after that. All of them, same thing.

What's causing this and how do I fix it? Thinking RMI interference; could be dealt with using a power conditioner? I'm not really sure though. I appreciate any help/suggestions/ideas/ghostbusters.

Peace

 

[Underworld]

We have this kind of problems in our rehearsal room! Either my amp or the other guitar player's rig occurs to have some kind of "wind" noise in it, plus cracklings. My rig was not even quiet with 2 DAMNED GATES! And in other places, our rigs are dead quiet. Note that we both had cheap power conditionners at the time.

I solved the problem by buying a Monster Pro 3500

Now my rig is dead quiet, and the other guy's rig (a mesa 2:90 + triaxis) still has the problems!

I think this was due to poor quality electricity. The whole place is not even grounded, and the voltage (as shown by my conditionner) goes from 112 to 125v which is definitely not normal!


Or you know who you're gonna call!!

 

[Taylor2]

It could very well be bad power coming from your wall.
Acquire yourself a power conditioner from Furman and see if it makes a difference.

 

[MrRedRaider]

Map out your entire signal path for us, for all configurations you tried in your house. What items were used for both rigs? etc.

 

[-Nolly-]

(custom ceramic neck pickup; Nolly, best. neck. humbucker. ever.)

Good to hear, I knew you'd dig it

 

[abstract]

Hey guys. Thanks for the suggestions. So here's the newest crazy thing that happened. My amp isn't feeding back anymore, now it's had a huge drop in volume. I have to get it up well past noon just to get the speakers exercising. The tubes seem like they're burning fine, but I'll try juggling them around. I changed preamp tubes yesterday, but they were working fine when I put them in. If they died that fast I'll be heading back up to my local shop and getting new ones. My guitars are still super resonant too. The amp is still picking up every little sound inside.

 

[abstract]

Yeah. The new 12AX7s were duds. Put the old ones back in and the volume is back. One thing I noticed was when I first installed the new tubes there was the same ringing and feedback. The power tubes aren't causing it.

Feedback aside, could something in the power-supply cause too much resonance and ringing from the guitar? This is happening with all the guitars in my house. I'm going simply guitar > amp > cab.

 

[MrRedRaider]

Try a different cab man.. that will tell you for sure if it is the rig, power, or the ghost. Could it be size of the room? If you are standing in the right spot you will get a lot of resonance focused on the guitar, but Im sure you know that. Try a different room etc.

 

[Evil7]

grounding issue of the house's wireing? Has this been an issue in this house before? are you guys new to this house?

 

[abstract]

No, I've lived in this house for more than 10 years. Today I solved the ringing but I'm still getting the feedback in my 7 with newly installed Aftermaths. When I grab the pickup on both ends with my thumb and forefinger, the feedback stops. That tells me the entire pickup is vibrating dissonantly with something mounting-related. What could be the cause?

 

[col]

That tells me the entire pickup is vibrating dissonantly with something mounting-related. What could be the cause?

Put some foam or rubber under the pickup?

 

[abstract]

Put some foam or rubber under the pickup?

That's what Ben from BKP told me. I'll try it today.