Pedal steel noise/static

[D. Scheindlin]

I'm hoping someone has some thoughts on this problem I'm having with my pedal steel. The pickup is a Bill Lawrence 705. The guitar had a different pickup in it before and the problem existed with that pickup as well. The problem is noise. I made a recording so you can hear exactly what I'm hearing when I play. The signal chain for the recording is guitar>Goodrich 120>USB recording interface>computer/DAW. No effects. I've tried plugging directly into the amp, into a battery powered amp, different cables, different volume pedals, in different parts of the house, etc. Essentially I've taken everything out of the equation, except the guitar itself. When I removed the original pickup, I installed a quick connect on the jack and on the pickups. The cable is shielded from the pickup to the jack, and a continuity tester shows that the jack is grounded to the body of the steel and the strings are grounded through that connection.

:00 seconds: Guitar with me not touching it
:04 seconds: Right hand over the pickup, but not touching strings
:09 seconds: Right hand resting on strings
:15 seconds: Bar touches strings
:20 seconds: picking some notes open, left hand/bar not touching anything

https://soundcloud.com/dscheindlin/stat ... al_sharing

When I'm picking notes at 20 seconds, the static sound happens when my metal fingerpicks begin to touch the strings. When I am playing with the bar on the strings, it's mostly non-existent and sounds normal, but sometimes when sliding or doing vibrato with the bar, some light static sound can be heard, especially if I raise my right hand off the strings.

As I've said, this happened with the other pickup as well, but perhaps a bit more pronounced with this one (I believe it is a higher output pickup than the old one).

Any ideas? I'm tearing my hair out on this one.

[Bill Cash]

Are you getting ground continuity between your strings and jack?

[D. Scheindlin]

Affirmative

[Bill Cash]

Oh yeah my bad I should’ve read that part. Does the noise change at all if you fiddle with the quick connects?

[D. Scheindlin]

Well, I found the cause of most of the noise. After thinking I took everything out of the equation, the one thing I didn’t take out of it was my tuner. I have an old Strobostomp HD. It’s clamped to the leg of my guitar, and I have a tuner out on my Goodrich. I also have the the power cable on the tuner plugged in. Removing the power cable took away a lot of the noise. Unplugging the input cable to the tuner took away most of the rest. I tested with a different cable and a different volume pedal so I think it’s time for a new tuner.

Now, the one thing that didn’t go away entirely is a little bit of the static noise when I begin to touch my metal finger picks to the strings in an open position (I.e left hand/bar not touching guitar). Once the pick is in firm contact with string, it stops. It’s as though there is a static electricity buildup there. And It isn’t there if my left hand is holding the bar against the strings.

It’s much less prominent than before (the interference from the tuner really amplified it), and from a practical perspective I doubt it is much of an issue. But I am still wondering why this happens. If the strings are grounded and my right palm is resting on the strings, why would there be static between the fingerpicks and the strings? And why not when my left hand is touching the strings? I am curious, if anyone who knows more about electricity than I has any knowledge to share…

[Bill Cash]

Yeah all of those Peterson strobes are very noisy and imo can make your tone sound like garbage there’s a thread pinned in this topic about it. Whether your tuner out is in parallel with your signal or not also makes a difference. A 1 Meg ohm resistor in series with your signal feeding the tuner should make the tuner stop affecting your tone if your tuner out is indeed parallel, but even then as you now know when it’s charging that will cause noise either way.

[D. Scheindlin]

It’s so strange. It’s never affected my tone or introduced additional noise before. I’ve had it strapped to my steel and connected to power for at least two years. In any case, I won’t be doing that anymore and will check out the sticky. Thx

[Richard Sinkler]

I had the same problem with a Stroboflip tuner. I removed it from my signal chain and no more noise, and I ran it off batteries.

[Scott Swartz]

Could be static electricity from knee levers or legs / pedal rack as discussed here and other thread referenced

viewtopic.php?t=405295

[D. Scheindlin]

Thanks Scott. This is really interesting… my guitar is also a GFI and as I mentioned I swapped out the original pickup with a BL705. Now, I also mentioned that the guitar was noisy with the original pickup but that was the noise I traced to the tuner, not the static noise when I touch the strings. The original pickup also had foam glued to the bottom of it. I assume it’s there in lieu of a spring - to create some upward force to adjust height. But in the thread you shared Henry said that after replacing the foam the static noise was gone…. I’m not sure why that would be the case… the cavity is just wood, so the foam isn’t insulating in any way from touching metal, and I do have a thin piece of hard plastic underneath the pickup to raise it a little. Maybe with my next string change I’ll swap that out fora thin piece of foam and see what happens. In any case, my continuity tester says everything is grounded.

[Bob Sykes]

[...]
Now, the one thing that didn’t go away entirely is a little bit of the static noise when I begin to touch my metal finger picks to the strings in an open position (I.e left hand/bar not touching guitar). Once the pick is in firm contact with string, it stops. It’s as though there is a static electricity buildup there. And It isn’t there if my left hand is holding the bar against the strings.

It’s much less prominent than before (the interference from the tuner really amplified it), and from a practical perspective I doubt it is much of an issue. But I am still wondering why this happens. If the strings are grounded and my right palm is resting on the strings, why would there be static between the fingerpicks and the strings? And why not when my left hand is touching the strings? I am curious, if anyone who knows more about electricity than I has any knowledge to share…

Static electricity is wacky stuff. Electrical insulators become conductive and capacitive. Grounding doesn't always prevent Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) events. ESD is abundant this time of year in my cold dry neck of the woods.

It sounds like your body is being charged and that charge is being transferred to the strings via the first fingerpick contact. You wouldn't get this if your left hand/bar is touching the strings which effectively "bonds" you and the PSG for static purposes. If your right palm is resting on the strings when this happens, then it must be a pretty good ESD insulator. When two objects are bonded, they are at the same static potential. No current flows. A bonding conductor (wire) is typically grounded but doesn't have to be.

The cheapest/easiest way to diagnose ESD is put an AM radio (tuned between stations) as close as possible to the pick/string point of contact. You'll hear a click on the radio if there is an ESD event. Switch off the amp when you do this. It doesn't matter if the amp is plugged in the wall (grounded) or not.

All the above is totally separate from noise problem caused by the tuner. I use my old Stroboflip on batteries for the reasons already mentioned.