Amp Hiss

rorym

rorym

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I’m looking for a practice amp for my electro-acoustic U-Bass. Most of the time I’m fine playing it without amplification but I’ll eventually need to be amplified when I start playing with others.

The problem I have is that some amps have an annoying hiss and therefore will never buy one online since I can’t be sure how it will sound.

I had this problem when buying an amp for my Risa Stick, too. In hat case I ended up returning two amps before settling on one that sounded okay.

Is there a pedal or what not that I should be using to condition the signal?
 
rorym said:
I’m looking for a practice amp for my electro-acoustic U-Bass. Most of the time I’m fine playing it without amplification but I’ll eventually need to be amplified when I start playing with others.

The problem I have is that some amps have an annoying hiss and therefore will never buy one online since I can’t be sure how it will sound.

I had this problem when buying an amp for my Risa Stick, too. In hat case I ended up returning two amps before settling on one that sounded okay.

Is there a pedal or what not that I should be using to condition the signal?
Click to expand...

While hiss can come from many sources, it isn't usually from the electricity. But , in case you still want to explore that option, there are many power conditioners you can buy (just search for "power conditioner"). To solve your hiss, the best place to start looking would be the preamp, so I'd recommend looking at amps that have good reviews and pay attention to the preamp. The next source I'd looked into would be your pickup; you can swap them for better ones (some designs are inherently less-hissy than others).
 
How much troubleshooting have you done? What/where is your current setup? Have you swapped out instrument cables? Tried different outlets in the house?

Odds are it's not the amp if you've been using anything remotely modern (crappy products don't sell, so the odds of anything new hissing inherently is very low). And since it does it with your RISA too, it's probably not the ukes.

My money is on bad power or a bad cable.
 
rorym said:
I’m looking for a practice amp for my electro-acoustic U-Bass. Most of the time I’m fine playing it without amplification but I’ll eventually need to be amplified when I start playing with others.

The problem I have is that some amps have an annoying hiss and therefore will never buy one online since I can’t be sure how it will sound.

I had this problem when buying an amp for my Risa Stick, too. In hat case I ended up returning two amps before settling on one that sounded okay.

Is there a pedal or what not that I should be using to condition the signal?
Click to expand...

I have the same problem with my amp experiences....
 
For the record, in electric guitar circles, a little bit of amp hiss or hum is kind of par for the course and often says more about the house wiring or even the instrument that's plugged into the amp rather than it being a "fault" of the amp in question.
A little bit of hiss or hum isn't a justification for automatically returning an amp yet there are limits of course. In 9 out of 10 cases at least its not the amp that's the culprit and of course the price and quality of the amp is a factor as well.
 
A tube amp my have less "hiss". Solid state devices like transistors all are subject to junction noise to some degree.
 
I know people who use P90 pickups and they say that their amps hiss when they're not playing. Their solution: never stop playing.

I had some hiss on my amp. I fixed it by not playing in front of the amp. I just pointed it in another direction and minimized a lot of noise.
 
ripock said:
I know people who use P90 pickups and they say that their amps hiss when they're not playing. Their solution: never stop playing.

I had some hiss on my amp. I fixed it by not playing in front of the amp. I just pointed it in another direction and minimized a lot of noise.
Click to expand...

I used to pick a radio station and hum off lights and cellphones when I jacked in my old arch top with P90s. No problem with humbuckers or piezo.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I sold the Risa here on UU a while back, but I still have the amp. I also have access to my son’s amp, so I have two small practice amps to test with.

* Fender Mustang LT25 - no hiss
* Fender 15G - nasty hiss

I’ve ordered a new instrument cable, an will be purchasing a power conditioner, too. Using a surge suppressor had no effect. Have any of you had experience with a Furman SS-6B Surge Block. That seems like the most cost effective solution, assuming it works.
 
rorym said:
Have any of you had experience with a Furman SS-6B Surge Block. That seems like the most cost effective solution, assuming it works.
Click to expand...

The SS-6B is a great surge protector/multi outlet. But it's not a power conditioner, which will cost significantly more.

Try to troubleshoot the easy stuff first. You shouldn't need a power conditioner to get rid of the majority of the noise. Your location in the house/relationship to the amp/ cable will probably make a bigger difference.
 
I've used many amps that have different degrees of hiss.
Like the many comments here, I have believed it to be attributed to either Mains power, or the inherent property of the pickups.

However, I have an amp that appears to negate the hiss or hum.

The Behringer K450FX Ultratone is a 45 Watt Keyboard amp / PA system with 3 channels (3 instrument cable input and 1 XLR input) that is highly versatile, affordable and most importantly is the only amp out of about a hundred I've tried that does not hiss or hum when instruments with passive pickups like the Risa Electric Ukulele, are plugged in.

I now own 2 of these amps, and I use it for practically everything:

-Amp for acoustic instruments (ukulele, guitars)
-Amp for electric instruments (electric guitars and effects pedals including distortion)
-Amp for bass guitar
-Amp for drum kit and percussion
-Amp for vocal microphone (works great for karaoke at home)
-Amp for TV (works great as home theater speakers as it accepts analogue R/L TV input. I use a converter box from fiber optic output from TV)


If you want a fantastic, solid amp that "does it all" while eliminating hiss/hum, check it out!

It will handle UBASS and any guitar/ukulele perfectly fine. Has built-in effects too.
https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0382
 
The culprit was the instrument cable. The one I had been using was of dubious origin. I bought a new one and that made all the difference. Neither of these little amps have any low end power, so I will eventually need something better.
 
Last edited:
rorym said:
I still find it interesting that some amps are more resistant to hiss than others.
Click to expand...

Is there a high pass filter applied? If so, the hiss may just not be as evident until the volume is turned up higher.
Also, the amps don't amplify the signal perfectly linearly, each puts its own character on the signal.
 
rorym said:
I still find it interesting that some amps are more resistant to hiss than others.
Click to expand...

Indeed. There must be differences in the internal wiring or some filters at play.
The results I got on my Behringer are after ruling out the quality of the cables.
I plug into the same mains power as I do other amps that produce hum/hiss.

They must have just constructed with eliminating that noise in mind somehow.
VOX and Roland instrument amps have all hummed and hissed when plugging in a passive piezo instrument like the Risa stick.
(although running them on batteries instead of mains reduced that hum/hiss)
 
Just curious, are you on US 110 (120) volts 60 hz or UK 230 volts 50 hz?
 
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