HISS from corvette standard ash 5 passive!!

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mattbyrne

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hi,

just wanted to ask what can be done about - or if it is normal to have a lot of hiss from a corvette standard ash 5 passive? i've tried the support tool on the warwick website but not sure if its sending the message at all.

soundmen and engineers have been going crazy with the noise from this. its not my amp as i've been playing through a lot of different amps - each time with an irate soundman!

i am a technical fool, so if theres any straightforward advice on how i can check whats going on and what can be done to reduce this hiss that would be sweet

i have a thumb 5 b.o. with no probs at all.

help! before the techs kill me, i like this bass and i want to use it!
 
Unfortunately, 'hiss' is just the nature of passive single-coil pickups. Your Thumb has active pickups. There might be some single-coil guys on here that can make a few suggestions however...

By the way, welcome to the forum...
 
hi evolvebass,

i hope so. i can live with the hiss but this is a lot of noise, it doesn't seem right.

checked out your myspace by the way - cool stuff.
 
I have played passive wicks', and some hiss and some don't. Maybe just a loose wire?
 
yeah, perhaps a loose wire. i was thinking of getting a repair guy to have look at it because i don't have a clue.
 
mattbyrne said:
...checked out your myspace by the way - cool stuff.
Click to expand...

Thanks, man. I really appreciate that!

Yeah, if it's a lot of hiss/noise, then stage volume would make it intolerable. I certainly wouldn't rule-out a 'bad connection'. Maybe taking it in is the best option...
 
welcome mattbyrne,

When you touch the strings with he hands is the hiss reducing? If don't it means you don't have a ground wire to the bridge. Or it means you are using elixirs or other heavy coated strings, which might have this effect.

The shielding of the electronics compartment should be OK. On the compartment frame, you should have a piece of copper, that should make contact with the cover. The cover should be shielded with graphite spray. Is the shielding still there, and it is making contact to the copper piece?
The passive J's might have some little noise, but not really as big. I know you have used more amps, but have you tried with a different cable?
Passive J's will have more noise with a bad cable than Active J's.

I hope it helps :-)
 
hi florin,

thanks for the suggestions - the hiss doesn't reduce when i touch the strings, still using the warwick strings that came with it too, so it could well be a grounding issue.

the copper looks ok. i hadn't thought about the cable - and it is a cheap one!

thanks,
matt
 
matt, if you don't hear any difference with the hands on and off, it means you don't have the ground properly linked. The ground should be a simple naked wire, that is starting from the electronics compartment, it is linked to a pot's surface, and it goes to (sorry I don't remember exactly) either below the tail piece, either below the bridge.
Please check this, and let me know what you see...
 




All this touch-testing of the grounding is cool,
but before you take anything apart, do more.

Touching strings is a usual test, but as already
mentioned coated strings etc etc yadayada ....
So ... to test the bridge ground, be direct and
touch the bridge itself. Touch the tailpiece as
well, why not. One of these should reduce the
noise. Otherwise you almost certainly have no
ground to the bridge.

But even if you believe you have no ground to
the bridge, be sure that touching a ground is
really gonna reduce the noise ! In rare cases it
won't fix anything. So touch some guaranteed
sure ground like the ground of the output jack.
The metal barrel of your output cord plug will
accomplish this. If it's a plastic barrel remove
the hatch cover and touch the jack ground.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Does the hiss go to a minimum when the PUs
balancer is on center ? And go max noise when
you solo either PU ? Thaz normal for a J-J PU
config. If you like to favor the bridge PU, raise
it as far as it goes, then lower the neck PU all
the way. You will still have some noise unless
you find that this height juggling has provided
the desired bridge emphasis with the balancer
at center. While usually center is still not enuf
bridge emphasis, the height juggling gets you
more bridge and less neck than before, even at
all the off-center settings ... so you shouldn't
hafta turn the balance knob quite so far off of
center as when the PU were equal height.

FYI the PU imbalance noise is not governed by
how much actual volume each PU puts into the
audible mix. It's governed only by the electrical
balance or imbalance, unaffected by PU height.
When both PUs are equally [or nearly equally]
in the circuit they form a humbucker. The more
unbalanced the load on the circuit, the less of a
humbucking benefit you get. It's proportional.

Hopefully, the hiss level at about 1/2way from
center to solo is not a problem, and with the
neck PU way low and the bridge PU way high
the whole combination will work for you. Cuz
even if you find a loose ground and fix it, any
pair of single-coil J-Js is gonna form a variable
humbucker in use, and single-coils DO hiss if
not in a humbucking balance with another PU.

​

 
Last edited by a moderator:
cool, thanks for all those answers, appreciate the thread, i haven't managed to work out what it is yet but that's mostly because now i'm a but nervous to start tearing stuff open on the bass.
 
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