AM radio on guitar amp

cottonmouth · Post by **cottonmouth** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:41 am

When I'm playing guitar on my amp, every now and then some radio station comes through. Usually it's only audible when I have the guitar's volume turned down, but lately it comes through with the volume open, and that makes it pretty annoying. The pickup spools and the cable must be acting like an antenna, but it must be some kind of design flaw the station gets demodulated I think (it's a pretty cheap 15W Park amp). I tried rearraging the cable it didn't do much, using different pickups helps but gives a kind of crappy sound. Playing over some guy reading poetry seems fun at the beginning but gets real old real fast. Anybody ever dealt with this?

SuicideNote · Post by **SuicideNote** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:44 am

Buy more expensive and possibly shielded cables. Shorter cables, or a different length cable. Longer runs will pick up more RFI. Cheap guitar/amps/cables are just that, cheap.

Revolver · Post by **Revolver** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:59 am

NP: Rage Against The Machine - Sleep Now In The Fire

soulburn · Post by **soulburn** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:21 pm

My band was in the studio a couple weekends ago.

We were playing with top of the line equipment. ESP strat w/ EMG's, Mesa Triple Rec thru a Marshall mode 4 cab...monster cables...the works.

Out of nowhere we picked up 2 AM radio stations simultaniously.

One was a gospel "PRAISE THE LOWD" music station, the other was a Jewish Rabbi talking about the Lebanon fiassco.

We recorded 20 minutes of it. Some of the shit we heard gave us the chills. We were recording our "war" themed song. At the begininng...the jewish preacher clearly says "peace for us!" The most baddass part was where we distinctly hear him say "we will not let our brothers die!" Our band is called Brothers in Arms!

sweet, super sweet

PABassPlayer · Post by **PABassPlayer** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:27 pm

you can also try plugging all your stuff into a Furman Power Conditioner.

BassPhemy · Post by **BassPhemy** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:45 pm

Sometimes I pick up Mexican or asian conversations while talking on our cordless phone.

Jefferino · Post by **Jefferino** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 8:38 am

I heard somewhere that if your cables are in a coiled fashion it can pick up shit like that...

silverback77 · Post by **silverback77** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:29 pm

PABassPlayer wrote:you can also try plugging all your stuff into a Furman Power Conditioner.

A power conditioner won't necessarily help. Panamax makes a better unit than Furman w/ better RFI filters.

Likely the culprit is the wiring in the building where you're playing.

Bassgod · Post by **Bassgod** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:52 pm

Never heard of that problem, but my buddy had a cheap Harmony guitar the pickups in it would pickup when you talked into them. It sounded like a very low quality mic.