Excessive hum
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Got mine recently same issue massive hum noise. Definitely a grounding issue. If I touch the guitar strings it goes away, if I touch the metal part of the USB port on the back of the amp it goes away.. I tried several guitars and several leads, some outcome on all of them when I act as the ground, no hum. I contacted PG Support. and got this back...
"Thanks for writing to us,
There are many environmental elements and combinations that can result in amplifier hum or noise. While at the moment the majority of Spark users are not experiencing serious hum issues, customer satisfaction is very important to us, so we would be happy to work with you to ensure that you get the best playing experience possible with your Spark. To verify if a grounded power supply improves the noise level in your specific environment, we will source, test, and ship a power supply to you.
Please note that due to the impact COVID-19 is having on global supply chains, the shipping of the power supply may take longer than anticipated. We’ll keep you updated on its status.
Meanwhile, if you have any other issues/questions regarding Spark, feel free to contact us. We’re always happy to help."
I was pleased they responded quickly.. so will wait and see now..
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@oran_mclean Yes got the same. They will send another power supply. :)
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I also got the same.
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@oran_mclean said in Excessive hum:
Got mine recently same issue massive hum noise. Definitely a grounding issue. If I touch the guitar strings it goes away, if I touch the metal part of the USB port on the back of the amp it goes away.. I tried several guitars and several leads, some outcome on all of them when I act as the ground, no hum. I contacted PG Support. and got this back...
"Thanks for writing to us,
There are many environmental elements and combinations that can result in amplifier hum or noise. While at the moment the majority of Spark users are not experiencing serious hum issues, customer satisfaction is very important to us, so we would be happy to work with you to ensure that you get the best playing experience possible with your Spark. To verify if a grounded power supply improves the noise level in your specific environment, we will source, test, and ship a power supply to you.
Please note that due to the impact COVID-19 is having on global supply chains, the shipping of the power supply may take longer than anticipated. We’ll keep you updated on its status.
Meanwhile, if you have any other issues/questions regarding Spark, feel free to contact us. We’re always happy to help."
I was pleased they responded quickly.. so will wait and see now..
I have got the same exact reply, same words; the nice thing is that they said "To verify if a grounded power supply improves the noise level in your specific environment, we will source, test, and ship a power supply to you." which means they should send us a grounded power supply; let's hope.
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@prucopyn said in Excessive hum:
@chrome0some said in Excessive hum:
@prucopyn said in Excessive hum:
Update: my issues seem to be resolved. After getting rather frustrated after playing with electric, acoustic and bass, all with noise, hiss and hum so loud that it was practically unplayable, I was getting ready to send it back. Using the volume pot was impossible - the noise was bad enough at full volume but rolling it back a little was excruciating! Unbelievable levels of noise.
So last resort I tried swapping my guitar lead (3rd different lead). Ground loop was suddenly reduced to perfectly acceptable levels and all the other hiss and noise had gone. Even high gain amps were ok with the noise only as you would expect.
So the first 2 leads I tried were causing issues. I have used these with other amps and DI into various recording interfaces with no problems, so I don't think the leads are dodgy, but for some reason the Spark doesn't like them. They are perhaps of lower quality than the one that works though.
Anyone with issues I would recommend trying the best quality cable you have and see if that helps.
Hello, could you please tell us what kind of cable are you now using to solve the humming issue?
If you know the model or brand, it would be very helpful, or even its price range.Thank you
Sorry, I don't know. I've probably had it for 10 years or more. No idea what make it is. It has "professional low noise instrument cable" written on it, that's all
Ok, thank you anyway for the reply.
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I bought a nice "over amp rated" 19-volt "grounded power supply" from Amazon (suggested here) with free shipping (Prime user). I don't care that it costs me an extra 18 bucks after all the "crap" we all went thru on waiting for the amp to arrive (and yes, I am still waiting on mine to arrive since early March). Some things are worth a little extra to me for less of a hassle involved, YMMV and that's fine. As far as "getting away with it", do ya think anyone reading this and have not ordered, will now that it's a given on the noisy power supply? If I had not already ordered, I would not (and I bet I'm not alone).
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@michael-howell I'm not spending another cent on this. They need to fix it or recall it. I expect revisions to come out. We were the test pilots !
Some people in here will just say you are complaining about hum that is "normal". -
Some people are correct.
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@k-mcg said in Excessive hum:
Some people are correct.
Doesn't look that way reading these posts and watching videos from users of how it is corrected. Amazing how it is eliminated with quality power supplies, huh ?
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In most cases it's also eliminated completely by using the noise gate.
Hell, in one case it was cured by using a proper guitar lead.
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@k-mcg said in Excessive hum:
In most cases it's also eliminated completely by using the noise gate.
Hell, in one case it was cured by using a proper guitar lead.
In one case ? OK.
Did you watch the video of the guy that substituted the power supply to clean it up ?
Probably not. -
Yeah, I saw the video. He didn't show the part where he turned the noise gate on though.
None of them do.
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It is proven that the hum disappears as soon as you use a grounded power supply. The annoying noises that could still remain could be remedied by a reasonable noise gate. But the NG in its current form is almost unuseable. You can activate it with the controls complete to the left. But as soon as you turn it up a bit, the sound is killed. I hope this can be fixed by one of the next updates.
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@k-mcg Your solution is to crank the noise gate all the way up?!
Are you serious? -
All the way up? I never said that. With my (grounded) amp, I have the noise gate threshold at 0.5 (decay at 10.0) which for me is the cut off point for all background noise. At that level the noise gate doesn't kill the tone much at all. An open low E will ring out for ages quite happily.
The other way to cut down on excess noise is to roll back the gain/distortion a bit.
Bottom line is - If you're going to use high gain settings, you're going to need to use the noise gate. This is entirely normal.
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Posted in the Spark Amp Owners Club group on Facebook on 3rd June; b
y a Christopher Cook -Let's talk about hum, overdrive and noise gates. There's normal hum and something-is-broken hum. If you get very noticeable hum or weird distortion on a clean preset (not high gain setting) there may be something wrong with your amp, your guitar or try a different guitar cable. Move your amp and yourself away from sources of radio or electrical interference, don't sit your amp on another electrical device or let any of your cables cross with other cables which have power in them.
If you only get hum on high gain, welcome to the school of Rock:
For those that don't know how overdrive and distortion works, it starts by taking the tiny electrical output of your pickups and passing it through several stages of amplification before passing it to the output stage (speaker etc). For overdrive and distortion the signal is pushed past the limit of the amplifier to create artificial harmonics in the sound.
This means originally tiny amounts of hum induced in pickups and cables is amplified to be as loud as possible. In single coil pickup guitars this effect is slightly worse, so they invented the 'humbucker' configuration of pickup to reduce (but not eliminate) this. The bridge of your guitar often has a wire soldered to the back which goes to the ground connection of your output - you can tell if you lift your hand off the strings and hum gets louder, meaning your body contributes to minimising hum.
To combat this further, clever people invented noise gates - these are devices which filter out the tiny noise levels when you're not playing or when the note you're playing has decayed in strength to match the threshold setting of the noise gate, then the input gets cut off (quickly or slowly, depending on the settings). All high gain presets (any many others) will use a noise gate by default. Some genres of music (for instance, Djent) are not possible without a noise gate due to the need to have silence and high gain in the same riff.
And then the first reply to it -
And that explains why if you add 5 pedals with all the controls set at 11 you end up with a screaming banshee that rips your head off...and then you say its the amps fault right?🤪
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My conclusion. The original power supply spoils the fun of the Spark and the Noisegate should be revised urgently.
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Right from the start, I had the choice to play an extremely buzzing Spark Amp with its original power supply or an amp with almost no extraneous odors by just exchanging the power supply for a grounded one.
I decided on the second option and am now very much enjoying my "quiet" amp every day.@K-McG You are obviously a PG employee. It would be nice if you could pass this on with the Noisegate ... thank you.
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Obviously I'm not a PG employee, that is just idiocy.
If you're getting hum when using clean tones then you definitely have a valid issue, and a grounded power supply might help. So might a quality lead, or an interference-free environment. Or all of the above.
I'm in full agreement on the noise gate strength, it does need adjusting by PG, let's hope they will improve it.
In the meantime, the amp is usable, enjoyable and a great bit of kit. But it could be better, certainly.
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The Spark is really very good, I have a lot of fun with it and the long wait was ultimately worth it. I don't want to miss him anymore.
However, PG should be more open with this power supply problem. I cannot get rid of the feeling that one does not want to admit this deficiency correctly, although it is actually obvious and can no longer be dismissed out of hand.
Swap the power supply and you have rest ..... done.
There is nothing to discuss, that's just the way it is.