Boss Gt-3/5 - Boss

GT-X Setup Manual

Section 9 Noise Elimination
First off though, single coils will hum. Especially around
powered devices (amps, TVs, computers, neons or
fluorescent lights, etc.) and there is not a lot anyone can do
short of modifying the pickup. But if your humbucker is
humming there may be something wacky going on. Noise to
be concerned about is noise which does not change even if
you place yourself well well away from the amp and turning
the angle the guitar is at to the amp does not help. Mind you
if you stand close to the amp and change the angle it sounds
like you are using a light sabre!! (Woah horsey. Let's be
safe out there!!)
Single coil users should try to avoid fluorescent lights, and
may find that shielding the guitar cavities may help. Failing
that there are some very good pickups which are hum
cancelling (such as the Seymour Duncan Duckbuckers and
Fender Noiseless) which retain that single coil sound.
Guitar volume down. Amp volumes down. Plug the guitar
in and bring the amp volumes right up. There shouldn't be
any extra noise.
Now start to bring the guitar volume up. You should hear
just the quiet no strings sound of your guitar; be careful not
to play the strings—this would be very loud.
OK, volumes all down. Check each pickup/pickup
combination in the same way. Moving away from the amp,
or turning to face a different direction may alleviate any
untoward noise. If this solves the problem, then this is
probably just standard pickup noise. You may or may not
benefit from completely screening the cavities in your
guitar. If you do have problems here then these need to be
investigated before continuing.
It should be remembered that any noise you hear here will
become the 'noise floor'. This will be the minimum noise
that will be generated in the final system. If excessive it
could be amplified greatly by high gain effects, such as
compression or distortion.
Be careful when doing these checks—don't stand in front of
the amp/speakers and wave your pickups in the cones—
that's a recipe for sore ears as the feedback tears your
eardrums out! While you have the guitar volume up check
the pickup selector switches and give a waggle side-to-side
up/down sort of thing. You shouldn't get any sound from it.
My Jackson is dead silent here, and switching between
pickups gives a normal but acceptably low level switching
sound.
Right then. We are fairly happy with the guitar and amp. I
should say that I hadn't really expected you too find too
many problems here so far.
Many problems are simply caused by running signal cables
past transformers, and you have been keeping them away
© Copyright 2000-2002 Barry S. Pearce et al.
from each other so you shouldn't have picked up a noise
problem so far. In fact the old guitar seems very clean—
even through the high gain channels of the amp. Good. If
that's the case and things don't sound so good when you
have your effects systems on then perhaps we are starting to
isolate the problem.

BOSS GT-3/5

What I am going to do now is explain exactly what I did on
my system; what I found and how I solved it. We will also
be laying down some general procedures for finding
problems. I have decided that this is better than trying to
discuss what is effectively a subject of infinite possibilities.
I believe it will be more helpful for you to see what I did, so
that you may then relate it to your particular set-up.
At this stage we are happy with the guitar, amp, speakers
and cables. What I did next was to isolate each piece of
equipment and check it on its own. Then slowly start
combining the equipment one by one until I had built my
full set-up.
So here goes....
First of all we will set up the GT-3/5 to aid the testing by
producing a significant gain to amplify any noise on the
signal path.
Previously we've created a couple of 'useful' patches, which
we can play our guitar through. We are now going to create
'Noise Check'. If you have the volume turned up on your
amp I do NOT recommend playing ANYTHING through
this patch. It is NOT level matched. It is NOT worried
about noise. In fact it is encouraging it!!! It's flipping
LOUD and flipping NOISY!
This is going be fairly easy. Copy the 'Clean' patch into
patch a spare patch, and rename it. Turn on the pre-amp.
Any pre-amp will do but I recommend a JC120, as we want
to add volume but to try and avoid adding too much noise.
Turn volume up to 100, bass = 100, middle = 100, treble =
100, master = 100, presence = 0, bright = off, gain = high
any other settings don't matter unless you are on 'Line
(Headphones)' in which case make the mike position =
centre, mike level=0 and direct level=100. while we are
about it also set up the NS. NS off, threshold = 100, release
= 0. Finally as a safety in case you accidentally select the
patch in the future (I have!) change the master level to 0
(Yes ZERO). Store the patch and we are ready to go.
Whenever you need to use the patch just remember to turn
the master level back up to 100.
Right now its time to start checking out the GT-3/5...for the
moment I suggest using just the amp and the GT-3/5—don't
connect a guitar to anything yet.
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