So - just got home from a playing live.
FOH guys couldn’t figure out where my low hum is coming from.
Eliminating all my blocks - I realised the CS3 is particularly noisy. (The on board CS3 compressor)
Is this a feature that’s built into it that causes the sustain to be really noisy - aka meant to emulate the real thing? I’ve been using it live for a while now but i’ve never noticed it be particularly bad.
Would love some thoughts here.
Did you establish that it was the CS3 model causing the issue? You mentioned it was noisy but not whether it eliminated the problem.
Have you ever played that venue before and was the issue apparent then?
Did you try a different guitar? In the presence of single coils pickups, certain lights can cause no end of problems.
Have you tried using a different compressor model? Were the results similar?
I’m sure you’ve probably addressed all those questions but always worth asking, just in case. I’ve noticed noise within my QC from time to time, but generally it’s been from setting that would cause noise if I was using ‘real’ gear as a opposed to modellers. I’ve used a noise gate in those instances but I appreciate that wouldn’t fix every problem. Let us know how you get on.
Compressors in general tend to be noisy if the source audio (i.e. your signal) is already noisy. Since the compressor is leveling out your sound, lower volume parts (including noise) will be louder.
I find it tends to bring up hiss more than the other compressors, but they’ll all do it to a degree- that’s the nature of the process.
For some clarity.
I ran some tests and AB/d with different guitars.
The commonality was I had my input volume cranked - so I decided to lower it and it fixed the problem.
One of my guitars is a penguin and the other is an AZ prestige - a lot more quieter.
I believe you are right @xush, there is a specific frequency FOH pinpointed and I was able to back it off a touch on the new Cor OS 2.0.0 FW’s EQ.
TLDR; the solution I had was to drop my input volume, and backing off the sustain.
Thanks guys.