Loud Buzz When Using Tele With Kemper Stage

    I've had my Kemper Stage for a couple months now. I play a Nash T-52 Telecaster and a Dusenberg Starplayer TV. I had my first public gig with the Kemper a couple weeks ago. During sound check, the PA guy said he was getting a buzz from my Tele that was so loud and un-manageable that he'd rather I just not play it. This past weekend I borrowed a large active monitor (QSC K 12.2) to play through at home, and I'm getting the same loud buzz through the Tele with that monitor that I did at the gig. I know single-coil pickups are going to be noisier than humbuckers, but this isn't "hum" - it's a loud buzz. And it's much louder than anything I experienced playing the Tele through amps for 10 years.


    Has anyone else experienced something like this? Any thoughts on how to address it? Thanks.

    Thanks for the response, but you may need to dumb it down a little more for me. What’s the ground lift switch? I’m using one of the Main XLR outputs on the Kemper. Thanks.

    Well, through a bit of Googling I figured out how to locate the Ground Lift soft switches (although I still don’t understand what any of that means). I played around with all possible combinations of “ground” and “lift,” and with both the 1/4-inch and XLR Main outputs, but nothing is fixing the buzz. Any other suggestions, or is there still something fundamental that I’m missing about all of this? Thanks.

    There are often threads about noise.

    There is a simple rule of thump for this:


    1. Turn down the volume of your guitar. If the noise disappears, then it was the guitar catching electromagnetic noise by the pickups.

    It is not caused by the Profiler and the only way for it to prevent it is the noise gate.


    2. I fhe noise stays, then unplug the guitar cable from the Profiler. If the noise disappears, then it was still the guitar, but more likely the guitar cable.

    Proof with another guitar, if possible, but definetely try another guitar cable.


    3. If the noise stays even with no guitar cable connected, and it sounds like deep hum, then it's a ground loop (or in other words, hum loop).

    If it's a vintage-style set of pickups, a Tele is inherently noisy to start.

    Get every piece of electronic gear away from your guitar and the Stage. Cell phones, tablets, computers...anything plugged in or with a battery that doesn't need to be there.


    I used to get all kinds of noise from my Tele....then I took my phone out of my pocket and it lessened quite a bit. Another common culprit is lighting. Especially with single coils - fluorescent lights can generate enough noise to wake the dead.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

    Thanks for the responses. The buzz stops when I turn down my guitar volume, so that narrows things down. But I already have the noise gate set at 4 across the board, so I don't think I can go any higher without affecting tone. I'll try removing other electronic gear from the area.


    Any idea why the buzz is much worse with the Kemper than it's ever been with the various amps I've used (Bad Cat Cub, Divided By 13 JRT)?


    Thanks

    Man, this forum is awesome. I took Ruefus' advice and tried playing the Tele with my cell phone in the next room (instead of in my pocket). Almost no buzz or noise at all. Problem fixed (and I'm a little embarrassed I didn't think of that earlier). Thanks for all the responses.

    Quote from Brenkj

    Man, this forum is awesome. I took Ruefus' advice and tried playing the Tele with my cell phone in the next room (instead of in my pocket). Almost no buzz or noise at all. Problem fixed (and I'm a little embarrassed I didn't think of that earlier). Thanks for all the responses.

    Glad that worked.

    I hate to admit that I chased noise with my Tele for the longest time......then pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and *poof*. Problem solved.

    Then I just sat there and thought to myself "....you idiot....weeks if not months of this and...........you idiot."

    In reality - you only need to get things a couple feet away, but whatever works. Play around with it.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche