Grounding Issues

[CrowsofFritz]

So, I think I’ve got some grounding issues in this new house.

My amp (and interface) buzzes with both my guitar (even with the humbucker) and bass. Never happened in the old house. My SM57 also buzzes. Surprisingly, though, my condenser is just fine. I’m guessing because it’s shielded or something? The buzzing modulates in volume depending on how I turn or orient the instruments and mics.

This is a very old house. My brother is reluctant to even contact the landlord to inquire about the electrical situation in this house, but I feel a little less safe right now.

[CrowsofFritz]

Just found out we have knob and tube wiring. Mega yikes.

How do the three pronged outlets even work in this house? I thought K&T wiring was not grounded?

[rayc]

I had to look stuff up...
"knob and tube -in common use in North America from about 1880 to the 1930s"
"Historically, wiring installation requirements were less demanding in the age of knob-and-tube wiring than today. Compared to modern electrical wiring standards, these are the main technical shortcomings of knob-and-tube wiring methods:

never included a safety grounding conductor"
Hmm...could be the third prong doesn't go anywhere.

[CrowsofFritz]

I had to look stuff up...
"knob and tube -in common use in North America from about 1880 to the 1930s"
"Historically, wiring installation requirements were less demanding in the age of knob-and-tube wiring than today. Compared to modern electrical wiring standards, these are the main technical shortcomings of knob-and-tube wiring methods:

never included a safety grounding conductor"
Hmm...could be the third prong doesn't go anywhere.

That’s what I was thinking. It’s just for show.

[rayc]

Now, the question is - how do you do things safely and with expensive gear...is there some cheap apparatus that you can plug into for grounding purposes?

[rayc]

https://abihomeservices.com/are-ungroun ... lets-safe/

[Lt. Bob]

My house is from the 30's and is ungrounded.
Someone did put in a couple of grounded circuits for the bathrooms with GFI's and there's also a grounded circuit upstairs.
The circuits to me music room are ungrounded although there is one outlet that appears to be ( haven't checked it ) so I plug everything into that.
It's not knob and tube though ...... I've been up under the house and it's just basically wires fastened to the beams.
I do get a bit of noise in my music room but not so bad anyone ever mentions it so meh.
I do also have to sit with my guitars in a specific orientation to void hum.

But, of course, I've lived in such houses all my life and i haven't been killed so it could well be I'm not having the correct amount of fear .... familiarity breeds contempt.

I think you can basically drive a 10' copper rod into the ground and hook up a ground to that .....

[CrowsofFritz]

I once stayed in an old Italian building in Rome that’s been there since the Renaissance. No fire alarms, probably shit wiring.

I figure that if it’s been there for those hundreds of years it’s not gonna come down when I’m in there.

[vomitHatSteve]

You can buy a little plastic device at the hardware store to test your outlets. You plug it in, and it'll light up various error codes.

My house is mostly ungrounded. The problem with fixing it is that older houses don't have anywhere nearby to run a ground wire to. New houses have metal piping through the walls for the wires. They run to ground, so you can just connect the ground prong to that.
What we ended up doing for important outlets (i.e. the ones in the music room) was run them to the water heater. Since it's a big chunk of steel and copper connected directly to the copper pipes underground.

[CrowsofFritz]

Hey @Lt. Bob

How much gear do you have plugged in to your studio? With my house, I think there is a 200 amp service box, which means I might be able to plug in more stuff than I thought. My brother plugged in a 1500 w space heater and it worked but dimmed the lights. Thankfully the gear I’m getting is only like 30w per unit, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I just don’t want to plug in too many things and trip the circuit breaker.

[Lt. Bob]

I have a shitload plugged into a single outlet ..... let's see ..... a Fostex D2424 recorder/mixer or two/a channel strip/7-10 rack mount FXs/stereo pre-amp/power amp/guitar amps/turntables/lava lamps/headphone amp.

This kind of stuff doesn't really draw that much juice ...... it's amps you should be looking at rather than watts ...... easier to figure out.
Most modern homes have 30 amp circuits which will pretty much easily power a studio.
Older houses like mine often only have 20 amp circuits ..... I actually haven't ever checked ...... I tend to not worry about stuff that hasn't caused a problem but later today I'll take a glance and see.
I don't use heaters in my music room ..... just the gear being on warms it up enough for me although now that I'm not a fat fucker I'm a little more aware of cold.

I've never ever thrown a breaker with studio gear at any house I've ever been in and I've always plugged everything into a single outlet because that minimizes noise/grounding issues.

[CrowsofFritz]

I have a shitload plugged into a single outlet ..... let's see ..... a Fostex D2424 recorder/mixer or two/a channel strip/7-10 rack mount FXs/stereo pre-amp/power amp/guitar amps/turntables/lava lamps/headphone amp.

This kind of stuff doesn't really draw that much juice ...... it's amps you should be looking at rather than watts ...... easier to figure out.
Most modern homes have 30 amp circuits which will pretty much easily power a studio.
Older houses like mine often only have 20 amp circuits ..... I actually haven't ever checked ...... I tend to not worry about stuff that hasn't caused a problem but later today I'll take a glance and see.
I don't use heaters in my music room ..... just the gear being on warms it up enough for me although now that I'm not a fat fucker I'm a little more aware of cold.

I've never ever thrown a breaker with studio gear at any house I've ever been in and I've always plugged everything into a single outlet because that minimizes noise/grounding issues.

Thanks! Yeah, my room is a 20 amp circuit. Should suffice for the amount of gear I have!

[muttley]

I have a shitload plugged into a single outlet ..... let's see ..... a Fostex D2424 recorder/mixer or two/a channel strip/7-10 rack mount FXs/stereo pre-amp/power amp/guitar amps/turntables/lava lamps/headphone amp.

This kind of stuff doesn't really draw that much juice ...... it's amps you should be looking at rather than watts ...... easier to figure out.
Most modern homes have 30 amp circuits which will pretty much easily power a studio.
Older houses like mine often only have 20 amp circuits ..... I actually haven't ever checked ...... I tend to not worry about stuff that hasn't caused a problem but later today I'll take a glance and see.
I don't use heaters in my music room ..... just the gear being on warms it up enough for me although now that I'm not a fat fucker I'm a little more aware of cold.

I've never ever thrown a breaker with studio gear at any house I've ever been in and I've always plugged everything into a single outlet because that minimizes noise/grounding issues.

Thanks! Yeah, my room is a 20 amp circuit. Should suffice for the amount of gear I have!

Lt is correct. Plus you have to factor in that ALL your gear would have to be drawing MAX power to cause a problem. My workshop for example is on a single 30amp ring. I have way more than that hooked up to and if I turned on all my machines it would exceed the fuse rating. That aint happening though.

[CrowsofFritz]

Thanks! Yeah, my room is a 20 amp circuit. Should suffice for the amount of gear I have!

Lt is correct. Plus you have to factor in that ALL your gear would have to be drawing MAX power to cause a problem. My workshop for example is on a single 30amp ring. I have way more than that hooked up to and if I turned on all my machines it would exceed the fuse rating. That aint happening though.

Right, that makes sense. I won’t have as much as Bob has hooked up, too, so I should be good. I have to wonder if my house abandoned K&T wiring if it’s running a 200 amp service box, though.

Regardless, thanks guys. I feel better about plugging in my new gear.

[muttley]

Lt is correct. Plus you have to factor in that ALL your gear would have to be drawing MAX power to cause a problem. My workshop for example is on a single 30amp ring. I have way more than that hooked up to and if I turned on all my machines it would exceed the fuse rating. That aint happening though.

Right, that makes sense. I won’t have as much as Bob has hooked up, too, so I should be good. I have to wonder if my house abandoned K&T wiring if it’s running a 200 amp service box, though.

Regardless, thanks guys. I feel better about plugging in my new gear.

If you are really worried then put a surge protector in there and add you high end stuff to your contents insurance. I have some pretty expensive audiophile stuff that I only ever plug in through a surge protector, ditto most of my computing gear. I have had power surges and lightening strikes brick gear (we live ina pretty rural supply area) but never my fuse board being underrated. Lt describes one aspect of all this well but the other is that even a momentary spike surge can kill gear before your fuse trips. Unlikely but it does happen. Surge protectors are cheap and will maintain a clean supply or trip, your energy supplier doesn't care about that so much.

[CrowsofFritz]

Right, that makes sense. I won’t have as much as Bob has hooked up, too, so I should be good. I have to wonder if my house abandoned K&T wiring if it’s running a 200 amp service box, though.

Regardless, thanks guys. I feel better about plugging in my new gear.

If you are really worried then put a surge protector in there and add you high end stuff to your contents insurance. I have some pretty expensive audiophile stuff that I only ever plug in through a surge protector, ditto most of my computing gear. I have had power surges and lightening strikes brick gear (we live ina pretty rural supply area) but never my fuse board being underrated. Lt describes one aspect of all this well but the other is that even a momentary spike surge can kill gear before your fuse trips. Unlikely but it does happen. Surge protectors are cheap and will maintain a clean supply or trip, your energy supplier doesn't care about that so much.

Yeah, I’ll have it plugged in to a good power conditioner with surge protection. I also have a good power strip that Tadpui graciously gifted me.

[Tadpui]

Yeah, I’ll have it plugged in to a good power conditioner with surge protection. I also have a good power strip that Tadpui graciously gifted me.

Hopefully between the filtering in both the power strip and the power conditioner, your hum troubles will be a thing of the past!

If those don't take care of it, I think that the only thing that's left to try is a UPS. That totally decouples you from your AC power supply, since everything plugged into the UPS runs off of the battery, and the AC is just used to charge the battery. Those things are expensive though, and the batteries don't last forever. I looked into getting one a while back, but I gave up because the reviews on them are pretty universally mediocre. And for what they cost, I want 5-star public opinion

[CrowsofFritz]

So I just tested my last condenser and it doesn’t have any buzzing going on. NONE of my condensers buzz yet my SM57 buzzes. Anyone might know why this is? It seems like there’s something in the condensers that reject this grounding issue. That, or that the 57 is just prone to it if the system is ungrounded.

Really sucks. I want to use my 57, but my condensers will have to do.

[Tadpui]

That's definitely strange. I know that the SM57 has an output transformer in it. Do you know if your condensers do as well? I'm not exactly sure what that would prove...just curious.

Have you tried wearing a tin foil hat yet?

[CrowsofFritz]

That's definitely strange. I know that the SM57 has an output transformer in it. Do you know if your condensers do as well? I'm not exactly sure what that would prove...just curious.

Have you tried wearing a tin foil hat yet?

I know my MXL4000 is a FET transformer-less mic. Not sure about the AT 2020.