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Author Topic: Rack grounding?  (Read 7541 times)

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Georgeclooney0

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Rack grounding?
« on: Time Format »

Hi all, first post here. I originally signed up to talk about the awesome mp1 but then this came up. I am building my first rack, I have so far the mp1, jmp 1, alesis 3630 compressor, an old digitech dhp-55, and a furman power strip. I mounted everything in the rack using rubber washers, plugged the units into the furman, routed everything, fired it up and have been jamming ever since. My question is am I good to go as far as grounding the units. I have since read a bit and grounding seams to be a concern for a lot of people. As far as I know I thought all the units would be grounded through the 120 VAC outlets on the furman. My question is, is my setup sufficient like I have it currently. I don't want to damage anything. Also I apologize in advance if I posted this in the wrong place, it wasn't obvious to me where I should go with this.
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Rack Gear -> Alesis 3630 | ADA MP-1 | Marshall JMP-1 | Digitech DHP-55.

Controller -> Rocktron Midi Mate

Dante

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #1 on: Time Format »

Welcome to the Depot, George!

I'm sure the rubber washers will work, but I'll let others voice their opinions too. I have heard of several others (myself included) just putting a couple layers of electrical tape on the rails before mounting the rack gear. I do believe I have nothing grounding my current rack, I was in a hurry to put it together and didn't bother with dang ol' tape.

in hindsight, I created a lot more work for myself if I notice a problem  :facepalm:

rnolan

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #2 on: Time Format »

Hey Gc0, welcome to the depot  :thumb-up: :wave: , this is probably as good a place as any for your post.  Depending on your setup you can sometimes get earth loops as the units contact the metal rack strip. rabidgerry had some issues a while ago and went through the process of isolating the units from the rack strip so they didn't earth to each other via touching the strip or touching each other, but he had earth hums he needed to eliminate and had also done some research on the issue (http://adadepot.com/index.php?topic=2198.msg25165#msg25165).If you have no hum, noise etc then you don't need to isolate the units, I've never had any issues. I use plastic washers to protect the unit(s) from screw rash but they all touch/contact the metal rack strip.  I try to make the distance between units as far apart as is easy (slight gap), but this is for heat dissipation/airflow not to stop them touching.So if you have no earth hums etc then your setup is sufficient and you wont damage anything  :thumb-up: .
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rabidgerry

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #3 on: Time Format »

I touched on this topic in my "Rack Developement"  thread in "Rack Gear"

I referenced this website also.

https://aperioguitar.com/2012/02/23/grounding-fizz-and-cable/

I grounded some of my items and I thought initially I had gotten rid of a weird hum but I detected the weird hum in different venues so not sure if I actually got rid of the problem or not by grounding the items.  Also a few things I probably could do with adding a few little "rubber feet" to seperate their chassis from one another.  I also did the tape on the rack ears.
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"whadda ya want? we want Heavy Metal"

Guitars:1986 Westone Dimension IV, 1989 Korean Squier Fat Strat Silver Series, 1998 Korean Squier Fat Strat, MIM Fender Fat Strat - FR, Squier Stagemaster Deluxe - Thru Neck x 2, Squier Stagemaster 22 Fret - 1st Gen, 1999 Squier Showmaster - Anniversary Edition, Squier Showmaster, Tokai FV40 Flying V

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Dante

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #4 on: Time Format »

That reminds me.... I was getting noise that I thought was a bad ground, but it was the cheap universal wall-wart power units I was using. From now on, I buy better power suppliers like a One-Spot on my pedal board.

rabidgerry

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #5 on: Time Format »

Only walwarts I'm using are official Boss units.

I have heard cheaper ones or damaged ones making noise before.
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"whadda ya want? we want Heavy Metal"

Guitars:1986 Westone Dimension IV, 1989 Korean Squier Fat Strat Silver Series, 1998 Korean Squier Fat Strat, MIM Fender Fat Strat - FR, Squier Stagemaster Deluxe - Thru Neck x 2, Squier Stagemaster 22 Fret - 1st Gen, 1999 Squier Showmaster - Anniversary Edition, Squier Showmaster, Tokai FV40 Flying V

Effects:  Ada Mp1, Peavey Rockmaster, Boss GX700 Boss SX700 * Amps:   Rocktron Velocity 300 - Koch ATR4502 - Peavey Classic 50/50
Cabs: 4 x Bugera 2 x 12"
Midi Controller: Behringer FCB1010

Georgeclooney0

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #6 on: Time Format »

Thanks for the replies guys. I slapped myself on the forehead a couple of times as soon as I started reading. I didnt even think about the units touching each other via the rack.  I guess it's not a problem until it is. I'm sure if a fault was coming inside one of the units this could def become an issue. Well that's good to know. Speaking of noise.... I was running some pedals off of a cheap surge protector and had a good bit of noise from the mp-1. That was when I first got it and I thought it was just noisy. I have it racked now with no pedals and everything plugged into the furman. The thing is really quiet now, at least at low volumes, haven't had a chance to crank it!
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Rack Gear -> Alesis 3630 | ADA MP-1 | Marshall JMP-1 | Digitech DHP-55.

Controller -> Rocktron Midi Mate

Georgeclooney0

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #7 on: Time Format »

On second thoughts I now have a noise gate in between the guitar and the mp-1. I think that may be what's doing the trick, I just opened it up and the noise is back.
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Rack Gear -> Alesis 3630 | ADA MP-1 | Marshall JMP-1 | Digitech DHP-55.

Controller -> Rocktron Midi Mate

rabidgerry

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #8 on: Time Format »

You shouldn't need a noise gate between guitar and MP1, that's a bit unusual to have one there (to me anyway).  If this has cleared up the noise then this would imply that there is noise before the MP1 and then what is happening is the MP1 is amplifying that noise and making it worse.

Mind you you are using a compressor before it, so that may be causing excess noise, but then a noise gate after the mp1 should clear that up anyways.
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"whadda ya want? we want Heavy Metal"

Guitars:1986 Westone Dimension IV, 1989 Korean Squier Fat Strat Silver Series, 1998 Korean Squier Fat Strat, MIM Fender Fat Strat - FR, Squier Stagemaster Deluxe - Thru Neck x 2, Squier Stagemaster 22 Fret - 1st Gen, 1999 Squier Showmaster - Anniversary Edition, Squier Showmaster, Tokai FV40 Flying V

Effects:  Ada Mp1, Peavey Rockmaster, Boss GX700 Boss SX700 * Amps:   Rocktron Velocity 300 - Koch ATR4502 - Peavey Classic 50/50
Cabs: 4 x Bugera 2 x 12"
Midi Controller: Behringer FCB1010

Soloist

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #9 on: Time Format »

Having the noise gate between the guitar and Mp1 taking out the noise would imply that you are getting noise from the guitar pick ups. I run a gate before my mp1 as well because I put all my od's in the gates loop.
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Fractal Audio FM3 ver 1.06
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ADA gear: MP1- MP2 - MT200
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rabidgerry

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #10 on: Time Format »

Or his compressor which he might be running into first.

George are you going in first to the compressor?

Technically my noise gate is first in the chain, but more technically the noise gate is tracking the guitar signal and not doing anything with it other than using it for reference and the actual gate function does it's thing AFTER the MP1/Preamp of my choice.  So like soloist I am using the loop of my noise gate and I place my distortion generating devices (in my case a preamp) within this loop.  So the gate can close behind them when I stop playing.
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"whadda ya want? we want Heavy Metal"

Guitars:1986 Westone Dimension IV, 1989 Korean Squier Fat Strat Silver Series, 1998 Korean Squier Fat Strat, MIM Fender Fat Strat - FR, Squier Stagemaster Deluxe - Thru Neck x 2, Squier Stagemaster 22 Fret - 1st Gen, 1999 Squier Showmaster - Anniversary Edition, Squier Showmaster, Tokai FV40 Flying V

Effects:  Ada Mp1, Peavey Rockmaster, Boss GX700 Boss SX700 * Amps:   Rocktron Velocity 300 - Koch ATR4502 - Peavey Classic 50/50
Cabs: 4 x Bugera 2 x 12"
Midi Controller: Behringer FCB1010

Georgeclooney0

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #11 on: Time Format »

That's right, I have the guitar plugged straight into the alesis compressor, pumpkins style and then out to everything else. The compressor has a gate on it which is the only reason I found this. I would have not thought to put one there myself.
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Rack Gear -> Alesis 3630 | ADA MP-1 | Marshall JMP-1 | Digitech DHP-55.

Controller -> Rocktron Midi Mate

MarshallJMP

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #12 on: Time Format »

I'm also using a gate (decimator pro G) before and after the mp-1, this works better and faster and you don't get those nasty chatter sounds.
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rabidgerry

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #13 on: Time Format »

I'm also using a gate (decimator pro G) before and after the mp-1, this works better and faster and you don't get those nasty chatter sounds.

But the actual gating is done after the MP1 right MJMP?  Just so George is clear on what we mean when we say we have the gate first.

It's not actually gating before the MP1 it's gating after correct?  I had a decimator G-string once and it had a loop which obviously went first (again only to reference the original guitar sound) and then the distortion gear went in the loop and the actual gating in the chain was done after the item in the loop.

I'm only being specific as it can sound like we have two separate gates the way we talk about it, like we have a gate to clean up the guitar before going into the distortion device.  Which is also another thing some people do (not me).
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"whadda ya want? we want Heavy Metal"

Guitars:1986 Westone Dimension IV, 1989 Korean Squier Fat Strat Silver Series, 1998 Korean Squier Fat Strat, MIM Fender Fat Strat - FR, Squier Stagemaster Deluxe - Thru Neck x 2, Squier Stagemaster 22 Fret - 1st Gen, 1999 Squier Showmaster - Anniversary Edition, Squier Showmaster, Tokai FV40 Flying V

Effects:  Ada Mp1, Peavey Rockmaster, Boss GX700 Boss SX700 * Amps:   Rocktron Velocity 300 - Koch ATR4502 - Peavey Classic 50/50
Cabs: 4 x Bugera 2 x 12"
Midi Controller: Behringer FCB1010

MarshallJMP

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Re: Rack grounding?
« Reply #14 on: Time Format »

No the decimator has 2 gates and one is used before and one after the mp-1. So I'm gating before and after. This works great and makes it less sensitive to chatter, it also reacts faster for opening and closing. ISP even suggests you use it that way.
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