Re: [LAU] Shielded electrical wiring for studio (or not)

On Thu, June 4, 2015 9:28 am, Glen MacArthur wrote:
> In any case both of these amplifiers had ungrounded 2-prong molded plugs
> and if the toggle was switched wrong with the wiring at whatever venue we
> were playing at we would get shocks off of the microphones...lol

That sounds like hot chassis wiring, where the chassis reference (what
would normally be ground on the transformer isolated side of the power
supply in a modern double insulated design, or connected to safety earth
connection in a modern three wire design) is connected directly to one of
the AC wires. About 60 years ago that was common on televisions which
were enclosed in wooden cases where the user could not contact any part of
the chassis. I don't think it's "lol" worthy if that means that line
voltage is impressed across your chest cavity when you have one hand on
the guitar and one hand on the mic.

Was the connection made through a large resistor that limited the current
to just a couple of mA, or were you just lucky to not induce cardiac
arrest?

Anyway, we are getting off topic. Those kinds of situations are bad, and
should be corrected, but that is separate from single coil pickups having
induced hum. That is just how pickups work, and without humbucking coils
you either have to make sure the pickups are far enough away from magnetic
power fields that the hum is not annoying, or jump through expensive hoops
to keep the power fields confined in a high magnetic permeability
material.
Personally I hear 60Hz hum on nearly every Stratocaster recording and find
it just very, very slightly annoying, but it apparently doesn't both Ralf
at all, so I guess it depends on where Glen falls. I put EMG humbuckers
that fit in a single coil cutout in my Strat, that cured the hum for those
cases when I want to crank the gain up to metal levels. Not to everyone's
taste, but hey, you can always say that the little bit of hum in the
background is part of your "vintage" sound.

-- 
Chris Caudle
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