Nord User Forum

I play guitar and keys so I'm often standing in playing position but playing guitar. When I get that close to my Stage 3 with a guitar the guitar picks up a TON of hum and noise from the Nord. Any guitar, so it's not a problem with a specific guitar. I realize the Nord is a big computer, but I've never heard of anyone else having this issue. Is there something wrong with my Nord? It's so weird! And a big problem! Has anyone else encountered this?

Hum could be a grounding issue. Do you have a good power conditioner and plug the Nord into it and see if that helps. Are the pickups single coil, single coil pickup pickup hum off about anything electronic. If you turn so your back is to the Nord and guitar facing away does the hum stop or diminish.

Yeah if I turn away from the KB, the noise goes away just like when you’re in front of a computer monitor but my friend says she’s never had that problem with her Electro.

docbop wrote:Hum could be a grounding issue. Do you have a good power conditioner and plug the Nord into it and see if that helps. Are the pickups single coil, single coil pickup pickup hum off about anything electronic. If you turn so your back is to the Nord and guitar facing away does the hum stop or diminish.

Well I feel dumb. In my panic to find an answer, I made the classic mistake of not doing a search first or else I would have seen that apparently this is well-known and there were several threads about it. Doesn't suck any less, but at least I know mine isn't broken.

No idea what you could do with the Nord, but there seem to be hum-cancelling technologies for the guitar pickups (to reduce electromagnetic interference with all sorts of electrically powered equipment) - combining a standard pickup with a second reverse wound/reverse polarity pickup or use a 'stacked humbucker' type which reduce noise a lot and still have the single coil form factor and sound (they are sometimes called 'noiseless single coil'). This could be a solution.

You should have much less problems with a humbucker, so it shouldn't be any guitar that has those problems.

All of this is only web research, so I don't have any practical experience on this side.

I get a hum with my guitars, even with humbuckers, but I have to be particularly close to my Stage 3. It hasn't been a problem for me - I turn the guitar down when not playing and/or switch off my high-gain pedals until needed. I haven't yet tried a noise gate to see if that can clamp it down, however that might be worth trying out as well. I've heard good things about the Fishman Fluence active pickups (sound quality and noiseless capability) but the problem hasn't been significant enough for me to try that expensive route, and I can't say it would totally fix the problem. Good luck to you.

Luckily I usually use my Variax digital modeling guitar which is dead quiet since I only use the digital models (via piezos in the saddles) and don't use the mag pickups. My other guitars are all humbuckers or Kinman noiseless single coils. The problem is that sometimes I play guitar AND keys within the same song and also even if I'm just playing guitar, I'm always singing so I'm right up next tot he KB singing into the mic. Thank ye gods I don't normally play regular single coils or this setup would be absolutely unusable live!

The Nord has a metal case so that should shield a lot I wonder what is creating so much interference.

I'm sure you have the same problem I have with my Nord Electro 5 and with my Nordstage 3:
The problem is that Nord use an unshielded transformer in their power supplies which emits mains hum right at the level of guitar pickups
nord-electro-forum-f9/electrical-interf ... 10977.html
The problem is known for years but Nord continues to ignore this problem because it is only a problem for keyboard players who alternately play guitar and often have to do so in close proximity to the Nord instrument. Here the posts from 2016:
nord-electro-forum-f9/electrical-interf ... 10977.html

Yeah it REALLY sucks for us multi-instrumentalists! Especially when we paid a LOT for those keyboards!

rudiratlos wrote:I'm sure you have the same problem I have with my Nord Electro 5 and with my Nordstage 3:
The problem is that Nord use an unshielded transformer in their power supplies which emits mains hum right at the level of guitar pickups
nord-electro-forum-f9/electrical-interf ... 10977.html
The problem is known for years but Nord continues to ignore this problem because it is only a problem for keyboard players who alternately play guitar and often have to do so in close proximity to the Nord instrument. Here the posts from 2016:
nord-electro-forum-f9/electrical-interf ... 10977.html