Noise issue, desperate for HELP PLEASE

[km6xz]

Your compressor is going to make getting clean sound out of anything difficult if you have a noisy environment. A more flexible compressor, with adjustable downward expansion, a variable threshold and knee would make life much better than what you have that is a straight dynamic range compressor, boosting gain, and therefore noise, when there is less signal and limiting gain when there is a stronger signal. That is going to be hard to keep control of noise when the gain is increasing when only noise is present. Any studio rack mount compressor would work better, even a cheapie Behringer that has variable threshold.
Frankly speaking, running your signal through so much incompatible front end gear is going to limit you to one type of sound; ugly. IF that is really what you want, and your audience does not mind, that is OK but it will not be versatile, clean when needed, expressive or articulate. When you develop an actual playing style, this tone generator that you have now will mask it and not let anyone hear the difference.
Adding so many cliche modifiers in-between your fingers and the amp is not going to help ever developing your own marketable style.

[Steve Conner]

I bet you said the same thing to Cher when she turned up with the vocoder.

[km6xz]

I would not be terribly happy to waste the time on a project that depended on a hardware gimmick but her case, which I was not involved with, she already had a deal, and the label was trying to milk one more album from the diminishing vocal skills. A label would not have signed someone who depended on a device that can allow anyone to duplicate the sound and trademark of the artist. There is no long term commercial value in an act that is easily confused with someone else. AFTER a style is developed, fans are usually pretty accepting of tinkering as long as it fits the song. In Cher's case, it was not overdone too much as to obscure her unique "voice".
Relying on cliche sounds that had been done better in the past is not a way to make a career. The only project that we did that used a Vocorder, before many people even in the industry knew what it was, was Stevie Wonder and it worked out very well for his voice and style...and was a monster hit album. That was way back and it fit the songs, was essentially a new unexploited sound at the time.
When kids come to me complaining about their guitar sound, asking what stomp box or modeling unit is needed, they get a lecture based on whether they expect to make a career or are just fooling around. No problem with using that stuff just because they are bored and do not expect to make a career from it. Modeling amps and digital effects are good for some players, like lounge, wedding or cover casual gigs where impersonating a known recording is the goal and product being sold, and where the sound needs to be reconfigured for each song. More people make their income from that sort of playing than band gigs or originals so there is definitely a place for those tools. But of course DJs earn more, in aggregate than musicians now, many more solo DJs are working every night than musicians. Many DJs also earn more than entire bands in clubs or events. That is rather sad but that is the fault of many parties involved.

[Nick Guetti]

"A more flexible compressor, with adjustable downward expansion, a variable threshold and knee would make life much better than what you have that is a straight dynamic range compressor, boosting gain, and therefore noise, when there is less signal and limiting gain when there is a stronger signal. That is going to be hard to keep control of noise when the gain is increasing when only noise is present. Any studio rack mount compressor would work better, even a cheapie Behringer that has variable threshold."

This is an interesting suggestion. Thanks, km6xz. So what you're saying here is that I've got the wrong kind of comp for my guitar, am I correct? And that instead of getting a noise suppressor, which would ugly up the sound in combination with the comp, I should try a different comp? Is there a make/model you'd suggest? A Keeley, maybe? I'm not sure I want to build a rack right now, but I will if I have to.

As for opinions about "marketable" style and the right way to go about developing my tone and so forth, no thanks. I've been playing for about 20 years and I literally do not care whether I ever gig again, even. Whatever gets me more chances to just play and make the sounds that express what I'm feeling in tunes, that's all I care about; if that's playing professionally in a band or just inviting people over to jam in my basement, either way is fine. I kind of hate the music scene and industry, actually, and I'll invite as much of it into my life as is fun and interesting, and that's it. My desire here is to get a particular kind of sound to where it's JEP (Just Exactly Perfect). I love the glassy crystal-water-piano sound of the soapbar pickups on my mahogany guitar (though as I said the bridge pup could be punchier), but the guitar doesn't have a whole lot of sustain so I want to extend that sound out more, and I've discovered that a comp with the sustain at about 3 o'clock and the blend at about 11 o'clock (what I like about the Philosopher's Tone is that it's adjustable to affect more or less of the guitar's own signal) does the job very well. When coupled with a little bit of Tube Screamer, it's blissful. Also, I use an octave divider for certain situations (a slight amount of polyphonic octave on just the lower notes when I'm playing solo fingerstyle country blues with my thumb thumping the bass part of the tune on the muffled lower strings, or more of it with vibrato to make a cool organ sound), and a comp with the sustain at 9 o'clock or so helps keep the OC-3 under control. The only problem is this !@#**% hum at high volumes! It gets me literally kicked out of jam sessions, and it's understandable, 'cause I can't tolerate it either!

So it's perfecting my specific tone that I'm after, here, not copying anybody else's. I frequently play my guitar with no effects switched on at all, and that's why I have the V1: some of my effects are not true bypass and also to preserve my guitar's true tone through "effects on". I'm also interested in making a wide variety of particular different and often weird sounds, and that's why I use effects. I play with my nails, not a pick, so preserving & magnifying high end is important. Maybe all this info will help guide the thread a bit more.

[J M Fahey]

I play with my nails, not a pick, so preserving & magnifying high end is important. Maybe all this info will help guide the thread a bit more.

Yes it does.
I didnīt want to chime in before, because you got such a good advice from the best in the field, but Iīd like to add that, noise wise, the way you are using your stuff means looking for trouble ... which you got.

The noise is a constant buzz that is noticeable at all times, but usually manageable; without a compressor,

Buzz, to me, means itīs not just hum (which might be somewhat drowned in the mix) but it also has a strong high frequency component, which is up front with your guitar sound and makes it unbearable.
And, where could it come from?
Or, why is it *so* noticeable?

my compressor magnifies the buzz to unbearable levels,

Ok, so itīs something that happens before the compressor (who only does its work).

My rig is thus: 1) The guitar (a Godin LG with P90 pickups...yes, they are single coil, but should they make THIS much noise??);

Excellent guitar, but, yes, P90 are excellent sounding but noisy.
Last month I had this (beautiful ) girl Punk guitar player, who came to pick her 100W head and 2x12" cabinet.
Gorgeous clean sound but she was very unhappy with the buzz when distorting.
I turned off the offenders one by one, specially anyting with an SMPS inside (my TV, my PC monitor, etc.) and things got much better, but not enough.
When she said that "this amp must have a problem" I asked her to try, same settings, cable, etc., my "shop guitar", an old, beaten, Epiphone Les Paul, bolt on neck, still with the cheap original Korean Humbuckers.
It put out about twice the signal level, 1/5 the noise.
The signal to noise ratio thus became about 10X better.
Mind you, there was still some noise, we live in the real world, but it was day and night.
When I asked why had she bought such a fine sounding guitar but not exactly a Punk Rock standard, she said "because I have a Tom Petty poster by my bed, where he holds this exact same guitar, and he looks so cool !"
Oh well, we care so much about obscure technical or sound stuff and things get chosen on emotional grounds.
Yet she was not deaf, picked the amp and went straight to the shop where she had bought that guitar a couple days before, to exchange it for a humbucker equipped one , which, by the way, would sound closer to what she needed.

2) a brand new Mogami Gold 18' cable;

why an 18 feet cable at the beginning of a long and complex signal chain?
And receiving a noise suspect and relatively weak signal?
I would try to preserve it as pure as possible.
I would use the best quality , shortest possible cable there.
Maybe not over 6 feet, simply so I do not get "nailed to the floor", but no more.

3) a unity-gain buffer/line driver (Fryette Valvulator I);

Why on the far end of a loooong cable, where it gets wasted?
I would get my guitar signal there ASAP.
Heck, I would try to have a line buffer built into my guitar if at all possible !!

4) the compressor (a Pigtronix Philosopher's Tone that I bought used);

KM6 made an excellent analysis of your compressor, nothing to add here.

5) an octave divider (Boss OC-3); 6) a modified Tube Screamer (Ibanez TS9 w/808 mod); 7) an overdrive/distortion pedal (Boss OS-2);

Why the octave divider *before* the distortion?
It will certainly muddy the sound, or turn it into straight farty.
Besides, the typical bass cut present in most Dist/OD pedals will wash away most of its deep octaving effect.
And the combination of a Compressor, plus two distortions, well, I wonīt say anything about the Musical aspect, thatīs your personal taste, but it will sure become a high gain nightmare.
Although I bet you already know that

8) a Monster Rock 3' cable; and 9) the small amp (a Fender Mustang I with various effects settings).

Well, nothing strange here, it just amplifies what it gets.

[Nick Guetti]

"why an 18 feet cable at the beginning of a long and complex signal chain?"

Because I couldn't afford a 25-foot one! I pace around a lot when I play, and even an 18' cord only covers about 3 times my personal space, maximum. I know, it's not ideal for sound, which is why I bought such an expensive cable. The valvulator (what a dumb name!) is for the sake of preserving what remains of the signal through my effects chain, which is going to get a LOT more extensive than it is now. I agree that installing an op-amp into the guitar itself would be better, but this would mean putting a battery-operated gizmo in there, and there isn't enough space in the wiring hollow, and carving out more is not what I want to do. Some day, if it becomes financially justifiable, I'll have a guitar made the right way for that. But for now...

"Why the octave divider *before* the distortion?"

Because that's a specification of the Boss OC-3. You want as clean and even (compressed) as possible of a signal going into that pedal, or else all you get out of it is a lot of hashy blurry noise. I've tested this recommendation and found that it's true. I have never noticed any of the muddying you mention. The recommendation is "guitar-->compressor-->octave-->other pedals-->amp", and it's supposed to be best if you're using the neck pickup only. That's true too, but if you're only using a tiny bit of poly-octave (like in my country blues sets), then it sounds fine in the blended position.

"Besides, the typical bass cut present in most Dist/OD pedals will wash away most of its deep octaving effect. And the combination of a Compressor, plus two distortions, well, I wonīt say anything about the Musical aspect, thatīs your personal taste, but it will sure become a high gain nightmare."

NOTE: I do not use the OC-3 for the same things as most people who use one, in the first place because I don't play heavy metal. I rarely use any overdrive/distortion in combination with the OC-3, but when I do, my Tube Screamer had that bass cut modified out of it anyway. Also, the Philosopher's Tone has a "grit" control as well (it sounds to me like what most people call "fuzz"), and this distortion layer is variable both in terms of intensity and blend, and it doesn't seem to mess up the octave the way other OD/D pedals do if they're put in front of it. I typically use the OC-3 for a kind of wash-tub bass effect on my country blues sets (compressor set medium-low plus poly-octave set low), or for a weird oboe-like sinister-silly sound in jazz fusion (compressor set medium plus double-octave set medium-high, otherwise clean or with a touch of TS), or for a pipe/hammond organ-like sound in classical, medieval or funky tunes (comp, sometimes with some grit, plus poly-octave plus a leslie-style vibe effect programmed into my amp).

Also, remember that I NEVER use all my effects at once, and most of the time I use none at all, although use of the compressor at various settings is quite frequent. I absolutely, 100% do not use more than one overdrive/distortion effect at ANY time! The P-Tone's grit is for some sounds, the Tube Screamer for others, and the OS-2 for different others, and they don't mix at all.