Axis sport shielding vs JP6

[SeasonOfPain]

Hi all,

Been lurking for a few months. I've had a JP6 for several years, and picked up a beautiful natural finish Axis Sport HH this spring. I've noticed, however, that the Axis seems to pick up noticably more interference / hum when playing. This is in the same room, same amp, cables, etc.; the Axis will have a very high noise floor, whereas the JP6 is dead quiet. This occurs even when I'm touching / muting the strings.

Has anyone else noticed this? Are there some telltale signs I can look for to see if something's amiss with shielding or the pickups themselves? The tone (and of course playability) of the Axis is superb, but the noise floor of the Axis when recording through my cranked Mesa amps is giving me mucho headaches when mixing. I believe it's been this way since I got the Axis, but I've just started doing some actual recording with cranked amps, and it's especially noticable.

Thanks!

 

[Jay]

I can only speak for myself, but my Axis SS is also noisier than my JP6, and I haven't been able to figure out why. I assumed it was because the pickups were hotter on the Axis, but I'm curious to see what others say.

 

[robelinda2]

we need pics for it to exist......

 

[Jay]

If the last post was directed at me: http://www.ernieball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17852

 

[robelinda2]

relax it was aimed at the OP!!!

 

[SeasonOfPain]

Pics duly posted in the official pics thread.

I've noted the pickups are definitely hotter on the Axis. When I first got it I was going to lower them until I realized they were fixed height. I love the tone of the custom DiMarzios (and of course the playability, which is what sold me on it). The guitar's noise floor in a high-gain setting is the only serious problem.

 

[robelinda2]

hey your sport kicks ass!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SeasonOfPain]

hey your sport kicks ass!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks... it seems to be a fairly rare but popular model around here. I couldn't find any pics of the model anywhere else when I was researching it.

So is the consensus that the pickups are simply noisier/hotter on the AS, or could there be an actual shielding issue? I don't think it's grounding, as touching the strings has no effect. The humming is strong enough to prevent the effective use of noise reduction, so if there's a way to easily fix this without affecting the base tone of the guitar (which is still awesome), I'd love to hear it.

I'll try to record some comparison clips, and maybe snap some pics of the electronics to make sure nothing's amiss.

 

[Big Mike]

I'm sure it's a case of them just being more suseptable to noise. Maybe a different reasonant peak in the pickup or some sort of thing.

Great Axis. What a cool color.

 

[Jimmyb]

Yup, that's a really nice looking Sport there.

Love the look of the whole thing.

I noticed a similar thing on my SSS sport the other day, it seemed to be picking up vocals from the PA. The only thing I can think of, is that I had my wah in full treble boost at the time, because it didn't seem to do it at any other time.

I'll try the same thing with the HH one tonight and see if I can get it to repeat the problem.

Yeah, and I'll post pics of the blue one as well (well, maybe)