Shielding the axes against the aliens! 🪓👽 (Patreon)

Well, EMI shielding guitars actually.

Sounds is an incredible enigma. We can't simply remove sound from a room the way you can remove light by closing curtains or turning off a lamp. Darkness is the absence of light, so is silence the absence of sound?

Yes and no. Sound can actually cancel itself out by adding MORE sound (phase cancellation) - the premise upon which "noise cancelling" headphones function. That silence would be multiple layers of sound resulting in nothingness.

Can you imagine if we could create darkness by shining more light? The only way I see that making sense is that by increasing the light on a subject, the negative space around it will appear darker as our eyes or ISO adjust to meter the subject's brilliance.

I contemplate these things because it makes for a great conversation between my ears, but also because problem solving is one of the most important skills an audio engineer can possess. I am amazed at how my front-of-house and monitor engineer are able to tackle new conundrums daily. Each new venue comes with a new set of challenges; dirty power, nearby radio towers, the shape of the ceiling, the upholstery of the seats - all of these factors play a role in how the sound is transmitted across the venue. This is one of the many reasons I love playing big stages outdoors: more predictable sound due to less interference (keep in mind we never have a sound check for those outdoor festivals! 😅).

Remember - sound is not as fast as light is. That is why you can sometimes see a band on the big screens at a festival and it looks like they are head-banging off-time or out-of-sync. That's also why lightning and thunder seem to occur sequentially rather than coinciding.

All this to say, Doyle and I have been facing a strange challenge for a while in our home...

Airborne EMI.

Electromagnetic interference transmitted through the air.

We're not putting on tin foil hats, this is a real thing! 😆

I have consulted with multiple electricians and tried many tweaks and fixes, but the sound persists. So we have come to shielding all of our guitars.

This should hopefully cut down on the amount of signal the guitars pick up from the air and amplify. No gate, EQ, noise suppressor, pedal, plug-in or device has helped at all. The cause of the EMI could be power lines, appliances, wiring, almost anything really. Not an easy thing to fix, bar moving to a completely new location.

This is just one of those things that comes along with a studio sometimes. Very hard to predict and even harder to solve. Have any of you ever dealt with airborne EMI before? This is specifically EMI; not a ground loop issue.

Here's to hoping this helps a bit! If any of you know anyone who has some knowledge to lend to this situation, we welcome that advice! We want clean guitar tracks! 🎸

Hope you are all having an amazing week so far!! 🤘

~AWG