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#229053 by J-HALEY
Wed Jan 22, 2014 4:47 pm
I recently built a pedal board and added a few more pedals. As a result I am getting some line noise. The real estate is limited and I want to add a noise suppression pedal. I found this one but can't find any reviews on it. Must be a new pedal. Any thoughts you have on it would be appreciated. Thanks in advance
http://www.music123.com/amplifiers-effe ... ects-pedal

#229235 by Lizzy Janes Rescue
Mon Jan 27, 2014 10:50 am
Pardon me for jumping in on this but make sure to check your power supply arrangement. Ground loops caused by not using isolated supplies are the most common cause of noise when assembling pedal boards. I've encountered this myself because I use supplies like the Godlyk or One-Spot with a daisy chain harness to power most of my pedals. The down side is potential noise. Not all pedals play well together in that regard. Some need to be on their own dedicated supply if you're not using a power supply with isolated outs. Once you get everything hooked up power up your amp then go through the board pulling the power plug one at a time pedal by pedal until you find the culprit. Put that pedal on it's own wall wart and you will be good to go.

#229240 by J-HALEY
Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:05 pm
3rd Times a Charm wrote:Pardon me for jumping in on this but make sure to check your power supply arrangement. Ground loops caused by not using isolated supplies are the most common cause of noise when assembling pedal boards. I've encountered this myself because I use supplies like the Godlyk or One-Spot with a daisy chain harness to power most of my pedals. The down side is potential noise. Not all pedals play well together in that regard. Some need to be on their own dedicated supply if you're not using a power supply with isolated outs. Once you get everything hooked up power up your amp then go through the board pulling the power plug one at a time pedal by pedal until you find the culprit. Put that pedal on it's own wall wart and you will be good to go.

Thanks for the info. I am using a one spot for one pedal and a voodoo lab pedal power for the rest.

#229241 by J-HALEY
Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:09 pm
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#229263 by Lizzy Janes Rescue
Tue Jan 28, 2014 9:49 am
The Voodoo unit has separate windings for each output so I guess it's not that. I would still go through the board pulling power plugs just to find out which pedal is making all the noise. As you do it keep checking to make sure the signal is still passing through to the amp. Some pedals stop passing a signal when they loose power. If it's a pedal that's not always on you could use a bypass loop box so you can take it out of the signal path when it's not in use. I've done that with certain noise producers and tone suckers before. They are easy to throw together and a simple inexpensive fix for certain situations. Here is a wiring diagram.

http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/PedalHacker/

If that's not a good fit for your situation then a noise reduction unit is your last resort. I always try to avoid using them because I like to use my guitar's volume controls for edge of break up stuff and don't like the way they cut my signal off when the volume gets low and the lower I adjust the threshold the less effective they get. It depends on the problem and the type of unit you get to solve it. There are devices made for dealing with ground loop issues and other devices made for dealing with THE HISS. It all depends on the material you play and how you use your gear. In high gain, all controls on 10 situations noise reduction pedals can be a great solution.

What type of noise are you experiencing, hum that goes away when you touch the strings or a constant white noise hiss?

#229270 by jw123
Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:29 pm
My big pedal board got this bad hum and I had to tear it apart and uncross some power wires and the hum went away.

I use an adapter on my power to the wall that is a hum cancelling device.

Haley you might look at the cords you are connecting your effects together with. Im currently using those George Lynch cables. You cut them to length and then screw a cap on them at the plugs, they work really well.

Nice board.

Ive been thinking about building a smaller board, but currently most of the time Im back to guitar>tuner>amp. All the guys Im playing with are using those little snap on tuners that you just hang on the guitar, I may get one of those so it will just be guitar cord amp.

Keep On Rockin Man

#229278 by J-HALEY
Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:16 pm
3rd Times a Charm wrote:The Voodoo unit has separate windings for each output so I guess it's not that. I would still go through the board pulling power plugs just to find out which pedal is making all the noise. As you do it keep checking to make sure the signal is still passing through to the amp. Some pedals stop passing a signal when they loose power. If it's a pedal that's not always on you could use a bypass loop box so you can take it out of the signal path when it's not in use. I've done that with certain noise producers and tone suckers before. They are easy to throw together and a simple inexpensive fix for certain situations. Here is a wiring diagram.

http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/PedalHacker/

If that's not a good fit for your situation then a noise reduction unit is your last resort. I always try to avoid using them because I like to use my guitar's volume controls for edge of break up stuff and don't like the way they cut my signal off when the volume gets low and the lower I adjust the threshold the less effective they get. It depends on the problem and the type of unit you get to solve it. There are devices made for dealing with ground loop issues and other devices made for dealing with THE HISS. It all depends on the material you play and how you use your gear. In high gain, all controls on 10 situations noise reduction pedals can be a great solution.

What type of noise are you experiencing, hum that goes away when you touch the strings or a constant white noise hiss?


It is a hum that does not go away when you touch the strings. When I unplug my guitar it reduces it slightly but is still there. It goes away when I switch to the clean channel.

#229280 by Lizzy Janes Rescue
Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:53 pm
John could have a point with the cables. Then again we should look at your signal chain. List your pedals in order as they are hooked from the guitar to the amp. You generally want to keep pedals that effect drive like Wah (always put this first), Comp, OD, Fuzz, etc up front in the chain. Try to put those in from lowest gain to highest gain order so you aren't passing all that noise through your entire signal chain when you run them. For best results run all time based effects like delay, reverb, chorus, Phaser, flanger, etc in your amps effects loop if you can. If you don't have one put them after the drive pedals. It looks like you are kind of doing this too based on the cables coming off of your board. I would keep the pitch shifter with the drive pedals out front and put the Phaser in the loop. The Polytune has two power cables running to it? That could be creating your ground loop right there because whatever you have that daisy chained to isn't isolated anymore.



Here's how I run mine.

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If I'm using the Crybaby that is on the floor and is first after the guitar. Then comes my drive pedals, in this case a Nova drive which I control with a Midi Mouse, then a Musket fuzz then the amp. My effects loop send goes to my volume predal then a M108 which I use to sculpt the tone to best fit the guitar I'm using, a DE7 delay for rhythm delay, a Echo Park for lead delay & atmospheric swells (I don't run them on top of each other) a Hall of Fame reverb then back to the effects return. I normally only use this much stuff if I have a loop to work with.

For vintage tube amps without a loop I pair it down and try to keep it simple.

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Everything is up front so first comes my drive pedals, SD-1, Valvecaster clean boost (The reason I run the SD1 in front of that to overdrive it's tube which is real nice), M108 EQ (I only use this if the amp needs the tweaking), Echo Park, Hall of Fame and amp. Most times I strip it down to just a boost and a reverb or a boost and a delay. The more pedals you add the more noise and problems you will get.
Last edited by Lizzy Janes Rescue on Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:15 pm, edited 3 times in total.

#229281 by J-HALEY
Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:10 pm
That is exactly how I am running the pedals. Tuner, wah, compression, sonic stomp, phase 90 (for Van Halen sound) overdrive, distortion in front. PS5 harmonizer, chorus factory, delay in effects loop.

#229284 by Lizzy Janes Rescue
Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:23 pm
Yeah, that's what I saw. It looked like you were doing that. It boils down to a cable thing then or two pedals that don't play nice together. The only way to find it is to disconnect a pedal at a time from the chain until you pull the one making the noise. Sucks but it usually comes down to trial and error with pedals. Does the noise stop when you pull your send and return lines from the amp? That will tell you which group the problem is in. You said it dissapears when you switch to the clean channel. Are all the same pedals connected then?

#229285 by J-HALEY
Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:44 pm
3rd Times a Charm wrote:Yeah, that's what I saw. It looked like you were doing that. It boils down to a cable thing then or two pedals that don't play nice together. The only way to find it is to disconnect a pedal at a time from the chain until you pull the one making the noise. Sucks but it usually comes down to trial and error with pedals. Does the noise stop when you pull your send and return lines from the amp? That will tell you which group the problem is in. You said it dissapears when you switch to the clean channel. Are all the same pedals connected then?

Yes all pedals still connected when I switch to the clean channel.

#229358 by Lizzy Janes Rescue
Fri Jan 31, 2014 2:41 am
The higher gain of that channel amplifies the noise. You've got everything right. Is the noise present when all pedals are off? At this point all you can do is take a pedal out of the chain one by one until you find the one that is causing the noise. If it's a pedal that you only use briefly the solution is easy, isolate it with a bypass box so you can take it out of the chain when it's not in use. You can leave it on then and the bypass box switch becomes your switch for that effect.

A bypass box is a really simple build that costs about $25 in parts.

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If it's an always on pedal then a noise reduction unit may be your only option. Having multiple gain pedals on at the same time will get noisy. I've got a Route 66 and if I run the compressor on that with any other gain type pedal it gets ridiculously noisy, so much so that I typically avoid using it. By itself it's fine. Sometimes it's a combination of pedals that produce the noise.

#229735 by mistermikev
Mon Feb 10, 2014 11:21 am
hello,

my humble two cents is: a noise suppressor is really something you use for hi gain situations. I don't like what they do to note fadeout and natural tone.

If you are getting actual line noise... I'd highly recommend troubleshooting the setup a lot before giving in to a noise suppressor.

power supply is the most likely culprit. try batteries - does it go away?
if you can... I use a power conditioner on my pedal rig, and then some fairly mediocre wal warts, but this works well for me.

try plugging into different wall jacks, as far away from computers and tvs as you can.

build your setup from one pedal on up. see exactly where the noise starts. can't count the times it ended up being a working but poorly shielded cable.

I haven't tried the noise sup u mentioned... so maybe someone elses' advice on which one.

cheers

btw... you've got an awful lot of buffered pedals there in one chain. do you hear it direct in? if not, a tb loop (like suggested above) might be something to think about.

#229739 by Cajundaddy
Mon Feb 10, 2014 3:07 pm
Haley,
If you can't isolate the source of the hum and still need noise supression, I have a Furman rackmount compressor/gate that I no longer use with the PA. This is something you can leave on in the effects loop of your amp and tune the gate threshold just enough to cancel the hum. It's a pretty clean circuit so it won't muddy up your guitar tone but depending on how intrusive the hum is will determine if you will gate some of your note fadeout tails.

I think it was $400 new and I am selling it for $80.

#229740 by gbheil
Mon Feb 10, 2014 3:25 pm
Great information guys !
The guys who dis this site are daft.


I'm going to add my .02 . . . everything . . . and I mean everything . . . in studio or stage go through my power conditioners.

Recently had a rehearsal in a venue that has multiple light configurations including dimmers . . . we just used our amps ETC for a quick jam session.
Every amp in the house had a buzz. Infuriating.

Lesson . . . when I go back . . . a power conditioner goes with me or I don't go.

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