Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

All right, a couple of weeks ago I was in a GC and saw a used Pedal Pad for next to nothing, so I bought it. Ive been wanting to get my effects organized and all powered up.

My signal chain is wireless, Boss Tuner, Morley wah, Tubescreamer, Arion Octave, EH Small Clone chorus, Line 6 Delay modeler.

Im getting a bad hum out of it. The pedal pad has 8 Boss style outlets built in and a plug which Ive put a power strip on to plug in the Line 6 and EH.

I just need ideas to get rid of the hum, I actually had a Mesa V Twin and a Black Jack distortion box on the board also but the Mesa is a preamp and really colored the sound. I cut a lot of the noise out when I eliminated the V Twin, although I would love to use it.

Thanks

hmm, couple of suggestions I'll make:
#1 start removing things from the chain till the hum goes away... just to make sure it's the power supply and not a pedal.
#2 you could build in a ground lift... but only if yer xperience with elecs.
#3 if you have any flourescent bulbs around turn em off and see if the prob goes away...
#4 could consider a power conditioner
#5 forgive me if I insult your intelligence... but... are we using a strat on the first position? R U sure it's not pickup hum?
#6 could be a broken ground in one of the cables your using or on a jack of one of the pedals... again... start with just a cable and guitar and make sure you have no hum... then add in pedals one by one and see where the hum starts.

all I can think of for now.
good luck.

1. Check your patch cords, could have a bad one. (loose connection, cold solder joint, frayed or broken shielding etc) Also try some contact cleaner in all the jacks.

2. Keep power cables and signal cables separated as much as possible, having them together can cause hum. That's my biggest problem with my pedalboard, other than the tone suckingness of the pedals in general. Not much I can do about it since some of the effect jacks are on the sides and some are on the fronts, power jacks are all on front. Power and signal cables are on top of each other no matter how I try to route them.

Has nothing to do with hum, but usually it's said to be best to run time based effects first in the chain, then distortion based ones. Wah being the exception, it usually has to be first in line.

Thanks Guys, I hope tonight to get a chance to take it all apart and start from one pedal to the next and see where the hum is. Its really bad when I push on the wah wah and dont play. I have always used a minimum amount of effects, but went overboard with this board I found.

Mike I play a Les Paul 90% of the time. My strat has humbuckers in it, I ussually use a whole other setup for my strat.

I had to put a power strip in the bottom of the box, I may be able to place it in a different area and get the patch cables and power seperated.

Thanks, I'll update when I find something.

I cant stand noisy humming sounds on guitars.

I may have to just play straight up guitar this weekend.

May just be that 60cycle hum from your power strip dude. Try an off board power sourse before you start tearing stuff up!

Mike I play a Les Paul 90% of the time. My strat has humbuckers in it, I ussually use a whole other setup for my strat.

cool... could still be a tapped humbucker giving some ground noise... or just a detached ground wire somewhere in the gtr itself... step1: eliminate the gtr by trying one and then the other...
step2...start out w just a guitar and a cable and an amp (turn up the gain on yer amp... gain should bring out the buzz if it's there)...
then add one pedal at a time until you notice the buzz. If you notice it right away try another pedal and if they both produce the buzz then you can bet it's a pwr issue.
also, try using a battery... if this eliminates the hum it's def a pwr issue.

good luck

I played around with my setup last night. I think my problem comes from my old Electro Harmonix Small Clone pedal. Ive always used a battery in it and never used a power supply. I bought the proper supply for this effect but when I plug it in and put it in the chain I pick up a lot of hum the 60hz kind. Unplug it and most of the noise goes away, I tried flipping the plug and got the same response. Even with the pedal out of the chain I still get more noise than I like to hear engaging the wah wah. Like I said before over the last few years all I would use was a tuner, wah wah and tubescreamer. I would mainly use my amp for tone and didnt get all this noise. I hate to add a pedal for the noise but I may have to before its over.

hmm, that's a tuff one... If it truly works quietly w a battery then I'd consider getting a power conditioner.

mike, I have a buddy who says he can put a true bypass in my Small Clone. This pedal is 30 yrs old, I hate to mess with it. I'll update in a couple of days.

true bypass is nice either way... but it's not going to help you when the thing is engaged (correct me if I'm wrong), just when it's bypassed. pwr conditioners will filter out any 60hz hum when it's engaged or not. You may just go to a local gtr center and ask em to try the thing using a pwr conditioner with the promise that if it 'does the trick' you'll be buying one...
just a thought.


good luck!

Heres a picture of my pedalboard.

I had to do away with my Whammy Pedal and my EH Small Clone. They added too much noise.



I think Im going to run this setup for a couple of gigs and see how I like it.

I used some George L cables to make up the different lengths I needed.

They are a real fine wire and you just cut them to length and screw on the ends. Neatest cables I ever used. Some people claim they add noise but they sound pretty good to me.

Good Lord it looks like the spaceshuttle! Are you using a wireless on your guitar?

George, Yeah Im using a wireless. Its the little box in the top right corner. The wireless is laying on the wah wah pedal. I havent decided if I want to keep the wireless or not. I had an old Nady unit that always worked well for me, but it recently gave up the ghost. Thats what is so cool about Guitar Center you can try stuff for 30 days. If you dont like something you return it. Im suprised they havent said something cause Ive taken more stuff back than I have kept.

That board has a top that latches on it, all the pedals are velcroed down and they are also powered so theres no batteries. I run one cable to my amp and one power cord and a cable to my amp channel switcher and Im good to go. Its a lot neater than the old 2x4 I used to use. I also acquired another Les Paul, its at the shop getting a good setup. When I get it back I'll post some pictures. I also need to get some gig pictures up, but the gal that took the pictures wont send me any.

I need to post a picture of the pa for you George you would get a kick out of it. We practiced the other day outside and got it up to 122 dbs. We were only running the amps about 60%. Im scared of how loud it could get.

Here is something that should be in everyones toolkit.

http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-EBT-HE-LIST

I'm a bass player with effecs and we all know that can be a mess...LOL...it fixes my problems every time...so far.

B)