Fortin Zuul nasty hum issue.

[psychodave]

The gate is designed to work when it's on, you get the noise when you turn it off, leave the gate on and use the amp channel switcher for clean using the key input. Don't turn off the Zuul and you won't get noise.

You must not have discerning ears... in between notes, when the gate isn’t shunting, I hear a buzz. So the Zuul is adding a buzz to my tone. It might be okay for your sound, but not mine.

 

[LCW]

I'm so tired of the the whole Fortin Army. I mean that is beyond low class to completely dismiss and cover up any customer issues. This is why I can't stand Mike and his Chronies. I mean simply compare that to the way Suhr or Dave Friedman handle business. It'd never happen

What bugs me more about Fortin is the incessant Instagram story posts about their damn plugins. If that’s the future of guitar amps then it’s a downward spiral from here on out...

 

[scottosan]

The gate is designed to work when it's on, you get the noise when you turn it off, leave the gate on and use the amp channel switcher for clean using the key input. Don't turn off the Zuul and you won't get noise.

You must not have discerning ears... in between notes, when the gate isn’t shunting, I hear a buzz. So the Zuul is adding a buzz to my tone. It might be okay for your sound, but not mine.

Dave, if you simply do the chuggs at drop G at 160bpm only using your top 2 strings and making a face like you're constipated, you wouldn't have that space between notes. Clearly a user issue

 

[LCW]

Makes me wonder about the Zuul. Mine is revision 3.17. How many revisions have they made? lol

The sticker on my ZUUL box showed v9.18a

 

[jc986]

Mine also shows 9.18a on the box.

 

[jimyrez]

In my setup zuuls key input gave me a ground loop, I made a special key cable with the ground wire cut, solved it for me. Try it with a shit patch cable to test. There needs to be a switch to do this on the pcb IMO. At this point I already have a clone being built.

I was going to suggest this exact same thing . . And meanwhile Psychodave, just post about this on the Fortin Army Facebook page or whatever and Mike will give you the answer right away as to what the problem is. .

Eric

They blew me off and said it “had to be my setup” via email when I asked them about it.

I was removed from that page. As I understand it, they kick people off that FB page at the slightest hint there is any discourse with a product.

I’ll try your suggestion. Thx.

I'm so tired of the the whole Fortin Army. I mean that is beyond low class to completely dismiss and cover up any customer issues. This is why I can't stand Mike and his Chronies. I mean simply compare that to the way Suhr or Dave Friedman handle business. It'd never happen

You can say that again.

Had same experience, pedal not working. Posted on the face book page asking for help, and immediately the post is deleted and than banned. Just before this another customer who just got his mesuggah amp, had problems with excess noise and he posted asking for help, and immediately his post is deleted and never to see his name or any further posts from him on the facebook page. That would piss me off royally, spending $3,333. for a brand new amp have serious issues and being banned and fortin not taking responsibility to fix it, and customer having no recourse. There was apost here where a customer asking where to send his pedal for warranty repair, the " amatuer marketer ", says send email, well he stated that his emails had no responses. But the " amatuer marketer" does not offer help and provide the address to send the pedal for repairs.

 

[errrrrl]

I was removed from that page. As I understand it, they kick people off that FB page at the slightest hint there is any discourse with a product.

I’ll try your suggestion. Thx.

That is so fucken whacked... I can totally see that happening too.

I was part of the first batch of the 33 pedals when released and the led light would start to blink really fast and make a weird noise after warming up for a minute when connected to any kind of power other than the internal battery. I was going to post it in the fortin army fb page but figured i'd probably get ganged up on for user error or some shit like that. I went straight to mike via email and sent vids too...he said he couldn't open the vids and ended up sending a replacement 33 right away anyway. Worth seeing if you can get replacement if it's just not working.

 

[psychodave]

In my setup zuuls key input gave me a ground loop, I made a special key cable with the ground wire cut, solved it for me. Try it with a shit patch cable to test. There needs to be a switch to do this on the pcb IMO. At this point I already have a clone being built.

I was going to suggest this exact same thing . . And meanwhile Psychodave, just post about this on the Fortin Army Facebook page or whatever and Mike will give you the answer right away as to what the problem is. .

Eric

They blew me off and said it “had to be my setup” via email when I asked them about it.

I was removed from that page. As I understand it, they kick people off that FB page at the slightest hint there is any discourse with a product.

I’ll try your suggestion. Thx.

I'm so tired of the the whole Fortin Army. I mean that is beyond low class to completely dismiss and cover up any customer issues. This is why I can't stand Mike and his Chronies. I mean simply compare that to the way Suhr or Dave Friedman handle business. It'd never happen

You can say that again.

Had same experience, pedal not working. Posted on the face book page asking for help, and immediately the post is deleted and than banned. Just before this another customer who just got his mesuggah amp, had problems with excess noise and he posted asking for help, and immediately his post is deleted and never to see his name or any further posts from him on the facebook page. That would piss me off royally, spending $3,333. for a brand new amp have serious issues and being banned and fortin not taking responsibility to fix it, and customer having no recourse. There was apost here where a customer asking where to send his pedal for warranty repair, the " amatuer marketer ", says send email, well he stated that his emails had no responses. But the " amatuer marketer" does not offer help and provide the address to send the pedal for repairs.

I really don’t think it’s Mike doing any banning. I know him and he’s a really nice guy. He helped me quite a few times with issues over the years and I really appreciate that fact. I personally feel that his amateurs are so inexperienced that they don’t know who to deal with valid customer issues and complaints. ...but now think about what was posted above and Fortin asking for a wire transfer for amps to be paid in full up front. Yikes.

 

[psychodave]

The gate is designed to work when it's on, you get the noise when you turn it off, leave the gate on and use the amp channel switcher for clean using the key input. Don't turn off the Zuul and you won't get noise.

You must not have discerning ears... in between notes, when the gate isn’t shunting, I hear a buzz. So the Zuul is adding a buzz to my tone. It might be okay for your sound, but not mine.

Dave, if you simply do the chuggs at drop G at 160bpm only using your top 2 strings and making a face like you're constipated, you wouldn't have that space between notes. Clearly a user issue

Hahaha

...but think, how many people have fucked up pedals and don’t know any better?

 

[jc986]

In my setup zuuls key input gave me a ground loop, I made a special key cable with the ground wire cut, solved it for me. Try it with a shit patch cable to test. There needs to be a switch to do this on the pcb IMO. At this point I already have a clone being built.

I was going to suggest this exact same thing . . And meanwhile Psychodave, just post about this on the Fortin Army Facebook page or whatever and Mike will give you the answer right away as to what the problem is. .

Eric

They blew me off and said it “had to be my setup” via email when I asked them about it.

I was removed from that page. As I understand it, they kick people off that FB page at the slightest hint there is any discourse with a product.

I’ll try your suggestion. Thx.

I'm so tired of the the whole Fortin Army. I mean that is beyond low class to completely dismiss and cover up any customer issues. This is why I can't stand Mike and his Chronies. I mean simply compare that to the way Suhr or Dave Friedman handle business. It'd never happen

You can say that again.

Had same experience, pedal not working. Posted on the face book page asking for help, and immediately the post is deleted and than banned. Just before this another customer who just got his mesuggah amp, had problems with excess noise and he posted asking for help, and immediately his post is deleted and never to see his name or any further posts from him on the facebook page. That would piss me off royally, spending $3,333. for a brand new amp have serious issues and being banned and fortin not taking responsibility to fix it, and customer having no recourse. There was apost here where a customer asking where to send his pedal for warranty repair, the " amatuer marketer ", says send email, well he stated that his emails had no responses. But the " amatuer marketer" does not offer help and provide the address to send the pedal for repairs.

I really don’t think it’s Mike doing any banning. I know him and he’s a really nice guy. He helped me quite a few times with issues over the years and I really appreciate that fact. I personally feel that his amateurs are so inexperienced that they don’t know who to deal with valid customer issues and complaints. ...but now think about what was posted above and Fortin asking for a wire transfer for amps to be paid in full up front. Yikes.

I’d like to believe it is inexperience and that Mike isn’t fully aware of what’s going on, however the marketing guy is not new, he’s been doing this same type of thing for years. He worked for Kiesel a couple years back and the same type of behaviors were exhibited there (massive social media hype, banning customers that had legitimate issues, etc). Kiesel and Fortin both adopted business models that leave little recourse for issues when they arise and place the risk with the consumer.

 

[engage757]

Or, you could just reach out and say you need to return the pedal under warranty. This isn't difficult guys. You can blast me all you like, I don't care in the slightest. If I truly cared about what some NAMELESS, faceless person that has never met me on the internet's opinion was of me, then I would never do anything but sit on forums and argue all day. If there is an issue, send us an email and we will get it sorted. We respond to every email, usually in a day or less. All the pedals have a warranty, and if they are purchased used, we can still get them fixed if there is an issue. Usually, there isn't an issue. We get emails about issues and 98% of the time, it is the rig. Our failure rate is absurdly low with our products. All you have to do is send an email. Oh yeah, and people are not banned from our group for those reasons. This person knows perfectly well why he was removed. Our customer service is phenomenal. Both Mike and myself see every email.

 

[japetus]

Our customer service is phenomenal.

Take it from me, I am the most humble guy you are ever gonna meet!

 

[psychodave]

Or, you could just reach out and say you need to return the pedal under warranty. This isn't difficult guys. You can blast me all you like, I don't care in the slightest. If I truly cared about what some NAMELESS, faceless person that has never met me on the internet's opinion was of me, then I would never do anything but sit on forums and argue all day. If there is an issue, send us an email and we will get it sorted. We respond to every email, usually in a day or less. All the pedals have a warranty, and if they are purchased used, we can still get them fixed if there is an issue. Usually, there isn't an issue. We get emails about issues and 98% of the time, it is the rig. Our failure rate is absurdly low with our products. All you have to do is send an email. Oh yeah, and people are not banned from our group for those reasons. This person knows perfectly well why he was removed. Our customer service is phenomenal. Both Mike and myself see every email.

Ok. Thanks. I just sent an email.

 

[engage757]

Our customer service is phenomenal.

Take it from me, I am the most humble guy you are ever gonna meet!

We are told that consistently. Either Mike or myself respond to every email within 24 hours. Issues are dealt with promptly. We can be reached very easily. Not sure what there is to be humble about here, we bust our ass to provide the best customer service around, and are consistently told that we do a great job at it, from customers and even by industry peers. You can attack that all you like, but we are proud of it.

 

[LCW]

Definitely some weirdness going on at Fortin Army... I know that comments I wrote, in a post about a guy giving details on his Blade and how noisy it is, have been deleted. Not clue why, wasn't even anything remotely hostile or negative.

It's a shame that group appears to be extremely curated and scrubbed of anything that doesn't align with what the moderators want people to read.

 

[jc986]

I noticed that too...it was my post. Wonder if it was because I said something positive about the Airis Savage Drive? I certainly didn't think my initial impressions of the pedal were negative, but my initial review wasn't Fortin worship so maybe that raised some red flags.

One would think that a comparison to a baseline product that others might have experience with would be helpful for people looking to decide to buy or not. I compared the Blade to the 805 and the Savage Drive in my post, and just mentioned that the Blade is noisier than both.

 

[LCW]

It appears that in the Fortin Army - "thou shalt never say the Fortin name in vain"... Even if in some cases it's the hard truth...

 

[scottosan]

FTFA

 

[psychodave]

I’m sending my Zuul back to get it looked at, fixed or replaced. I’m optimistic that I will get a properly working pedal back.

 

[jc986]

I’m sending my Zuul back to get it looked at, fixed or replaced. I’m optimistic that I will get a properly working pedal back.