Pedal Board Problem- Video Added

[Charvel_King]

Need some help form you guys with my pedal board.

Recently had it back from the builder who wired it all up for me and now there is some strange noise and a lot of hum with certain effects.

The signal goes: Guitar-EVH Wah- Korg Pitchblack- Maxon OD808- Script Phase 90- EVH Flanger- Amp

And then the is my TC Flashback x4 in the FX loop of my amp.

All powered by a Voodoo Labs PP2 and wired with George L's

Problem is that the Wah has a shit ton of hum, so much hum it drowns out the wah effect. Unusable.

Then the flanger is making a really high pitched oscilating sound which is very loud when the pedal is on, but also fainlty noticable when the pedal is off.

Ive isolated all the wah by only having that plugged into the PP2 and that made a difference but the wah ive tried everything i can think of with no luck..

Any ideas..

 

[5150clone]

check all your cables....

 

[kissmyace]

The builder didn't check it out before giving it back ???

 

[bigdaddyd]

Is it the cable to the board and from the board that you have at home and he didn't have at his shop?

 

[Lord Toneking]

Pretty much my board. I have the evh wah > korg pb > evh phase 90 > evh flange > amp

Loop: ISP > flashback


My evh wah is noisy as hell. It's really my only complaint with it. I love the sweep and the tone but man is it one hummin pedal. My flanger has a bit of noise when engaged but no more than most pedals. I've changed cables and went thru everything and I couldn't find a solution to the hum

 

[Enjolras56]

Is the chassis or cable end of your Flashback touching any of the in-front pedals?

 

[RACKSYSTEMS]

Wah most likely is to close to the pedal power. Take it off the board and put a battery in it. Power off the board and plug into the amp. Turn the wah on. Does it hum? Move it around a bit and you will see the hum change. Plug the board in and take that wah and move it nere the power supply. Bet it hums more. The EVH wah is not noisy it's just picking up what around it like a single coil pickup.. The Flanger might not be powered properly. It needs a 18volt cable and would need to use 2 outputs on the pedal power.

 

[Lord Toneking]

Wah most likely is to close to the pedal power. Take it off the board and put a battery in it. Power off the board and plug into the amp. Turn the wah on. Does it hum? Move it around a bit and you will see the hum change. Plug the board in and take that wah and move it nere the power supply. Bet it hums more. The EVH wah is not noisy it's just picking up what around it like a single coil pickup.. The Flanger might not be powered properly. It needs a 18volt cable and would need to use 2 outputs on the pedal power.

Hey Dave, not to hijack his thread, but if my wah in the pic above is on a pt2 board and my pp2+ is mounted underneath in line with the access holes in the front of the board I can't exactly move my wah anywhere else. So my question is...is there any kind of shielding I could use that would eliminate the hum from my wah?

Thanks!

 

[PBGas]

Does the PP2 have enough juice to run the Flashback X4 and the EVH flanger? It can only be a power issue or a cable issue (+grounding problem), so you may have to do some disconnecting and connecting to figure it all out as pointed out above. It's a pain in the ass.

Good luck and hope you find out what is causing the noise.

 

[Charvel_King]

check all your cables....

Initially the delay didnt work, but i re-did the cable into the George L jack and that has fixed that.

I have looked at the others yet as i dont think its them. Could be wrong though, sounds like a ground hum of sorts, im just uploading a video to demonstrat the problems.

 

[Charvel_King]

The builder didn't check it out before giving it back ???

Well i sure hope he did.

The builder wired it wrong first off and had to rush to the shipper to get it back. I asked for everything in front with just delay in the loop as i prefer that. He did it with flange and phase in teh loop as "he thought it sounded better"

So im not sure if he rushed putting it right to get it back to me.. Either way its a pain in the ass, was expensive and i was hopping i wouldn have to go through all this as i paid someone to do it.

 

[Charvel_King]

Is it the cable to the board and from the board that you have at home and he didn't have at his shop?

All the cables are brand new, tried them all idividually and they are good.

 

[Charvel_King]

Is the chassis or cable end of your Flashback touching any of the in-front pedals?

Nope, all the pedals are nicely spaced out

 

[Charvel_King]

Wah most likely is to close to the pedal power. Take it off the board and put a battery in it. Power off the board and plug into the amp. Turn the wah on. Does it hum? Move it around a bit and you will see the hum change. Plug the board in and take that wah and move it nere the power supply. Bet it hums more. The EVH wah is not noisy it's just picking up what around it like a single coil pickup.. The Flanger might not be powered properly. It needs a 18volt cable and would need to use 2 outputs on the pedal power.

I didnt think of this, trouble is the builder has wired it all up underneath the board so would be a real pain to do that all again. But yes the wah is directly ontop of the PP2

With regards to the flanger, i am using an 18V adapter for it using two outputs

 

[Charvel_King]

Does the PP2 have enough juice to run the Flashback X4 and the EVH flanger? It can only be a power issue or a cable issue (+grounding problem), so you may have to do some disconnecting and connecting to figure it all out as pointed out above. It's a pain in the ass.

Good luck and hope you find out what is causing the noise.

Yeah the PP2 is good, Flanger is 18v, the flashback is just 9v. Uses all but one output from the PP2

I think you may be right. Im future ill just get a pedal train and do it myself, save the espense and problems!

 

[Charvel_King]

The builder reckons it due to having too many FXs in a line before the amp, thats what he believes is causing the Wah hum, does sound like a ground loop or something like that.

But i thought id bought the best powersupply out there, with all isolated outputs so you dont get and hum?

 

[glassjaw7]

The builder didn't check it out before giving it back ???

Well i sure hope he did.

The builder wired it wrong first off and had to rush to the shipper to get it back. I asked for everything in front with just delay in the loop as i prefer that. He did it with flange and phase in teh loop as "he thought it sounded better"

So im not sure if he rushed putting it right to get it back to me.. Either way its a pain in the ass, was expensive and i was hopping i wouldn have to go through all this as i paid someone to do it.

That's just not right. Effect order preference is obviously subjective and a personal preference. You should've gotten what you wanted regardless of what the builder thought sounded better. (besides, phase and flange sound way better in front

 

[glassjaw7]

The builder reckons it due to having too many FXs in a line before the amp, thats what he believes is causing the Wah hum, does sound like a ground loop or something like that.

But i thought id bought the best powersupply out there, with all isolated outputs so you dont get and hum?

BS. You're not even running that many pedals. I've run many more than that without isolated taps and without any hum. A good builder could easily make that setup sound clean.

 

[Charvel_King]

The builder reckons it due to having too many FXs in a line before the amp, thats what he believes is causing the Wah hum, does sound like a ground loop or something like that.

But i thought id bought the best powersupply out there, with all isolated outputs so you dont get and hum?

BS. You're not even running that many pedals. I've run many more than that without isolated taps and without any hum. A good builder could easily make that setup sound clean.

Thats what i though! Its only wah, tuner, od, phase and flanger in i line. Jesus, some people have a ton of effects (10+) in a line.

I'm so bummed, for what i paid (which for me is a lot of money, but i thought it would be a good investment and save me a lot of time and troubleshooting) i'm really frustrated with it.

 

[Enjolras56]

Yeah dude, I've got 9 pedals out in front (don't judge me ) and 4 pedals in the loop without any hum.

I get what you're saying about isolated tap power supplies, but it's not the only potential source.

I'm using a MXR/CAE MC403 supply (isolated taps) and I had ground loop problems until Dave kindly troubleshooted with me on this forum ( )that the source was incorrect output jack type. Swapped them out and my board has been silent ever since.

Try what Dave suggested about the wah and let us know how it goes!