LOUD buzzing when I turn on my Overdrives

[Lowspeid]

I need some help from the collected knowledge here on TDPRI.

I’ve started playing at my church, and the first practice there was a noticable buzz coming from my rig; Tele or Les Paul, buffered Volume, overdrives (3-4), trem, verb, delay into a ‘75 SFPR. Pedals are powered through a Strymon Zuma, power cables are strymon. I even bought mogami 2319 and squareplug jacks, but making my own cables didn’t fix the noise issue (I solder PCBs and build pedals, and I checked every cable with my multimeter so I wouldn’t think the cabling is the issue).

The buzzing got SIGNIFICANTLY louder when I hit any of my drive pedals. My Rat was unusable, and the buzz was loud enough that it was heard over everything, even with my Les Paul. The weirdest part was if I turn my amp’s reverb up past 4 buzzing starts coming from the amp that is unbearable. I’m sure the church has crummy power (old building), but I’ve never run into this problem before. I hear the buzzing when I play at home as well, though not as prominent as when I’m at church. The buzzing started fairly recently. Not sure where to even start looking.

So, for those of you understand these sorts of things, any ideas where I should start my search for the cause of the noise?

 

[JustABluesGuy]

I use the process of elimination to try and narrow things down. Do you have a different amp to test with and rule out the amp as the cause of the problem?

 

[schmee]

So , is it an acceptable amount of noise when at home?
You can try using a wall outlet tester and see how the church tests. Then find an outlet that tests good if some are bad. (long shot)
Some OD's are noisy, fuzz tones can be real noisy. Bad wiring or florescent lights make them unbearable at times.

Try adjusting the Princeton's volume knob, is there a spot where it gets quiet in the sweep? My PR gets quiet at 4, louder hum at 2.
Light dimmers make a lot of noise also.
Take the volume pedal out of the loop, does that cure it?

 

[blowtorch]

issues like these=why i will only use a single multieffects unit, live

 

[Peegoo]

@Lowspeid

Start by checking for a phase issue with your pedals. Believe it or not, some pedals come miswired from the factory.

Let's say you have four pedals on the board. Remove pedal 1 and play through the board. Replace pedal 1 and remove pedal 2. Play. Replace pedal 2 and remove pedal 3. Play. Replace pedal 3 and remove pedal 4. Play.

Does the noise go away with one of the pedals out of the chain? If not:

Next thing to do is isolate the power to each pedal one at a time. Get a battery snap with a power jack on it (if your pedals don't take a battery). In order as above, pull the power jack from pedal 1 and plug in the battery. Play. Pull the battery from pedal 1 and plug it into pedal 2. Plug the power supply cable back into pedal 1. Play. Continue though pedal 4. Does that fix the problem?

 

[Lowspeid]

issues like these=why i will only use a single multieffects unit, live

I’m looking into a Quad Cortex right now. I’ve tried other multi effects/digital units in the past but have always been left wanting for one reason or another; either they are WAY too much work to get a good sound/feel from them or they don’t sound very good/sound “digital”.

 

[Lowspeid]

@Lowspeid

Start by checking for a phase issue with your pedals. Believe it or not, some pedals come miswired from the factory.

Let's say you have four pedals on the board. Remove pedal 1 and play through the board. Replace pedal 1 and remove pedal 2. Play. Replace pedal 2 and remove pedal 3. Play. Replace pedal 3 and remove pedal 4. Play.

Does the noise go away with one of the pedals out of the chain? If not:

Next thing to do is isolate the power to each pedal one at a time. Get a battery snap with a power jack on it (if your pedals don't take a battery). In order as above, pull the power jack from pedal 1 and plug in the battery. Play. Pull the battery from pedal 1 and plug it into pedal 2. Plug the power supply cable back into pedal 1. Play. Continue though pedal 4. Does that fix the problem?

Thanks @Peegoo. I’ll start with removing pedals one by one, and check the power to each pedal. Hopefully that fixes the issue.

 

[blowtorch]

I’m looking into a Quad Cortex right now. I’ve tried other multi effects/digital units in the past but have always been left wanting for one reason or another; either they are WAY too much work to get a good sound/feel from them or they don’t sound very good/sound “digital”.

I have the Quad Cortex. It's very good once you've got it sorted out, but it's far from plug n play

 

[ChicknPickn]

Running your pedal chain or even your entire rig off a home office battery-backup (UPS) can condition power and remove hum and other annoyances. No one wants to travel with a heavy battery backup unit, but if you’re going to be playing regularly in a space, it might be worth a try. I do this for my home theater. The turntable output in particular was cleaned up a lot.

 

[schmee]

Thanks @Peegoo. I’ll start with removing pedals one by one, and check the power to each pedal. Hopefully that fixes the issue.

One thing I like about using a switcher instead of switching each pedal is that you can ID the culprit location immediately. There are other assets too of course.

 

[Lowspeid]

I followed the advice of @Peegoo and went pedal by pedal. And @schmee is the winner! It was the volume pedal causing the noise issue. Glad it’s been solved, now I just need to find a volume pedal that doesn’t suck all the tone from my rig. Any suggestions?

 

[schmee]

I followed the advice of @Peegoo and went pedal by pedal. And @schmee is the winner! It was the volume pedal causing the noise issue. Glad it’s been solved, now I just need to find a volume pedal that doesn’t suck all the tone from my rig. Any suggestions?

Frankly, I have never found a volume pedal that doesn't suck the tone except when wide open. I like the $20 used simple Roland one as well as the fancy optical ones. I roll the volume on my Strat with the little finger.

 

[JuneauMike]

I followed the advice of @Peegoo and went pedal by pedal. And @schmee is the winner! It was the volume pedal causing the noise issue. Glad it’s been solved, now I just need to find a volume pedal that doesn’t suck all the tone from my rig. Any suggestions?

Maybe a temporary workaround could be to power the volume pedal with one of these:

Instant isolated power. I keep a couple in my bag to deal with power problems on the fly. They are variously called 9v battery snap connectors or battery clips and you can get them in a lot of places. Does the volume pedal use a lot of mA? (It's no fun buying volume pedals, or other various "utility" things.)

Also, I'm judging your choices. Very nice.

Wait, is it a power issue with the volume pedal? Or something in the signal? Where is the volume in the signal path?

 

[IronStomach]

I followed the advice of @Peegoo and went pedal by pedal. And @schmee is the winner! It was the volume pedal causing the noise issue. Glad it’s been solved, now I just need to find a volume pedal that doesn’t suck all the tone from my rig. Any suggestions?

Nice troubleshooting. I'd look for an active (buffered, needs 9v power) volume pedal, or even something like a boost/drive pedal with Expression control over the output volume.

 

[darkphader]

I followed the advice of @Peegoo and went pedal by pedal. And @schmee is the winner! It was the volume pedal causing the noise issue. Glad it’s been solved, now I just need to find a volume pedal that doesn’t suck all the tone from my rig. Any suggestions?

Lehle Mono Volume Pedal S​

 

[jasperthecat]

One of the commonest issues I've found with any amplification is the buzzing created by LED lighting. I can't switch on my overhead LED lighting in my home studio as the buzzing is so intrusive that I can't do any recording with it on. This only came to light after I replaced the normal overhead tungsten lighting by LED units. As a result I have to use lighting supplied by the normal 13 amp outlets. With the overhead lights switched off the interference is virtually non-existent so eliminate overhead lighting as a possible source of your buzzing.
Have you had similar issues with your gear at home?
If there are no interference issues either at home or with other sources of interference in the church, then with such a variety of pedals I'd start by disconnecting all of them and then start adding one into the circuit at a time until a possible culprit is found.

 

[b_penniless]

I need some help from the collected knowledge here on TDPRI.

I’ve started playing at my church, and the first practice there was a noticable buzz coming from my rig; Tele or Les Paul, buffered Volume, overdrives (3-4), trem, verb, delay into a ‘75 SFPR. Pedals are powered through a Strymon Zuma, power cables are strymon. I even bought mogami 2319 and squareplug jacks, but making my own cables didn’t fix the noise issue (I solder PCBs and build pedals, and I checked every cable with my multimeter so I wouldn’t think the cabling is the issue).

The buzzing got SIGNIFICANTLY louder when I hit any of my drive pedals. My Rat was unusable, and the buzz was loud enough that it was heard over everything, even with my Les Paul. The weirdest part was if I turn my amp’s reverb up past 4 buzzing starts coming from the amp that is unbearable. I’m sure the church has crummy power (old building), but I’ve never run into this problem before. I hear the buzzing when I play at home as well, though not as prominent as when I’m at church. The buzzing started fairly recently. Not sure where to even start looking.

So, for those of you understand these sorts of things, any ideas where I should start my search for the cause of the noise? View attachment 1121959

 

[zap427]

Folks, forgive me, I am a novice player and most on this forum have forgotten more than I will ever know. With that disclaimer, I noticed no mention of "ground loops" The short version there is a potential difference between the Church electric ground and the ground used by your electronics. I have the exact same thing happen with my old Macintosh stereo. the solution was to tie the ground of the stereo to the ground used by the power and the buzz vanished. This sounds harder than it looks in my case, I ran a light gauge wire from my power amp ground to the metal screw attaching the electrical outlet cover. This assumes the electrical outlet box has continuity to said screw and the ground for the building. Again, sounds way worse than it is. It is a very easy thing to try. I have not vetted this but should put you on the right track

 

[abcsoundguy]

I followed the advice of @Peegoo and went pedal by pedal. And @schmee is the winner! It was the volume pedal causing the noise issue. Glad it’s been solved, now I just need to find a volume pedal that doesn’t suck all the tone from my rig. Any suggestions?

EB MVP is the active VP I use - it will take a battery, if you want to isolate it. Just don't use the boost feature if hiss is a problem. Before the MVP I was using an old full size passive EB volume pedal, but I put a 1meg pot in it, it really helped.

 

[deltasigma57]

I need some help from the collected knowledge here on TDPRI.

I’ve started playing at my church, and the first practice there was a noticable buzz coming from my rig; Tele or Les Paul, buffered Volume, overdrives (3-4), trem, verb, delay into a ‘75 SFPR. Pedals are powered through a Strymon Zuma, power cables are strymon. I even bought mogami 2319 and squareplug jacks, but making my own cables didn’t fix the noise issue (I solder PCBs and build pedals, and I checked every cable with my multimeter so I wouldn’t think the cabling is the issue).

The buzzing got SIGNIFICANTLY louder when I hit any of my drive pedals. My Rat was unusable, and the buzz was loud enough that it was heard over everything, even with my Les Paul. The weirdest part was if I turn my amp’s reverb up past 4 buzzing starts coming from the amp that is unbearable. I’m sure the church has crummy power (old building), but I’ve never run into this problem before. I hear the buzzing when I play at home as well, though not as prominent as when I’m at church. The buzzing started fairly recently. Not sure where to even start looking.

So, for those of you understand these sorts of things, any ideas where I should start my search for the cause of the noise? View attachment 1121959

Have you tried moving the pedal board power supply away from the pedals and cables?

Running your pedal chain or even your entire rig off a home office battery-backup (UPS) can condition power and remove hum and other annoyances. No one wants to travel with a heavy battery backup unit, but if you’re going to be playing regularly in a space, it might be worth a try. I do this for my home theater. The turntable output in particular was cleaned up a lot.