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Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Who uses one and what do you use? I'm convinced I need a noise gate pedal to cut the line noise coming from my signal chain when I'm not playing. I've been using a volume pedal to just shut down the signal, but can't do it all the time, and the line noise can be annoying for some pedal settings, particularly now that I'm being asked to use more distortion. Boss, Artec and MXR appear to be the models most commonly available. Any suggestions? |
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Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | The Rocktron Hush was supposedly one of the best pedal noisgates, but any of those you mentioned are ok too. The problem with this type of gate occurs if you are using long delays or reverbs. They tend to abrubptly cut off the trails. If you have that issue you might want to look at a rackmount expander. An expander's threshold and sensitivity can be adjusted with a lot more precision. |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Thanks, Paul. I was hoping you'd chime in. I always respect your knowledge in this area. |
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Location: NW Washington State | Maybe you have a spare multieffects pedal that includes a noise gate? You could turn off all the other effects.
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Posts: 247
Location: Seacoast NH | The same problem Paul mentioned has led me to not use noise gates and strive to minimize my effects chain over the years. I tend to use considerable delay and reverb on a lot of songs (think old U2 style), and the noise gates always seemed to aggressive and difficult to tune properly. |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Or just do what the lead player in my last band did. Never stop playing..... |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I thought about a noise gate, but the only time I hear the 60 cycle hum is when I don't play and it's quiet. What I found to be a big help in controlling the hum is using a Voodoo Labs 2 power supply, plugged into a surge protector. The hum is always constant, but low. When I used just a surge protector, the hum would vary, seemingly at random. Sometimes high, other times low, sometimes crackling, sometimes popping, etc
It might be nice to explore a power supply. |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I've thought about upgrading the power supply, but most don't provide the multiple voltage outputs I need. I'm using a One-Spot daisy chained for the 9 volt pedals, but the SMX and DI+ use 18 and 26 volts respectively, and the Mesa V-Twin takes 12 volts when used, so I don't know if I can find a one-size-fits-all power supply solution. |
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Posts: 7237
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I have a Hush IIC but I would see if you can eliminate the noise first. I assume you have tried, so what's causing it.
Hum sometimes can be eliminated with an Ebtec Hum Eliminator, a passive device that does a ground lift trick.
I have also used the Boss Noise Suppressor. Another nice unit.
I rarely use devises like these far down in the chain. It's either first or right after the compressor. I don't tolerate noise in my effects chain. Ok, maybe a little hiss at full volume, but any buzz has to go BEFORE I hook up a guitar.
I use Rockman gear which has really high gain. It will turn a single coil pickup into an antenna for noise in a heartbeat so that's when I use the Hush, or sometimes in odd power situations a hum will get introduced. Using the Ebtec can usually clear it up. |
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Location: SoCal | Brad, The first thing I would do is clean-up the pedalboard and provide clean power to your rig. Check all of your cables and connectors. If your pedalboard has an AC supply, it is best that it is plugged into the same circuit as your amp. Otherwise, you introduce ground loops and potential shock conditions. Your pedal board is a metal frame (pedalTrain?). I am on the fence about grounding a metal-framed pedalboard... physically attaching (w/screws) a metal-cased power-strip or power supply to the metal pedalboard, grounds the entire frame to the Mains supply. At this time, I am leaning towards floating everything on that metal frame, so it is not grounded to either your pedal-chain or Mains supply. Get rid of the OneSpot and go with a high quality isolated-out power supply (just as a test, install 9-volt batteries in the pedals to see if things quiet down). I am not a fan of switched-mode power supplies for this application. There might not be a one-size-fits-all power supply out there for your board, but you can come close. The power supplies I've been looking at have an accessory AC outlet or a "Y" can be used at their Mains IEC input to tap-off power for an odd-voltage pedal's power supply. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | Professor
The voodoo labs 2 has 4 outlets 9/12 volt, putting out 100 mA, 2 9 volt outlets putting out 250 mA and 2 9 volt outlets putting out 100 mA with a sag feature for fuzz. They have 18 and 24 volt adapters. The DI+'s wart can be plugged into the courtesy outlet. I found that all I can do is ameliorate the noise, not eliminate it. I wish I had a better solution ... |
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Posts: 1609
Location: Colorado | +1 Brad on Miles Comments...you gotta lotta places noise creeps in....Take it one step at a time to see where the noise starts....no guitar....just pedals to the amp or system. Add them one at a time with the sucker cranked up....and see if any one or more start offending. The suggestion on just 9Vs and no A/C also will tell you if it is dirty power, or ground loop related. Check every cable. Any chance of balancing the signals....you have a lot of unbalanced high impedence stuff happening....no cable in an of itself long - but add them togther - and it is a lot of copper without the advantage of +, - to get rid of offending RF. Then add the guitar.....if the noise appears....it is probably as Miles says - the pickups are working at full-tilt Boogie....otherwise - prgram every imaginable preset into a Line 6 - and use it.....That will keep it quieter. Welcome to the big time....in high end shows when the sound (not volume matters) it has got to be quiet....when the violinist next to you is not playing - they get silence - and it is expected for the pit guitarist too. Think...what effect pedal do I not need?
\Good luck....it can be real hard.
Mark |
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Location: Jet City | The last time I had bad noises, I traced it back to an ABY switch that I use to switch between amps. I ended up buying a Lehle LittleDual. I can't believe how much freekin $ I paid for something to switch between amps, but sure as sh*t, it works like a charm. It also has groundlift and phase reverse switches to compliment it's isolated signal paths.
I'm not sure what the issue is, but when you figure out what the cause is they have several products for various things... and their tag line:
[img:center]http://www.lehle.com/about_Lehle/pics/puresound-nonoise-moretone.jpg"> |
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Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Thanks, friends. I think I'll start by changing out the power strips to something made for pedal boards, then try Bruce's suggestion with the batteries. I also need to reset the Zoom and make sure its noise gate feature is working properly on all my custom presets. I suspect I have a few without it programmed in. I'll also add a noise gate oiver the weekend and see what that does. If the gate doesn't help, I'll take it back to the store. One issue I've noticed is that the Zoom works magic with piezo equipped guitars, but not so well with magnetic pickups. When I bypass the Zoom and use the other pedals, it really gets noisy. I love the tones I'm getting from the pedals, just not the buzzing and an occasional popping when not playing. I can control it with the expression pedal on the Zoom programmed for volume and just shut down the signal, but that isn't always possible. I'll keep working with it. You've all given me some good ideas. |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Have you identified which pedal is the noise coming from? I would nail that (hook up one pedal at a time) before spending money on any more parts that may have no bearing. |
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Location: Scotland | Here's the thing. Noise from pedals, generated by the various gain stages of overdrive/distortion/compressors, coupled with the inheirent short-comings of single coil pickups, can be dealt with, up to a point, with a good noisegate or expander. However, If the noise is generated by grounding problems, wall warts, or the proximity/orientation of single coil pickups to other electrical or magnetic sources, then you're barking up the wrong tree. You really need to pull your rig apart and start from scratch. But, if you are using single-coils coupled with a high-gain amp and/or distortion pedals you will get noise, it's the nature of the beast. using a gate in that situation is treating the symptom, not the cause. |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Paul Templeman wrote:
Here's the thing. Noise from pedals, generated by the various gain stages of overdrive/distortion/compressors, coupled with the inheirent short-comings of single coil pickups, can be dealt with, up to a point, with a good noisegate or expander. However, If the noise is generated by grounding problems, wall warts, or the proximity/orientation of single coil pickups to other electrical or magnetic sources, then you're barking up the tree. You really need to pull your rig apart and start from scratch. But, if yxou are using single-coils coupled with a high-gain amp and/or distortion pedals you will get noise, it's the nature of the beast. using a gate in that situation is treating the symptom, not the cause.
+1 |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Got it solved. It was the power. I tossed the two power strips I had been using and the One Spot DC converter, installed a high end surge protector with a power conditioner, then added a Dunlop Brick to power the 18 v. Wah and all of the 9 volt pedals except the Zoom (it requires 300 mA by itself). Now the board runs ultra quiet, even the distortion pedal, and I was able to turn down the noise gate feature built into the Zoom on all of presets. Thanks for your suggestions. I had to spend some money on the Brick, but I sure saved some by not going with the separate noise gate. |
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Posts: 7237
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Many musicians take noise for granted.
We should realize, that no manufacturer purposely makes noisy gear. That may be the end result for a myriad of reasons, but you can be sure they didn't intend it to be that way. I can't tell you how many times I'd have a guitar player in my studio and I'd be wondering why they can't seem to get "their sound" and it was because they weren't using their "normal" amp 'cause "It's too noisy to record". Well why is it noisy? is usually my next question, and why would you use it at all if it was?.
Now granted, sometimes there is a reason. As Paul stated above.. "Noise from pedals, generated by the various gain stages of overdrive/distortion/compressors, coupled with the inheirent short-comings of single coil pickups, can be dealt with, up to a point, with a good noisegate or expander" but the majority of the time, my experience has been that noise is "generated by grounding problems, wall warts, or the proximity/orientation of single coil pickups to other electrical or magnetic sources"
In my old studio in Maryland I had dedicated and isolated power circuits in the tracking room. I would also often hear the comment that "my amp sounds different" in here and come to find out, it's not making any noise like it normally does when plugged in at their home or at most gigs.
Bottom line.. while you may not always be able to get rid of the noise, or want to for that matter, it shouldn't be there and at the very least you should know exactly where it's coming from.
In one of my cases, my Rockman compressor does not like my UltraGS single coils. Simple solution, bypass the compressor when I use the single coils. I can use everything else, just not the compressor. I can live with that. |
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Noise Gate
