Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hi,

I have the old Large Beaver 3 knob version. It sounds great, but it hums like a mad man! I always suspected it to be my electrical installations in the house, but I recently discovered that it hums just as much other places.

I've been searching for a fix and found that I might need to cut the wire the connects the out jack to the PCB (the wire that creates a ground loop). I found the old schematics of the pedal, but can't really figure out which wire to cut - is it the black wire in the right hand side of the image? Can someone please tell me.

The wire diagram is here:


Thanks!

Yea, try cutting that one. The circuit is grounded on both jacks.

Ok, that helped a bit, but when used in combination with my compressor (Demeter Compulator) then it's quite noisy. Maybe that's just normal?

Are you using a power supply to power the pedal? If so what kind? If it's a garden variety unregulated wall wart type the noise mostly likely is the fault of the power supply. Unregulated wall wart type power supplies should never be used to power audio circuitry. If you don't know if your power supply is regulated or not measure it's output with no load attached. If it's output measures 12 to 13 volts or higher it is unregulated and should not be used. If it is regulated it's output should be within a tenth of a volt or so of 9 volts. You shouldn't use daisy chain power cables either. These create ground loops that can possibly cause noise problems of their own.

It's a regulated supply - voodoo pedal power plus.

Have you tried it with a battery yet? Batteries don't hum so if you still have noise with a battery you'll know it's the circuitry itself causing the noise.

I'll give batteries a go, when I get home.

And just as I expected, it's still noisy with a battery instead of my power supply.

Seems like I have to run through every connection again in the pedal.