9v Power Adapters - preferences?

Heady Jam Fan · November 27, 2012, 02:05:14 PM

Still fighting some noise in my rig; probably dirty power at home (though my conditioner doesn't help or register problems) and the people who live above and below me have electronics just above and below my rig.

I noticed that using my MDV2 with the Fulltone FPS1 power supply it came with is quieter (and functions better) than using my Voodoo Labs PP2, so I just bought a used Tripp Lite Isobar8ultra (power strip with isolated banks).

Now I need 6 9v power supplies. I know some people swear by Fulltone and he argues his adapter is far better than generics, but costs about 2x as much. Just wondering if people had a preference of brand, if they notice a difference, etc. The Fulltone ones will cost me about 2x more, but it is worth it if there is any noticeable difference in tone and noise.

fulltone1989 · November 27, 2012, 02:42:36 PM

Quote from: Heady Jam Fan on November 27, 2012, 02:05:14 PM
Still fighting some noise in my rig; probably dirty power at home (though my conditioner doesn't help or register problems) and the people who live above and below me have electronics just above and below my rig.

I noticed that using my MDV2 with the Fulltone FPS1 power supply it came with is quieter (and functions better) than using my Voodoo Labs PP2, so I just bought a used Tripp Lite Isobar8ultra (power strip with isolated banks).

Now I need 6 9v power supplies. I know some people swear by Fulltone and he argues his adapter is far better than generics, but costs about 2x as much. Just wondering if people had a preference of brand, if they notice a difference, etc. The Fulltone ones will cost me about 2x more, but it is worth it if there is any noticeable difference in tone and noise.

Hmm, that's strange about the VP PP2 having noise w/ your MDVII. Did you run the FPS-1 off the AC jack off the back or the ISOBAR? What about the rest of your pedals were they fine?

Happyorange27 · November 27, 2012, 04:03:34 PM

Call me silly but the generic power supplies should be fine. Anytime you use a transformer, you essentially have isolated the ground. So all of these are going to be isolated supplies and should be quiet as a mouse. Don't spend extra unless you know something i don't. Trey has all those wall warts. Remember, start with just amp and guitar and add in one pedal at a time to find the culprit.

Heady Jam Fan · November 27, 2012, 05:53:21 PM

Fulltone:
No, I connected the 9v either directly to a wall outlet or to my Tripp Lite power conditioner (didn't make a difference). Sometimes I run my amp on the AC, just convenient when playing out and I only take up one outlet.

Happy:
You definitely know more than I do about electronics, but I know some people seem to have a preference. My understanding is that not all transformers are equal quality and many cheapo's don't regulate the power to 9v very well. I have gone through steps to isolate the issue and I am 99% sure nothing is broken, but rather an additive effect; my guitar picks up some noise from electronics in the apartments above and below me, probably not great power at home. The TS9's add the most noise. The funny thing is that with the MDV2 on the 9v adapter, my rig is quieter with it on than off.

fulltone1989 · November 27, 2012, 10:22:43 PM

Quote from: Heady Jam Fan on November 27, 2012, 05:53:21 PM
Fulltone:
No, I connected the 9v either directly to a wall outlet or to my Tripp Lite power conditioner (didn't make a difference). Sometimes I run my amp on the AC, just convenient when playing out and I only take up one outlet.

Happy:
You definitely know more than I do about electronics, but I know some people seem to have a preference. My understanding is that not all transformers are equal quality and many cheapo's don't regulate the power to 9v very well. I have gone through steps to isolate the issue and I am 99% sure nothing is broken, but rather an additive effect; my guitar picks up some noise from electronics in the apartments above and below me, probably not great power at home. The TS9's add the most noise. The funny thing is that with the MDV2 on the 9v adapter, my rig is quieter with it on than off.

I would think that running everything off the same ISOBAR brick would give you ground. My MDV is a bit noisy when activated too but it depends what you have in front of it I guess. Mine is more noisy when the Whammy 5 (true bypass, I know) is in front of it. Is the noise your describing a hiss or more of a pulsating sound?

Heady Jam Fan · November 27, 2012, 11:33:36 PM

As far as grounding, I definitely want to keep everything grounded; with the isolated banks on the Isobar, there should be little interaction between the grounding on different pedals.

I keep the MDV at the front of my chain because it is quieter there. I find that sometimes when playing leads, the MDV hurt sustain, but has less effect when its before the comp (and OD as well). The tonal changes it produces are also minimized when its before the OD. However, I like phase after drive. The pulsing thing, to me, sounds like modulated hiss. I just think it is interesting that when the MDV has its own power source, it makes everything less noisy once I turn it on.

sour d · November 30, 2012, 01:15:29 AM

I got sick of a certain sound guy telling me to get a noise gate and added a boss ns-2. All my pedals except for my delay/looper stuff is in the loop of the ns-2 and it is dead quiet. I can have my volume knob dimed wth both screamers and the comp on and it is dead quiet with my hands off the guitar. I know it's not a popular route but it works. No more "Does it always hum like that? We'll work around it."

Heady Jam Fan · November 30, 2012, 08:50:42 AM

Yea, the notion of a quick fix is tempting, but I really would rather not use those technologies.

Surprisingly the best noise cancellation system I have used for guitar was Rocktron's Hush algorythm in a rack unit; the pedal kinda sucked though. I had a Boss NS years back as well. I find most pedals cut the hum when your not playing, but you hear hiss/fizz anytime there is signal coming through your guitar. This results in an unnatural fizz directly before and after notes; I find it to be more distracting when the fizz or hiss cuts in and out rather than stays at a moderate baseline.

I don't know if that's been your experience with the NS or not though.

On that note, people rave about the ISP Decimator G String.

Anyway, sorry to hear your working on noise too, but makes me feel better, lol.

fulltone1989 · November 30, 2012, 10:43:44 AM

If everything is running through the ISOBAR to one outlet, then I would think your all set in terms of grounding and loops (unless the outlet itself isn't grounded.)

Happyorange27 · December 03, 2012, 10:50:57 PM

Heady I was wrong! And I'm no expert. But I just had this annoying hum. Took me a while. Every time I touched the guitar or any other metal on my rig it went away. Long story short it was a cheap ass wall wart that I tweaked from a Brother printer to run my TS9! Ha! Yeah as soon as I unplugged it, that hum went away. So go big or go home I guess.

Heady Jam Fan · December 04, 2012, 08:51:37 AM

Nice timing with that!

I got the ISOBAR, but before I order a bunch of wall-warts, I think I might try an Ebtech Humx. I also found a used (possibly not working) ISP Decimator G String pretty cheap; that is my last resort.

Happyorange27 · December 04, 2012, 09:15:49 AM

Hear you on the noise gate. It's a band-aid and not addressing the root cause. But if I was playing professionally, I would want a safety net and I think i would have one. Just keep it in the rig but keep the threshold on zero first to check the noise of the rig. If you addressed the global noise well then you can leave the threshold at zero. If you find yourself in a shitty bar with knob and tube wiring and your noise is out of control and you go on stage in 2 minutes, just turn that threshold knob until you hear nothing. Saved!

Heady Jam Fan · December 05, 2012, 02:58:50 PM

So I picked up that ISP Decimator G-String pretty cheap, but had to do a little repair work; it seems the previous owner mucked-about inside a bit.

The 9v leads were glued onto the PCB with some sort of wood glue, I just removed them in case they were shorted and since I don't want to waste money on batteries anyway.

The jacks had wires touching the housing of the pedal as well as each other. Easy enough to take them out and put them back in neatly with a little tape to keep them from making contact.

There were also some leads from components of the circuit that were bent and potentially touching each other, so I removed those.

Lastly, there is a trim-pot inside that was completely cranked one direction. I adjusted it until it seemed good enough (maybe not perfect, who knows).

Presto - it works again! At first the only sound coming out of it were screeches that did not seem to correspond with signal coming into the pedal. Eventually I got my signal going through it, but it sounded as if I were running through a really crappy op-amp fuzz. In the end, it seems to work beautifully.

I tried it with my noise-making pedals in the loop of the Decimator, as well as those pedals + my preamp in the loop of the Decimator. While eliminating all the preamp noise was pretty sweet - my amp was dead silent - the Decimator didn't track as well and let more noticeable noise through when I played a note, so I decided to ignore the soft-hum of my amp and just silence my pedals.

Obviously the volume knob is a huge part of most of our playing and the pedal handled my volume knob use fairly well, but I need to turn almost all the way down to get completely clean and I noticed that I lost sustain in some occasions. I was thinking about tossing a volume pedal in the loop of the Decimator as well, before my TS9's - the buffer of the Decimator ought to help maintain tone across the volume pedals sweep, rather than loading more resistance (as the volume knob in the guitar does). I also noticed that I occasionally lost sustain when I let a note feedback, but I think I just had to change my form a bit to get that working again.

Its a cool, transparent pedal. It tracks amazingly well; there isn't a short moment of hiss before and after notes like I have noticed on other noise-suppressors/gates. I got to use my coil-tap setting again, which is awesome, I had been relying on my parallel setting, which doesn't compare IMO.

I am also going to try out an EBtech HumX and see if that does anything, but I have to admit, the ISP is a great band-aid. Maybe I'll get another one for my preamp

Happyorange27 · December 05, 2012, 03:46:33 PM

Sweet!

Heady Jam Fan · December 05, 2012, 10:26:13 PM

Yessir, definitely a worthwhile investment, though I feel lucky I could fix it.

I figured out what the trimpot is for, in case anyone in the future has the same question.

It sets the VCA to unity gain when the pedal is bypassed and +.5db when engaged. So I assume that when it was turned fully one direction, it was turned up as loud as it could go, thus distorting something downstream from it.