EHX rant!

varunkapahi · #1 06-19-2009, 10:30 AM

i have BBM and a nano small stone they both sound awesome but they come with TONS of issues!!
i was at a sound check today, and the BBM made crazy nasty buzz when it turned it on! on battery it was fine.
the small stone makes that crazy buzz even when its not turned on! anyway i have already made a thread about it so i wont go on over this.

it might be my daisy chain or power supply or the electricity or the amp or the bass or whatever! but i had 4 more pedals on my board, all powered via the same daisy chain but they dont do this nasty buzz

for tomorrow am running both of them on battery. i always got some buzz from the BBM and i thought its the gain and not some grounding issue or whatever until i tried the battery way. am just wondering if boss, tech21, dod, fender pedals dont have these ground loop issues why cant EHX fix it?

am also planning to buy SMMWH (not really anymore atm

) anyone knows if this has the same issue or not?

dannybuoy · #2 06-19-2009, 10:39 AM

Not a 'crazy nasty buzz', but the SMMH does dish out a bit of high frequency clock noise. I never tried using the bundled power supply though and had it on a daisy chain, so the separate power supply could have fixed the issue. You can only hear it if using a tweetered cab or headphones. It doesn't take batteries either!

But I have a nano small stone and have zero issues with it. If it's buzzing when it's turned off, then either yours is faulty or your patch cables are knackered.

RCCollins · #3 06-19-2009, 10:44 AM

you can't just run unlimited pedals on your daisy chain. what's your total mA draw?

it's probably time to invest in a PP2+ or Supa Charger or something

I wouldn't be in such a hurry to blame ehx... not this time, anyway

varunkapahi · #4 06-19-2009, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCCollins

you can't just run unlimited pedals on your daisy chain. what's your total mA draw?

it's probably time to invest in a PP2+ or Supa Charger or something

I wouldn't be in such a hurry to blame ehx... not this time, anyway

the power supply gives me 1000mA which is way over those pedals can take. yeah i think am going to invest in one of those isolated output supplies

am just not happy with ehx because its only their pedals which do this, others do fine no matter what. but yes ehx pedal do sound really really good like i said before

Geist · #5 06-19-2009, 10:55 AM

current EHX pedal count: stereo electric mistress, nano stone, and mPOG
previous EHX pedals: little big muff, clone theory, qtron, metal muff w/ top boost

the only problem I had was with an extremely high pitched oscillation squeek at the extremes of the clone theory's cycle. I'm with RCCollins here, the power supply is more likely the culprit in this case.

Crabby · #6 06-19-2009, 12:19 PM

Only noisy EHX pedal I ever had was the XO Clone Theory. Usually I have very good luck with EHX. Even my $64 Little Big Muff is true bypass and nice and amazingly quiet for the amount of fuzz it puts out. having a PP2+ to power my pedals likely helps in keeping things noise free.

RickenBoogie · #7 06-19-2009, 03:06 PM

I've owned 16 Ehx pedals, and so far I've found 3 that had issues. Not my power supply, but actual bad pedals. Not too bad, considering.

king_biscuit · #8 06-19-2009, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RickenBoogie

I've owned 16 Ehx pedals, and so far I've found 3 that had issues. Not my power supply, but actual bad pedals. Not too bad, considering.

That's nearly 20 percent bad! I think that's pretty awful.

RickenBoogie · #9 06-19-2009, 03:34 PM

2 of them were Stereo Electric Mistress's. Talk about a let down.

**TheMutt** · #10 06-19-2009, 04:10 PM

I've gone through 12 EHX pedals and never encountered a problem that I didn't cause. (I had to have one repaired because it got water damage from a poorly placed water bottle with the cap off).

neatobassman · #11 06-19-2009, 05:07 PM

Its you and not the pedals. EHX is perfect.

RickenBoogie · #12 06-19-2009, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neatobassman

Its you and not the pedals. EHX is perfect.

I'm pretty sure in my case, it's not me.

**TheMutt** · #13 06-19-2009, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neatobassman

Its you and not the pedals. EHX is perfect.

Actually, EHX has been known to have QC issues in the past.

neatobassman · #14 06-19-2009, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMutt

Actually, EHX has been known to have QC issues in the past.

nope, you are wrong. They are perfect.

[/annoying]

EskimoBassist · #15 06-20-2009, 02:09 AM

I've owned a number of EHX pedals and used a lot more. Got to say I have NEVER had any problems with them.

+1 to RCCollins, isolated power supplies with lots of juice make everything a lot simpler.

cheapbasslovin · #16 06-20-2009, 12:26 PM

I've never had any problem with any of the EHX pedals I own that wasn't related to me trying to keep my pedal board smallish.

I'm inclined to go with power supply as well. Do the Muff and Small Stone sound all right on the power supply by themselves? Just curious.

groooooove · #17 06-20-2009, 01:48 PM

i'm amazed that people think EHX is reliable.

ive bought a lot of pedals from them. including bass microsynth, full size pog, ext. both of those $300+ pedals were filmsy pieces of junk, one arrived with a defect from the factory, the other stopped working an hour into toying with it.

they make awesome stuff, but none of it works. $300+ for what will quickly turn into a mute switch? no thanks..

mikeboth · #18 06-20-2009, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by groooooove

ive bought a lot of pedals from them. including bass microsynth, full size pog, ext. both of those $300+ pedals were filmsy pieces of junk, one arrived with a defect from the factory, the other stopped working an hour into toying with it.

So two out of 'a lot' have failed? That doesn't sound too bad to me.

Personal anecdotes with respect to reliability of anything at all - be it FX, amps, basses, cars - are meaningless with respect to the overall level of reliability of said product. And 99% of people prefer buying something at a reasonable price that has a slight chance of failing, rather than buying the same thing at a very expensive price that has a practically zero chance of failing.

Some basic education for consumers with respect to failure statistics of products would be nice, but it's not realistic to buy something and expect it to have a 100% chance of working 'forever' (or even working for the duration of the the warranty period).

RCCollins · #19 06-20-2009, 02:24 PM

ehx are definitely not the pinnacle of craftsmanship. But at least they're good about repairs.

RickenBoogie · #20 06-20-2009, 05:44 PM

And I think alot of thier stuff is quite unique. In a world where everyone makes some sort of clone, Ehx blazes it's own trail. I'm a fan. Just bummed about getting two-in-a-row bad SEM's.