Overdrives causing torn speaker (not the pedal) sound

[Oreomeister365]

Or what I perceive to be a torn speaker sound (never had an actual torn speaker myself). It's a terrible farty rip kind of a sound that just sits on top of the actual overdriven note and sounds bad through and through.

It is most audible on the low E string, but still present to a lesser degree on higher strings.

It happens with virtually every setting on my pork loin, even when it is set completely to "clean" (both externally and internally). To get rid of it I have to turn the drive down to pointlessly low levels. I've heard a number of clips of the pedal and all I hear is the thick tasty overdriven note and none of this terrible fart sound sitting on top of it.

It happens on my turbo rat, which I have tried multiple mods on. Those are the only two pedals I have that I can really call overdrive, but yeah. A gross fart sound sitting atop the distorted note, ruining it, and I can only get rid of it when the drive is below 10 o clock, or if I just crank the drive so much the massive fuzz just blots everything out.

Recently the soapbar pickups in my carvin icon were described as hot. Having only played this bass for the last few years and only getting into overdriven sounds more recently, I never really considered maybe excessively hot pickups could be causing that sound. I haven't touched my older more traditional bass in a few years but it's currently out of my reach. I'm curious if anyone can confirm/deny my suspicions until I can get my hands on another bass to try out.

My recording device is out of commission atm but micing and going direct to the mic in on my computer will probably work, if you would like some sound clips.

[Smurf-o-Deth]

If you are driving your Pork Loin with a hot signal, you can exceed the headroom of the pedal and push it into very nasty clipping (I have first hand experience with this). This can be an issue with many pedals that operate at 9v, and is one I am quite familiar with. Try rolling back the volume on your bass and seeing what happens then.

[M Sterling]

Originally Posted by Smurf-o-Deth

If you are driving your Pork Loin with a hot signal, you can exceed the headroom of the pedal and push it into very nasty clipping (I have first hand experience with this). This can be an issue with many pedals that operate at 9v, and is one I am quite familiar with. Try rolling back the volume on your bass and seeing what happens then.

+1 this is why I had to sadly get rid of my porky. I started using a very hot 18v bass, and it couldn't handle it. I don't like turning down my bass volume because I like having a strong signal to go through my efx chain.

[Oreomeister365]

I swapped back to the carvin jazz pickups and the make the pedals sound a heck of a lot nicer. I'm going to vote that carvins soapbars were the cause. I haven't heard very many positive things about them (mostly neutrality and indifference), and I never cared to much about them myself, but I guess I have another reason to dislike them.