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Darkglass Vintage Deluxe Hiss

Raman

Raman

Feb 19, 2003
2,223
3,273
53
Montreal, Qc
#1
Hi,

I just got a Darkglass Vintage Deluxe V2. I have previously been using a SansAmp driver/DI, and lately an Electro-Harmonix Battalion. In comparison, the Darkglass has a crazy amount of background hiss. It's very present at most settings, as soon as you turn it on, and then it gets unusable when I flick the "attack" switch at "boost" (mid-position). Likewise it increases when I turn the "drive" knob all the way up.
The only way I could see using this pedal is if I always keep the blend and drive knobs way down and completely avoid that "boost" position on the "attack" switch. But that's very limiting for the price this pedal cost me!

It was an open box purchase, so I wonder if it could have been damaged... Or is it common with this pedal?

-The hiss comes from the pedal itself, when turned on and even when there's no input into it.
-I powered it independently
-It's plugged into a small mixer via D/I.

@Darkglass
 
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#2
I've been playing some more with the pedal. I will have to set up an easy side-by-side comparison with the Battalion. Will do that on my next day off, this Friday.

I want to love this pedal! I've been craving a Darkglass Vintage Microtubes forever. When I saw this Vintage Deluxe 2.0 unit go on sale, I went for it without thinking.

So I was jamming some more with it and kinda getting used to the background hiss... I especially find that I do not need to turn those dials that high up. I can keep the blend at 1/2 or 3/4, then roll the drive way down, around 1/4. It's plenty at lower settings. Then the attack also becomes manageable.
That drive is very potent! So I don't see why I'd want to turn it past 1/2, unless I wanted to play metal, which I don't.

In short, I'm wondering if that hiss is not to be expected of any pedal that turns up the drive that much? And maybe I'm making a fuss only because I've been mismanaging the controls on it...

...
PS- Been combining it with my Empress Compressor and Nebulus... So many great tones to dial from the Vintage. I want to love this pedal!
 
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#3
Raman said:
I've been playing some more with the pedal. I will have to set up an easy side-by-side comparison with the Battalion. Will do that on my next day off, this Friday.

I want to love this pedal! I've been craving a Darkglass Vintage Microtubes forever. When I saw this Vintage Deluxe 2.0 unit go on sale, I went for it without thinking.

So I was jamming some more with it and kinda getting used to the background hiss... I especially find that I do not need to turn those dials that high up. I can keep the blend at 1/2 or 3/4, then roll the drive way down, around 1/4. It's plenty at lower settings. Then the attack also becomes manageable.
That drive is very potent! So I don't see why I'd want to turn it past 1/2, unless I wanted to play metal, which I don't.

In short, I'm wondering if that hiss is not to be expected of any pedal that turns up the drive that much? And maybe I'm making a fuss only because I've been mismanaging the controls on it...

...
PS- Been combining it with my Empress Compressor and Nebulus... So many great tones to dial from the Vintage. I want to love this pedal!
Click to expand...
My friend has a Vintage Ultra and I've never noticed any significant hiss inherent in the pedal. I have an M900, which I guess with the drive engaged on the amp would also be a Vintage Deluxe basically, no hiss at all. I have caught wind that there is anecdotal evidence from hearing others complain that you at least need to have a decent power supply to avoid noise. I have a Voodoo Labs and never had an issue with any of the DG pedals I have used or run.
 
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#4
DG pedals require isolated power otherwise you can run into noise issues. They are expensive as hell and require jet fuel to make them go, but they sound really good when you kick them on.
You could also download the dark glass suite and see if there are any firmware updates. I know they had some noise issues with one their other pedals that they kind of resolved with an update.
Good luck!

Dan
 
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#8
Hi all,

To answer the question above, I'm using a Godlyke Power All. Not a super fancy unit, but I've used it reliably with dozens of other pedals without ever encountering any problem.

I tried something a bit different today. I had noticed that the level knob on the DG always needs to be pretty close to 0 in order to get unity gain compared with the pedal being off. So I wondered if somehow the pedal wasn't too cranked up and that would explain the background noise...

Normally, I hook my pedal board to a mixer via XLR, and then to speakers/headphones. So that's what I did when I hooked the DG unit. I just tried to hook it through a normal, unbalanced input instead, and it's much, much better. I still get a bit of hiss when the "boost attack" switch is on, but probably the same as I would get if I boosted the "presence" switch all the way up on a Sansamp D/I...
I don't know if that's an indication of anything...
The level knob still needs to be pretty low, but a little less.

When I switch back hooking it via XLR, not only do I notice a significantly louder hiss, but there's even a bit of hum...
What does that tell you?

(When hooked via XLR, flicking the ground lift on and off doesn't change anything at all.)
 
#12
Update.

I've completely isolated the Darkglass pedal, on an independent electrical circuit. And yet it keeps on hissing, even sometimes humming and buzzing.
I'm completely split on whether to love the pedal for its amazing bass tones, or hate it for its annoying hiss problems.

I've replaced it back with the EHX Battalion on my board.

What I'd wish for now is for @Darkglass to offer to trade my failed Vintage Deluxe unit for a Vintage Microtubes.
 
#13
Tested around with my v2 ultra and I get some noticable noice the more I max out on the treble while the attack lever is in the middle and grunt lever is top or bottom, but its not especially distracting unless I greatly increase the sound level with master and or level. (I play close to my router/computer/tv directly into my computers usb interface and headphones right now so probably catches some noice from that stuff). I can play on normal sound levels without problem tho.
 
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#14
Sgtpepper89 said:
Tested around with my v2 ultra and I get some noticable noice the more I max out on the treble while the attack lever is in the middle and grunt lever is top or bottom, but its not especially distracting unless I greatly increase the sound level with master and or level. (I play close to my router/computer/tv directly into my computers usb interface and headphones right now so probably catches some noice from that stuff). I can play on normal sound levels without problem tho.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Nice to hear from other owners!

I've been going back and forth about what to think since I bought it. Is this unit a dud? Is this model just noisy? Or is it normal to get that amount of noise in order to achieve those tones: I.e. that would happen with any equivalent effect? Hard for me to tell without having other units or other models to compare with.

So yesterday I was thinking I'd call the store about getting a reimbursement. But then today I was thinking that the attack and grunt switches will probably be turned off as their default position, and so I'll only get the noise when dialing in more OD, in which case it won't matter all that much...

One thing that probably makes me more uneasy about it all is the fact that this pedal occupies such a hotspot in my chain: What with being the D/I on top of being an OD. It just seems to me your D/I should be as quiet as possible, whereas other pedals that you turn on or off can be a bit messier. I figure if I'd bought the Vintage Microtubes unit instead, some amount of noise wouldn't bother me as much.
 
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#15
Update on this.

I returned the pedal today.

After much testing, much reading and asking techies for advice, my conclusion is the pedal over-amplifies all electrical noise present anywhere in my studio, from my power supply to my pedals and to my mixer and pc, and makes it unbearably loud. I even bought a new power supply to see if it would help (a True Tone, as recommended by Doug himself in a different thread) but it barely did. Sometimes, if the dials were kept low and I didn't engage the Attack and Grunt circuits, it was pretty clean. But then I could play again a couple hours later with the exact same settings and it was super noisy again.
My only conclusion is I would either have to always keep all the dials super low, or maybe only ever play in 100% ideal conditions, for it to work. That didn't make sense to me, especially for a preamp/DI pedal that I'm going to use to play and record on my little home studio.

Also, I discovered another major problem: when pushed a bit, the XLR connection would short! By accident, I pushed the XLR cable up and it went BZZZ! Then as I wiggled it around again to enquire, it would go completely dead on and off. Definitely a dud unit...

The store doesn't have a reimbursement policy but gave me a credit. I ordered a Vintage Microtubes. Hopefully will have better luck.

So it looks like my EHX Battalion will regain its place at the end of my chain, while I'll carve a little spot before it for the Vintage Microtubes.

(You see Darkglass: I haven't quit on you yet!)
 
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#16
PS-
Thinking back about it... The guys at the store didn't even check the pedal before accepting I return it. Since it was an open box when I got it, I wonder if maybe it had already been sold and returned, and they weren't completely straight with me in the first place.
 
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#17
I had and enjoyed a Vintage Ultra v1, and used it regularly to record via XLR.

One thing I wouldn't have been able to tolerate is excess noise, which made me trade out other preamp/DI pedals, but the Vintage Ultra was supremely quiet (though it did need one specific wall wart power supply to do its best).

I'd put money down that yours was a damaged or faulty unit.
 
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#18
This thread is about to die. I just wanted to conclude it by re-specifying that the hiss and hum of which I was talking at the beginning is NOT a fault of the DarkGlass pedal. Sorry to @Darkglass for having said above that it was. I should have investigated more before panick-posting on this forum. (I also realize it's not the first time this happens with your pedals.)

My take on the whole affair, and also on other people who report the same type of problem, is that the Vintage Deluxe has very potent frequency filters that will reveal any EMI situation that might exist in one's system. It's certainly made me realize that my system is plagued with EMI. But none of it is Darkglass' fault.

The reason I ended up returning my unit was the faulty XLR, which is probably a small shielding or soldering repair.
I don't want to leave this leading other people to think that the pedal was noisy in design. It's not.

I'm looking forward to receiving the DarkGlass Vintage Microtubes that I opted for in replacement. In the meanwhile, I'm working at shielding my home studio from EMI.
 
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#20
I've owned every iteration of the DG Vintage pedal (OG, Deluxe v1/2, Ultra) for years and never had any noise issues with any of them through an amp or via XLR except a couple times when used with a noisy power supply (a faulty One Spot). Still rocking an original basic Vintage pretty much all the time- great pedal!
 
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