FEA fan club!

[boomertech]

I guess it's about the same. Been living in denial since I got the DB-CL...

A few people have had an issue of excessive noise and the units that were sent back to us have all checked out fine here. So, I suspect that the many ground paths on the densely populated circuit board may not be adequate enough to suppress some types of ground loop noise. If you would have contacted us back in October 2013 we could have refunded the purchase for you.

You may want to try turning down the treble at the end of the signal path and boosting the treble at the bass. That will suppress some electronic hiss in the pathway.

Have you tried different brands of cables? I have a 20’ cable here that was not damaged and measures and works perfectly with bass to amp connections and with other pedals. But if I plug it into the input of a DB-CL or Opti-FET and then use another cable from the compressor to the amp, there is a higher level of hiss that almost goes away completely when I replace it with one of my Mogami or Belden cables.

-Frank

 

[boomertech]

Ok already. I'll start saving for the second DE-CL.

But a quick question concerning my current one. I am getting a new power source for my board, and none of the options are perfect for me. Is 18 v dangerous, or is it just overkill? If its dangerous I'll just leave the other 18v out empty, but go for the slightly more expensive power source with more 9v-12v outs. Its decision time.

All FEA pedals have a 10V clamp in the power circuit. So, we have been only recommending 12VDC maximum power supplies. Anything higher than 12V makes the clamp work harder and will not add anymore headroom to the circuits.

-Frank

 

[Teijo K.]

A few people have had an issue of excessive noise and the units that were sent back to us have all checked out fine here. So, I suspect that the many ground paths on the densely populated circuit board may not be adequate enough to suppress some types of ground loop noise. If you would have contacted us back in October 2013 we could have refunded the purchase for you.

You may want to try turning down the treble at the end of the signal path and boosting the treble at the bass. That will suppress some electronic hiss in the pathway.

Have you tried different brands of cables? I have a 20’ cable here that was not damaged and measures and works perfectly with bass to amp connections and with other pedals. But if I plug it into the input of a DB-CL or Opti-FET and then use another cable from the compressor to the amp, there is a higher level of hiss that almost goes away completely when I replace it with one of my Mogami or Belden cables.

-Frank

And what other stuff is on the house power grid is a big thing too. I get away with a LOT when I am only playing at my studio. But there is not much there, some led lights mainly. I can actually use non isolated power source for my Zoom multis and analog dirt, and only get a little noise. Took that board to gigs or at the old rehearsal place there were a TON of noise. It was almost unusable. Had to use a dedicated power at least for the B3.

 

[Teijo K.]

All FEA pedals have a 10V clamp in the power circuit. So, we have been only recommending 12VDC maximum power supplies. Anything higher than 12V makes the clamp work harder and will not add anymore headroom to the circuits.

-Frank

Thanks, now I know what to buy!

 

[Deleted member 165050]

Urban Dictionary: Growler

I'm English and this is not in the Oxford Dictionary

 

[JTonBass]

A few people have had an issue of excessive noise and the units that were sent back to us have all checked out fine here. So, I suspect that the many ground paths on the densely populated circuit board may not be adequate enough to suppress some types of ground loop noise. If you would have contacted us back in October 2013 we could have refunded the purchase for you.

You may want to try turning down the treble at the end of the signal path and boosting the treble at the bass. That will suppress some electronic hiss in the pathway.

Have you tried different brands of cables? I have a 20’ cable here that was not damaged and measures and works perfectly with bass to amp connections and with other pedals. But if I plug it into the input of a DB-CL or Opti-FET and then use another cable from the compressor to the amp, there is a higher level of hiss that almost goes away completely when I replace it with one of my Mogami or Belden cables.

-Frank

Thanks Frank, I'll try some other cables, and see what comes out of it. Got some Monster and Planet Waves to experiment with.

 

[nshuman]

A few people have had an issue of excessive noise and the units that were sent back to us have all checked out fine here. So, I suspect that the many ground paths on the densely populated circuit board may not be adequate enough to suppress some types of ground loop noise. If you would have contacted us back in October 2013 we could have refunded the purchase for you.

You may want to try turning down the treble at the end of the signal path and boosting the treble at the bass. That will suppress some electronic hiss in the pathway.

Have you tried different brands of cables? I have a 20’ cable here that was not damaged and measures and works perfectly with bass to amp connections and with other pedals. But if I plug it into the input of a DB-CL or Opti-FET and then use another cable from the compressor to the amp, there is a higher level of hiss that almost goes away completely when I replace it with one of my Mogami or Belden cables.

-Frank

Seriously though, while I will definitely order the new ones just because, you know, I'm crazy, I should say that I am MORE than happy with the noise levels on the DB-CL and DE-CL. My board setup is somewhat ridiculous and the wiring should definitely be cleaner. I do suffer from noise issues with the board in general when I have bad cables. However, the FEA pedals themselves do not seem to be causing any issues.

 

[GuzBaas]

Ok, I have become FEA freak after my Photon Fuzz II delivery.

I started using de DB - CL that I had stored and I have to say that it has become my favorite compressor, dont know why I did not have the courage to use it before.

when is the next cycle of DE-CL starting? I want to try that one...

How the DB-CL sound compare to the DE-CL...?

 

[dannybuoy]

Thanks Frank, I'll try some other cables, and see what comes out of it. Got some Monster and Planet Waves to experiment with.

Having just debugged my own board for noise here are some tips:

- Some patch cables with plastic jacks, like the new flat EBS/Warwick ones (Planet Waves ones are OK!), are often poorly shielded and will cause buzzing if you have a dimmer switch on or some other source of electromagnetic interference nearby.
- Patch cables with a dodgy connection can act like an antenna and cause similar noise issues.
- Some pedals or cables cause noise if they are too close or on top of your power supply.
- Digital pedals often need isolated power as they can leak noise into the power rails that get absorbed by other pedals if on a daisy chain.

Rip your board apart and start from scratch, testing with a headphone amp or hifi rig with a tweetered cab. Test each pedal by itself at first, and try putting it on your power supply to see if it is affected. Then add one thing to the chain at a time and listen!

 

[Aidenn7]

i've learned a lot things..
use an isolated power supply..
have a surge protector w/usb so you can run a light to your pedalboard..
Use well solder cables or use a little loctite on the threads of solderless cables after when running cables
if you must cross a power cable and a music cable do it in a perpendicular fashion..
get a labelmaker and mark your cables.. your plugs and voltages..
cable ties and tie downs.
keep cable length short.
one dedicated buffer in line is good to go..
a boost is best at the end for gain correction..
and one more important thing.. is take any advice as with a grain of salt.. because murphy's law.. yep

 

[nshuman]

Having just debugged my own board for noise here are some tips:

- Some patch cables with plastic jacks, like the new flat EBS/Warwick ones (Planet Waves ones are OK!), are often poorly shielded and will cause buzzing if you have a dimmer switch on or some other source of electromagnetic interference nearby.
- Patch cables with a dodgy connection can act like an antenna and cause similar noise issues.
- Some pedals or cables cause noise if they are too close or on top of your power supply.
- Digital pedals often need isolated power as they can leak noise into the power rails that get absorbed by other pedals if on a daisy chain.

Rip your board apart and start from scratch, testing with a headphone amp or hifi rig with a tweetered cab. Test each pedal by itself at first, and try putting it on your power supply to see if it is affected. Then add one thing to the chain at a time and listen!

EBS cables can go bad if you put too much tension on the right angle connectors. I took some apart, and any pressure on the 90 degree part makes the assembly come out inside and the ground and/or shielding will eventually fail.

I made a video of one that went bad in a very funny way back in may. As luck would have it, it was plugged into my DE-CL, so it's semi relevant. Again, this is the cable failing, not the pedal:

 

[dannybuoy]

EBS cables can go bad if you put too much tension on the right angle connectors. I took some apart, and any pressure on the 90 degree part makes the assembly come out inside and the ground and/or shielding will eventually fail.

I made a video of one that went bad in a very funny way back in may. As luck would have it, it was plugged into my DE-CL, so it's semi relevant. Again, this is the cable failing, not the pedal:

I put a bunch of patch cables, including several brand new EBS ones, in a true bypass loop to test, then into my PJB Bighead headphone amp. Then turned on the dimmer switch in the room to give me a bit of interference nearby, as you might typically get on a stage.

Cheapo patch cables with metal jacks, George L's, Planet Waves plastic jack cheapos, and others were all fine. With just one EBS cable (or one of the Warwick clones of them) introduced into my chain, I got a ton of noise. Same thing with some other Warwick cables that had half metal / half plastic jacks, and a Bespeco one with all plastic jacks. Since eliminating these from my board my chain is pretty silent now!

I also had to eliminate a Diamond Compressor. It was fine on the floor, but as soon as it was placed anywhere on the surface of my Pedaltrain with a Cioks DC5 under it (even at the far end), I got a ton of noise added even with the pedal bypassed. The Thumpinator and TC Corona Mini also picked up a slight bit of noise from the power supply but only if very close to it.

It was certainly educational! I didn't test all my pedals, just the ones I need for an upcoming gig. Everyone should try this experiment sometime.

 

[boomertech]

I put a bunch of patch cables, including several brand new EBS ones, in a true bypass loop to test, then into my PJB Bighead headphone amp. Then turned on the dimmer switch in the room to give me a bit of interference nearby, as you might typically get on a stage.

Cheapo patch cables with metal jacks, George L's, Planet Waves plastic jack cheapos, and others were all fine. With just one EBS cable (or one of the Warwick clones of them) introduced into my chain, I got a ton of noise. Same thing with some other Warwick cables that had half metal / half plastic jacks, and a Bespeco one with all plastic jacks. Since eliminating these from my board my chain is pretty silent now!

I also had to eliminate a Diamond Compressor. It was fine on the floor, but as soon as it was placed anywhere on the surface of my Pedaltrain with a Cioks DC5 under it (even at the far end), I got a ton of noise added even with the pedal bypassed. The Thumpinator and TC Corona Mini also picked up a slight bit of noise from the power supply but only if very close to it.

It was certainly educational! I didn't test all my pedals, just the ones I need for an upcoming gig. Everyone should try this experiment sometime.

The issue with the Diamond comp picking up noise is interesting. That is why I thought the MXR Iso Brick was a good idea… to keep the mains AC to DC power conversion far away from the pedalboard. Then use very high frequency DC to DC conversion at the pedal board.

-Frank

 

[Deleted member 165050]

Having just debugged my own board for noise here are some tips:
Rip your board apart and start from scratch, testing with a headphone amp or hifi rig with a tweetered cab. Test each pedal by itself at first, and try putting it on your power supply to see if it is affected. Then add one thing to the chain at a time and listen!

I am totally obsessive with my pedalboard. I run any fx through an Xotic X-Blender loop to make sure my signal is as clean as possible and I check each individual cable with headphones for signal and hf loss (being old hf loss to me is < 14KHz ). I have rejected many cables for hf loss and a couple, unbelievably, for adding distortion like you might get with a weak overdrive pedal (not kidding, partially-severed multi-strand wires near the solder joint add buzzy distortion and I've had two patch cables like that). Even with this obsessiveness and with my ageing hearing, with headphones or earphones I can usually hear some loss of signal although at the moment I'm good! Current signal path is FEA DB-CL -> X-Blender -> amp/pa with Panda FI and Akai Headrush in the loop. About to add phaser and overdrive though so will soon go through the procedure again...

 

[Flabzilla]

Excuse me Mr @boomertech but will you be making any of your dual band compressor limiters in the foreseeable future?

 

[boomertech]

Excuse me Mr @boomertech but will you be making any of your dual band compressor limiters in the foreseeable future?

Yes. We are still working on Photon Fuzz and then there will be a build cycle of Opti-FET compressors. The DB-CL build cycle will be after the Opti-FET compressors.

-Frank

 

[nshuman]

Yes. We are still working on Photon Fuzz and then there will be a build cycle of Opti-FET compressors. The DB-CL build cycle will be after the Opti-FET compressors.

-Frank

The OptiFET will have the new design?

 

[boomertech]

The OptiFET will have the new design?

Yes. I am getting close to completing the new PCB redesign. I have also changed the front end circuit to be a CMOS input buffer like the DE-CL and Photon Fuzz II. The changes should only improve the noise levels a bit, otherwise the pedal should sound and function the same.

-Frank

 

[nshuman]

Yes. I am getting close to completing the new PCB redesign. I have also changed the front end circuit to be a CMOS input buffer like the DE-CL and Photon Fuzz II. The changes should only improve the noise levels a bit, otherwise the pedal should sound and function the same.

-Frank

Nice. The optifet is the one missing from my collection

 

[jwr]

Normally this something I save for only Ilovefuzz ears, but MY BONER!!

Photon II is the literally poopie (yes I typed poopie this time lol)!

Played through my crappy Acoustic 10 watt amp, it even sounds amazing! Gotta get my amp retubed still and I'll get to try it though my Mesa. I am throughly impressed.

Tons of volume on tap for the main signal and the octave
Simply eq that's amazing and really shines when tweaked
Gated or wide open OMG
Amazing dry and wet signal which blends perfectly and sounds good no matter where you place the knob
Amazing quality, sound, look...etc

I cannot wait to mess with the dip switches in the back!

I am extremely impressed though. I think this could easily rival any fuzz I have tried in the last several years and I have tried a metric shag ton of them.