MXR Bass Compressor Noise

Greetings all,
So I just completed my pedal board. Got one of those Holey Board M3 series in gothic walnut which is just brilliant. My signal chain is as follows: MXR bass preamp, MXR bass octave deluxe, MXR Phase 95, Electroharmonix Freeze, Dunlop105Q Bass Wah, MXR Bass Compressor, Electroharmonix 360 looper into an ampeg pf-50t & portaflex 1x12 cab. All pedals powered through an MXR ISO Brick.

I absolutely love this compressor. But I'm such a light touch I had to really drive the input knob on the pedal to maximum in order to get past threshold to light 3 green lights consistently. The only problem is doing this cause a good amount of hiss. So what I did was set the input on the pedal to around 70% which really tamed down the hiss. Then I dimed the gain on my mxr preamp and used about 20% more gain on my ampeg pf-50t(now around the 50% mark). Well it worked out perfectly.

My question is why did I notice increased hiss when I turned the gain up on the compressor but not when I increased the gain from other sources? It should also be noted that my apartment is rather old and does not have a 3 prong grounded outlet so that may be part of the issue. I'm just wondering if there is an issue with the pedal?

Best Regards,
-Greg P

 

Thanks you, Frank.
I also hasn't consodered the signal loss inherent when utilizing multiple pedal with a passive bass. I am playing a G&L JB.

Do you think purchasing a MXR/CAE line driver would be a good investment for my setup? I'm also considering the MXR/CAE buffer as it has low and high cuts which may work better in addressing the hiss. Although the buffer only has 6DB of boost whereas the driver has 20DB.

Thanks again,
-Greg

MXR/CAE line driver:CAE BOOST/LINE DRIVER  
MXR/CAE buffer:CAE BUFFER  

 

Thanks for the advice. My original thought was to have the compressor work on the signal at the end of the effects chain. But having it just after the bass or the preamp might work better for noise reduction. Great thinking! Oh and both the freeze and the 105Q utilize buffered bypasses.

 

Thanks for your advice. Ive certainly learned quite a bit.

 

My only concern with putting the compressor at the start of the chain is I may not have enough gain available to get past threshold. As I had to dime the preamp in order to get past threshold before. But I will do what I love...experiment!

Thanks,
-Greg P

 

I have the MXR M81 Preamp.
I'm thinking more and more the pedal may be defective. I should not have to pump so much gain through it just to get it to register on the LED bar.

 

I got the noise cleared up by putting the compressor in the number 2 spot on my chain. I'm going from my M81 preamp to the M87 and then the rest of my chain. Thank you all for everything!