Pedal buzz

[Patrick Warneka]

First off, I want to contribute but I have more questions than answers, so please don't Ding me for only asking questions.

My fender 100 bass amp hisses/buzzes with pedals on it without the bass even connected. No pedals, no hiss/buzz. 1 of 4 pedals plugged in, no buzz. All 4 chained together, yes Hiss/buss. The hiss buzz happened with an array of pedals not just ones below.

I don't know where to start to find the source. Any known quirks? is this normal? Should I not be concerned?
Suggestions on where to start my hunt?
Need to know:
it is more of a High hiss than a low buzz
amp volume <0- 25%
overdrive both on and off, no change
New fender cables
pedals being used:
MXR di
Big muff
TC electronics stereo chorus
MXR poly blue octive
Fender Pbass - not important, just love telling people

Thank you very much in advance

Patrick

 

[JeffTCS]

First off, I want to contribute but I have more questions than answers, so please don't Ding me for only asking questions.

My fender 100 bass amp hisses/buzzes with pedals on it without the bass even connected. No pedals, no hiss/buzz. 1 of 4 pedals plugged in, no buzz. All 4 chained together, yes Hiss/buss. The hiss buzz happened with an array of pedals not just ones below.

I don't know where to start to find the source. Any known quirks? is this normal? Should I not be concerned?
Suggestions on where to start my hunt?
Need to know:
it is more of a High hiss than a low buzz
amp volume <0- 25%
overdrive both on and off, no change
New fender cables
pedals being used:
MXR di
Big muff
TC electronics stereo chorus
MXR poly blue octive
Fender Pbass - not important, just love telling people

Thank you very much in advance

Patrick

Is there a ground lift on your DI?
What are you powering everything with?
You say without the bass even connected, do you have a cable plugged in to the front of the chain without being connected to the bass? (Sorry sounds dumb but we do dumb things sometimes)
Have you Isolated each individual pedal?

I'm not as knowledgeable as many on here, but you can start there.

 

[el murdoque]

The most common issue with pedals buzzing is the power source. Are you daisychaining everything from a single outlet?

If your PSU is a tested and known to be good factor, you should test bits of the signal chain. Two pedals together, then three, in various combinations. If everything buzzes, look at the PSU again.

With power supplies it's a bit tough to comb through the market.
You want a quality unit with isolated outputs. High prices do NOT equal high quality, though.
I'd recommend Cioks, Strymon and 1Spot units.
They are more or less 'buy once, cry once', but I don't know anyone who regretted upgrading to a (more expensive) higher quality PSU.

 

[Lownote38]

My guess is that you need a better power supply method. A dedicated power supply for pedal boards rather than daisy chaining.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

First off, I want to contribute but I have more questions than answers, so please don't Ding me for only asking questions.

My fender 100 bass amp hisses/buzzes with pedals on it without the bass even connected. No pedals, no hiss/buzz. 1 of 4 pedals plugged in, no buzz. All 4 chained together, yes Hiss/buss. The hiss buzz happened with an array of pedals not just ones below.

I don't know where to start to find the source. Any known quirks? is this normal? Should I not be concerned?
Suggestions on where to start my hunt?
Need to know:
it is more of a High hiss than a low buzz
amp volume <0- 25%
overdrive both on and off, no change
New fender cables
pedals being used:
MXR di
Big muff
TC electronics stereo chorus
MXR poly blue octive
Fender Pbass - not important, just love telling people

Thank you very much in advance

Patrick

Are the pedals engaged or bypassed?
If the pedals are bypassed the noise should be minimal. If the pedal is engaged all of those are going to amplify whatever noise you have on the line and a couple will just make their own noise. If you have nothing plugged into the first pedal this should be pretty minimal. If you just have a cable (no bass) plugged in, this is going to be a noise machine as the tip of the cable will just pick up any stray electromagnetic information and feed that to the pedal to be amplified. If the bass is plugged in whatever noise is picked up by the bass will feed through to the pedal and be amplified.

Is your p-bass shielded and/ or properly grounded?
A pbass is single coil and will have some noise pickup inherent to the design. A properly sheilded bass cavity helps to minimize this noise. Any missed ground connections will also lead to excessive noise.

If this noise happens with ANY pedal arrangement; many or few, swapping out all of them, I'd start with putting a few of them on batteries and trying a couple different cables and run them one at a time. If they all sound nice with batteries then your power supply needs an upgrade. If the batteries don't help I'd look into cables. If none of that works I'd look into finding where in your chain noise is getting introduced.

Edit: don't worry about contributing. This site is like a reverse ponzi scheme; the longer you're here the more you pay out to other members.

 

[Patrick Warneka]

Boom! Thank you. I honestly was not looking in that direction. Too many bells and whistles distracting me. Of course the power source. Thank you for some names to steer towards. I'm 99% sure that is it.
Off to spend more money.
Thank you all.

 

[Patrick Warneka]

CBL,
Thank you for the well-addressed answer. you gave me a ton to think about and to look for. I can pop a few batteries in to see if that lowers it, but I will also look for some better charges. I didn't want that money in my bank account anyway.
Seriously, thank you.

 

[sunbeast]

Cheap power and daisy-chaining of power with certain pedals is the cause of noise issues probably 3/4 of the time in my experience. 1-Spot type daisy-chains are OK until they're not (and the 1-Spot is one of the better daisy-chain type supplies, still not great)- I always keep one on hand for backup, but I have found the supply itself often goes bad (I've gone through many Truetone 1-Spots over the years that develop noise or cable issues) and there are alot of pedals these days that just don't like to be on daisy-chained power (particularly digital units). Isolated power supply boxes (including the newer 1-Spot branded ones also made by Truetone) have come a long way and I would totally recommend the investment if you want to rely on pedals in your rig and want the least chance of noise issues.

 

[Patrick Warneka]

Again, I would like to thank everyone here who helped contribute to me spending more cash.
I look at the Cioks, but I kinda enjoy being married, so I went with the 1spot. If this hobby blooms, I will invest more.
I want (need to) pick up some connectors. I see the 1spot daisy chain,(and the video of the creator saying that is all you need) but wondering if they make single connectors? (daisyless?, chainless?) whatever the kids are calling them nowadays?

UPDATE: I found them!

I assume the last mile matters so I want to stick with the brand. I'm off to google 'single pedal power connectors" again and see where it gets me.

Stay safe everyone and enjoy your weekend.

 

[sunbeast]

Again, I would like to thank everyone here who helped contribute to me spending more cash.
I look at the Cioks, but I kinda enjoy being married, so I went with the 1spot. If this hobby blooms, I will invest more.
I want (need to) pick up some connectors. I see the 1spot daisy chain,(and the video of the creator saying that is all you need) but wondering if they make single connectors? (daisyless?, chainless?) whatever the kids are calling them nowadays?

UPDATE: I found them!

I assume the last mile matters so I want to stick with the brand. I'm off to google 'single pedal power connectors" again and see where it gets me.

Stay safe everyone and enjoy your weekend.

Did you buy the 1-spot wall-plug single power supply or one of the 1-spot isolated units (large flat box with multiple 9V outputs)? If you bought the single supply it is really only designed for daisy-chaining multiple pedals (no way to isolate), while the larger multi-output box has fully isolated outputs (each output sees its own path to + and - power) and should come with all the cables you need

 

[Patrick Warneka]

Sunbeast, The guitar gods smiled upon me and I found a 1spot pro CS7 for about 1/2 the normal price. Plugged it in and all buzz was gone. I appreciate you pointing out the cord vs box. so I got the box, kept the marriage and my cables arrived the same day.
My problem now is that I can actually hear what I'm playing.

 

[Patrick Warneka]

I'm 2 pedals short of a full deck.
So, my 1 spot 7 has 7 plugs. I emailed the company, but does anyone know if there are Dual/ Triple cords that fit the one spot 7? or a way to add just a few more pedals? I swear, they are small and don't eat alot and I promise to walk them every day. IF I could stick 2 more pedals, I'd be done. I swear!

 

[SoCal80s]

You want two 2-plug daisy chains. Assuming you plug into an output on your power supply that has enough mA's to cover both pedals it will work. But note that now you will joining pedals together again and the wrong combinations could lead to hum. But it's worth a try.

 

[sunbeast]

I'm 2 pedals short of a full deck.
So, my 1 spot 7 has 7 plugs. I emailed the company, but does anyone know if there are Dual/ Triple cords that fit the one spot 7? or a way to add just a few more pedals? I swear, they are small and don't eat alot and I promise to walk them every day. IF I could stick 2 more pedals, I'd be done. I swear!

Yeah there are 2 output daisy-chains that will plug directly to the power supply using the male plug (like this: Voodoo Lab 2.1mm Output Splitter Adapter Cable - Dual Straight to Straight - 4 inch) or alternatively daisy-chains that have a female plug on one end to attach to one of your current cables (like this: Truetone MC2 Angled to Straight 2-plug Daisy Chain Power Extension Cable - 24" ). Here’s a cheap 3 pedal daisy-chain: 1 to 3 Cable Daisy Chain Guitar Effect Pedal Power Supply Splitter Cable Adapter https://a.co/d/5tW03ao

As mentioned, just make sure the total current requirements from the daisy-chained pedals are less than whatever output they are attached to, and you may have to chase some noise gremlins to find out which pedals don’t like being daisy-chained.