Just "upgraded" to a Voodoo Labs PP2

[thebigcheese]

And I can't say that it's all that different from the 1 Spot I was using. All the reviews talk about it getting rid of hum, but it doesn't really seem any different. Granted that I don't get any noise until I turn on my OD or fuzz pedal anyway, but yeah. My board looks tidier, though, and I can power my wah with it, so that's a plus.

 

[ranjam]

It starts with marketing hype, and ends with personal preference. I have three boards, each with a different brand of power supply. Not because any was better, but the opportunity to buy that power supply for less than full retail was too good to pass up. I think the only 'advantage' to the Voodoo Labs is that you can have one rogue pedal with a 'bass-ackwards' polarity and not worry. I tried that on the 1-Spot board once, and everything went kablooey . Yee-haw. So much for the reverse-polarity adaptors. Other than that, they all 'sound' the same to me.

 

[thebigcheese]

Yeah, I figured it was mostly hype. I'm noticing some hum and buzzing now, but I don't think it's the adapter. It happens no matter how many pedals I have plugged in--actually, it seemed to be worse with the cables running through just one pedal--so I think I need to troubleshoot lots of sources before I come to any conclusions.

 

[ranjam]

Don't ask why, but try something and tell me if this makes it better or worse. When you hook up two pedals, make up a pedal-to-pedal patch cord that has the ground soldered at only one end. If you have two pedals, say 'A' and 'B', try the open ground end at 'A' and then at 'B'.
This is just a wild guess, but you have nothig to lose, so try it just for my curiosity.

 

[thebigcheese]

Well, I'm using those Planet Waves non-soldering ones, so I don't think I can really do that... if I ever go to actually soldering cables, I could try that. For the time being, I'm taking a bunch of pedals off the board. Here's what was on it:
Wah -> Whammy -> Tube Screamer clone -> Big Muff clone -> Boss Noise Suppressor -> Tremolo -> Boss Digital Delay DD7 -> Rocktron Banshee -> amp.
Then I simplified it and took of the Banshee. Now I have simplified it even farther and removed all the pedals I rarely use, but I haven't hooked it up to try it out yet. Right now, it's just the TS, Big Muff, Tremolo, and Delay. The first three are true bypass, so I wouldn't think there would be hiss coming from them when they're not on, but I dunno. The amp is pretty quiet with just the guitar plugged in, though I do get some buzz, which I think is just electrical interference because I have a lot of other electronics in the room. Where would the hiss come from?