Let's Get Technical > Troubleshooting Problems

Got noise???

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Dante:
I have been pretty spoiled for a very long time with very reliable ADA gear. I have (thankfully) not had to deal with noise problems in my rig.... until lately.

Because of being so spoiled, I'm a total NOOB at diagnosing such things. Here's my story, hopefully it will help others avoid my mistakes.

One night at a gig:
My pedal board goes black. No power, then it's back and the midi pedal shows 01, meaning it just started back up. Unfortunately, I'm playing patches in bank 8, so I have to scroll up while playing a song and singing. Then, it does it again. Shit. This had nothing to do with noise...yet.

Next gig:
Noise. As soon as we hook up, I have a big ol' hum sound. On a clean patch, with no gain  ???   I blamed the venue, which has terrible power sources and way too many neon lights plugged into the same outlets the band uses. Then, I started fiddling with my patch cables. When I rotated the one going into my tuner, the noise stopped. I could rotate it different directions in jack to change the noise. I replaced that cable. And another, and then all of them. Noise gone...for now.

Next practice:
Noise is not there, practice goes off very well. It looks like my problem is solved...until the gig. The noise is back - even with the pedal board disconnected - and I fear my MP-2 is dead, so it goes into storage until I can deal with it. I scramble for some sort of replacement to get me through gigs temporarily. I bought a Behringer V-amp Pro and it got me by. It's not great, but it worked for a couple gigs and now I have a solid state backup with a bank of usable patches. I also bought a Tech 21 Fly Rig RK5 (Ritchie Kotzen edition) for a backup. It's awesome. I will keep this forever.

Next Gig:
The Behringer is working out, but the noise suddenly rears it's ugly head and the MCX midi pedal begins losing power intermittently again. WTF??? The next day, at home, I figure it has to be the tuner pedal, which supplies power to anything else on the board. It's a Boss TU-2 and it's pretty beat up, so I buy a Snark pedal tuner and toss the Boss. Then, I finally figured out the cause of the noise... a universal power supply. Shitty, cheap, available at any giant electronics store, with a switch for the polarity and a switch for voltage, and absolutely not good for your guitar rig. Take my word for it.

I bought a One-spot and my noise problems are solved.

FFWD to about 3 months later..... I have purchased way too much gear to replace the MP-2, and I have butchered my MP-1 Classic trying to install the noise mod parts myself (I'm way out of my league there). My Classic is due for some noise mods, I had noise without the pedal board (or a guitar) connected to it. So, with my tail between my legs, I send my Classic to a good friend who will attempt to undo the tragedy I've created and I buy a good soldering station to fix my MP-2 myself.

I pull the MP-2 out of storage, take out the rack screws, and flip the rack over to unplug all the cables etc. and open her up. In the rack, plugged into the phantom power jack of the MP-2, is a SHITTY UNIVERSAL POWER SUPPLY. I forgot all about that. I have ONE original ADA power supply and it's on my pedal board now, regardless of what rig I plug into. I'm not using the phantom power option at all.

I reconnected the MP-2 this morning and it is noise free. It sounds SofaKing AWESOME. Now, I have a pile of gear to unload & I'll probably post some of it on here as a digital garage sale. Like I said, I'll keep the Fly Rig, and probably the Digitech 2112, but I have an extra 2112 (parts), a Peavey Tube FEX, that Behringer, and a tube combo that I don't need. Gotta get rid of some stuff now. I'm such an idiot, that was an expensive lesson.

Kim:
 I'm still using the exact same generic power supply that I've had ever since first getting into rack gear.  :o
IIRC it was because of something about the original Rolls power supply for the MidiBuddy not fitting into the Phantom Power jack or something silly like that, so I had to buy one of those "one kind fits all" jobs with adjustable voltage and interchangeable tips.  I set it and taped it all up so it wouldn't get changed by accident.

But every once in a while the floorboard resets on me, and now that you mention it.....I bet it's the crap power supply.  :facepalm:

Thanks for that bit of overlooked insight, I'm going to take care of that asap.   

Dante:
Isn't it amazing how you'll go cheap on the very thing that powers all the other gear? Kinda like the $500 car with $5,000 worth of gear in it.


Here's a pic of the one I used

rnolan:
Hey Dante, great trouble shooting tip (for us all to take note of)  :thumb-up: , and it's the one component I have never considered, thinking the phantom power wall warts are reliable etc.  So when diagnosing a noise issue, start just using the ADA unit with no foot pedal and add it in later. After reading this post, I realised I need to test a noise issue I've been getting recently without the foot pedal as I can't work out what else it is  :facepalm: , I was putting it down to slightly crappy power or my refrigerator cutting in, but lately I've been getting a whole bunch of noise when not playing which I'd never had before, and hand on string reduces but it's still there.  I'm away in Greece at the moment for funeral stuff etc but I'll test this when I get back in a week or so and report.

MarshallJMP:
In my rack everything that is not attached directly to the mains grid (MXC, rocktron patch mate, decimator pro rack G) has it's own dedicated power supply.I took a small rack case and put in some toroid transformers. The case is grounded so it acts like a Faraday's cage to stop magnetic interference. And there is no common ground in this power supply to avoid ground loops.

As for patch cables, I just make them myself ( klotz cable and neutrik jacks). Never ran into problems.

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