Pedal board noise.

ItsAFugazzi

boat is boat.
Jun 4, 2008
382
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16
North East, UK.
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Basically my pedal board introduces plenty of hiss and hum into my sound when playing live. Obviously with high gain amps there is always going to be a certain amount of noise but i'd like that my pedal board didn't introduce so much noise.

It consists of about 6 pedals running off of one daisy chained 1.2A 9v power supply. Any ideas of how to reduce/eliminate the hum n hiss? Excluding noisegates and using batteries.
 
It very well could be all of them being on the daisy chain power supply. I had the same problem a few years back between my tuner and delay pedals. Wound up taking the delay off the chain and running a separate power supply for it. Noise was gone. I never used a gate pedal either. Try unhooking one pedal at a time to see if one of them is causing the problem.
 
Assuming the noise you're getting is due to ground loops (and not a product of shitty PSU in the pedalboard or just being picked up by the guitar)...

1. Break the loop by galvanic isolation of power grounds

If you have DIY skills you can make a pedalboard with separate transformers for each pedal. That breaks the ground loop you get by daisy-chaining the power connections.

http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/spyder/spyder.htm

There may be a commercially available product with a similar arrangement.

2. Break the loop by galvanic isolation of signal paths

Involves putting signal transformers between the pedals. Expensive, less practical, I mention it only because it's possible. :)

3. Minimise the loop area

With the arrangement you have now, the best you can do is to minimise the loop area, which means running the signal and power cables along together. Wrap the power cables snugly around the signal cables.

This increases the noise coupling between power and signal wires, but if your signal cables have good braided shields it shouldn't hurt much, and it will greatly reduce the amount of noise picked up from external sources by the ground loop, which is likely to be the lesser of the two evils here.

4. Minimise ground resistance

Alternatively, a very heavy gauge parallel earth connector could be run between the pedals' chassis, and to the ground used by the amplifier. Ensure there is conductivity between the jack sockets and the pedal chassis.

This puts near-zero resistance between all the grounds, so that any EM-induced AC currents in the grounds will produce near-zero AC voltage (as per Ohm's Law).

Preferably use a ground plane or grid made of aluminium (or copper (varnished or coated), or better yet silver, or steel if you have to) with the pedals on top.

Ideally all the cable shields will be bound around 360 degrees to the jacks so there are no gaps for interference to enter through. Good luck finding jack plugs which are designed for this though. :(

...and try not to squash your cables. The effectiveness of the shield is greatest if the cross-section is circular. Deforming the shield is a no-no.
 
Hum is often a power or ground loop issue and the things that Omega suggested are good solutions. I will also add that getting your pedals out of the signal chain will reduce a lot of your issues as well. I have not had a "pedal board" in years since I got a midi controlled loop switcher and put all my pedals in my rack. This way I can program what I want to be in the signal chain and have everything change with a single button. I can have any combination of pedals active or none at all depending on what I want. When they are out of the chain they make no noise. This also removes a fair amount of extra cabling that can act as a source of noise.

Also you need to pay attention to your power supply for your pedals. Many pedals introduce noise into the system through their power plug that is picked up by other pedals in the power chain. You want an isolated power supply that is well built and shielded. The one that you by from the manufacturer is often pretty cheaply built and causes problems.