Interference on fuzz pedal😒

[surfergirl]

I'm getting interference on my EHX Lizard Queen Fuzz when my Boss DS-1w is on. It's fine when it's on alone or with any other pedal.

[RABid]

I would look at the power situation. Are they sharing a power supply? If they are both on battery this will be tough.

[CEB]

Could be a lot of stuff.  Could you take a quick phone video of the noise showing the setup?  You don't have a wah in front of the fuzz do you?  If so you can try a buffer bypass pedal in front of the fuzz.  It doesn't have to be on.   

 

Isolated power supply is a great suggestion or putting the fuzz on a battery.  That might fix it.  IT could be a lot of things.  It could just be the room.

 

Fuzz into a gain pedal is going to be noisy but I assuming this is something weird.

 

 

[Caevan O’Shite]

I have been fortunate enough to have barely ever had that problem occur!

RABid is right, that's where to start- the power supplies, trying batteries, a process of elimination.

Also try plugging everything into a different AC outlet, a different breaker-circuit.

It can't hurt to check outlets with an outlet-tester, the little 'plugs' that have three color-coded LED's and a chart to decipher whether or not there is anything mis-wired, shorted, or open between the hot, neutral, and ground.

Try just a little less gain/fuzz/volume on each of those pedals.

I've been lucky that the few times that happened to me over the years, it was very temporary and 'went away'. However, that resulted in my having little experience and knowledge about RFI with pedals!

In the meantime, if I scrounge up any helpful info, I'll be back. And I would NOT be surprised at all if someone else here comes along and saves the day! EDIT: Hey, I see CEB's shown up...   

[surfergirl]

Battery in the DS-1w, 

[Sharkman]

We have such a friendly helpful bunch of people here.

[surfergirl]

There was already a battery in the DS-1, I didn't know that till I opened it up to put one in. I don't know if having a battery and hooking to a power supply also had anything to do with the problem.🤔 My power supply is not isolated, I need a battery operated for busking and the Joyo was the only one I could find. So maybe one more pedal was all could really handle, I don't know. But all is well now. 

@Sharkmantrue, there are a friendly helpful bunch of people here. 

[KuruPrionz]

I have a Sweet Foot isolated power supply for pedals. I bought mine a long time ago, still works perfectly. 

It came with some power supply cables that were designed to provide power for several pedals. It worked great way back when. 

Stuff comes and goes, I kept this one. 

Now I use it to power the Boss ME-80 I just picked up. Everything is nice and quiet. 

 

[Caevan O’Shite]

7 hours ago, surfergirl said:

...all is well now. 

GOOD!

 

7 hours ago, surfergirl said:

There was already a battery in the DS-1, I didn't know that till I opened it up to put one in. I don't know if having a battery and hooking to a power supply also had anything to do with the problem.🤔 My power supply is not isolated, I need a battery operated for busking and the Joyo was the only one I could find. So maybe one more pedal was all could really handle, I don't know. But all is well now. 

Having a battery in place while also connecting an external Power Supply probably didn't have anything to do with the RFI problem.

Hum, weird noise, and RFI issues are pretty common with shared and/or un-isolated Power Supplies. I got by pretty splendidly with my 1 Spot and daisy-chain for a long while; once I added a couple of highfalutin (and power hungry!) digital pedals, that daisy-chain added some strange, continuous noises that evoked an alien FAX transmission... ! Individual "wall-wart" power supplies nixed that, and a Voodoo Lab "DIGITAL" (just the model name, as in suitable for high-current digital pedals) 4-output isolated Power Supply made things even clearer and quieter yet.

Switching to a battery eliminated any non-isolated PS connection between pedals. Plus, going to a battery makes that purely DC, as opposed to AC- eliminating the dreaded AC 60 Cycle Hum...

Don't forget, when you're not playing, to unplug the cable at the Input of any pedal that you're powering with a battery; if left connected at the input, the battery will drain as if you're using it. Your batteries will last MUCH longer if you remember to unplug the Input!

(I actually have two pedals that have a Battery Disconnect Switch on top; a great idea that's surprisingly rarely seen!)

If you can find any old style carbon/zinc batteries without much fuss or expense, it's worth trying one with your fuzz or any other old-school vintage-based designs like various fuzzes, "Treble Boosters", etc. Sometimes, some pedals sound and/or respond and feel better, smoother, or even bolder with an old-fashioned carbon battery; sometimes, not as good as with, say, a modern alkaline; and sometimes, there's no discernable difference. But it can be worth trying.

[Winston Psmith]

Old-school "Black Cat" brand non-Alkaline batteries are still available, just forget where I last saw them? Give me a moment . . . Ah, there we are, from AnalogMan, of course.

 

"Black Cat" non-alkaline batteries

 

Like @Caevan O’Shite, I'm unsure about the likelihood of the battery causing the RFI interference. When you plug an AC adapter into the power jack, that generally bypasses the battery power? OTOH, I haven't tried one of the Waza Craft DS-1's for comparison.

 

One thing worth noting; by its very nature a battery is an isolated power supply. Your DS-1 can't borrow, or steal power from the next pedal in line, if all of them are running on batteries. With a daisy-chain, the most power-hungry pedals can draw down the available power for everyone else, and affect your overall sound. Even using just three low current-draw pedals in my live Novparolo rig, I was able to hear a difference in sound between an isolated power supply (Voodoo Lab PP2+) and a 1 Spot driving a daisy-chain.

[surfergirl]

I have a EHX carbon zinc battery that came with the Lizard Queen. Danelectro also makes carbon zinc batteries. I just left the battery that was in the DS-1w for now. The Joyo power supply was just fine with 4 pedals. With the battery in the DS-1w every things seems to be working fine in my living room, I'll see how works in use later today🤞If I have any more problems I'll try a battery in the fuzz, but I don't think that will be necessary. 

Thanks all.

[Caevan O’Shite]

4 hours ago, surfergirl said:

I have a EHX carbon zinc battery that came with the Lizard Queen. Danelectro also makes carbon zinc batteries. I just left the battery that was in the DS-1w for now. The Joyo power supply was just fine with 4 pedals. With the battery in the DS-1w every things seems to be working fine in my living room, I'll see how works in use later today🤞If I have any more problems I'll try a battery in the fuzz, but I don't think that will be necessary. 

Thanks all.

Yeah, sometimes the old carbon batteries can make a pleasing difference. Sometimes not. If they do, it's usually pretty subtle.

I've had Danelectro and Electro-Harmonix brand-labeled carbon 9v batteries; I'm sure that I still have a few around here somewhere. Last I knew, one or the other could be ordered from Sweetwater Sound, and very likely others.

I used to have an old original 1979 Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Phase Shifter, and it did sound subtly better with a carbon battery. But most pedals I've had either didn't sound or perform any better or worse with carbon or alkaline batteries.

[RABid]

What is it about carbon that makes it difference? Is it producing excess voltage or is there a difference in the shape of the power wave?

[CEB]

I don’t think it’s excess voltage.  Maybe the opposite. Some guys seek the sound of dying batteries. In fact some power supplies off trim control to replicate the effect of failing carbon batteries.    Who knows. I think often guitar players Jedi Mind Trick themselves into a lot of ideas.  But I’m not much a fuzz guy.  I have some fuzz pedals in case I have to replicate a tone but I don’t care for it. … well I liked the Blue Box. 

[surfergirl]

The battery that came in the DS-1w died in about an hour. I've got some gogreen batteries I'm going to try. Since I'm only using batteries in one pedal I might use these depending on how long they last, otherwise I'll probably use rechargeables.

[CEB]

Just in case.  
 

As long as there is a cable plugged into the pedals input jack the battery will drain whether it is in use or not.  When using an electric power supply this of course is a non issue. If using a battery always unplug the input. 

[Larryz]

@surfergirl, How about running a busking power supply ($149 Flashfish 200w) to run your amp and/or pedals. Then using a OneSpot to run up to 6 pedals without using  batteries?  You wouldn't have to unplug the pedals to save their batteries. 😎

[surfergirl]

7 hours ago, Larryz said:

@surfergirl, How about running a busking power supply ($149 Flashfish 200w) to run your amp and/or pedals. Then using a OneSpot to run up to 6 pedals without using  batteries?  You wouldn't have to unplug the pedals to save their batteries. 😎

We thought we were going to do that, but decided on the setup we have now. With 2 amps and 2 pedal boards we were kinda invading each others space. We use rechargeable batteries in our amps, and if we have to power a pedal or 2 with a battery it won't cost much. I'll probably get a couple more rechargeable batteries, I already have a charger. I use the power station in my workshop, so I don't have to run a cord from my house. 

As CEB and Caevan advised, I have been unplugging the input when not in use, did not know that made a difference.

[surfergirl]

On 11/25/2023 at 4:00 PM, Caevan O’Shite said:

Try just a little less gain/fuzz/volume on each of those pedals.

I've been rained in for a few days, so I had some time to do some tweaking. The above quote coupled with a few things I learned from some YouTube videos on gain stacking from Wampler and JHS, I was able to fix the problem. I also did some tweaking on my amp settings. I'm now able to plug everything into the power supply with no issues.

 

[Caevan O’Shite]

6 hours ago, surfergirl said:

I've been rained in for a few days, so I had some time to do some tweaking. The above quote coupled with a few things I learned from some YouTube videos on gain stacking from Wampler and JHS, I was able to fix the problem. I also did some tweaking on my amp settings. I'm now able to plug everything into the power supply with no issues.

 

THAT'S
AWESOME.