9/15/2023 0 Comments Echo of soul maintenance![]() ![]() Intermittent sound, and noise caused by poor solder joints, can often be exposed by gently twisting the circuit board. (There’s a great tutorial called “how and why to solder correctly” on YouTube.) Often the solder joint is not physically loose but will be dull and chalky-another sign of a bad joint. If you don’t have de-soldering tools, touching it up with a little new solder usually does the trick. The best repair is to de-solder it and redo it with fresh solder. If you can wiggle a wire or component, and the lead moves on the attachment point, the joint is very bad and needs to be redone. This problem may be getting worse, as most builders are being forced to use lead-free solder for European RoHS. ![]() Many problems, especially on older pedals, are caused by poor solder joints. When one of these pedals dies past the warranty, you’re probably holding a paperweight. Unfortunately with most mass-produced pedals made these days, there is nothing you can really do inside: everything is directly soldered to the board, no hand wiring, and using proprietary parts that can’t be replaced. You can also try to re-route the wires to stop some noises, like whistling. Try wiggling the battery clip to see if that causes any noise. It could be a bad solder joint, failing switch contact, faulty connections with a jack or pot, or it could be a faulty component on the board. Probe the inside of the pedal with some non-conductive device to see if you can locate the source of the noise. Open up the pedal while it’s still plugged into the guitar and amp, leaving the volume on the guitar all the way down. In analog delay pedals and others with BBD chips (chorus, flangers, etc), squealing can be caused by poor calibration. This can be caused by feedback oscillations in the pedal due to poor wiring layout-wires should not be in neat parallel lines, like those found in some boutique pedals. The last common type of noise is a high-pitched squealing sound. Most pedals will have some, but excessive white noise could be due to some bad electronic components or a need for calibration. White noise, a sort of a hissing sound, is another common type. ![]() It can also be caused by a very sick component (transistor, e.g.). Static noise is an inconsistent crackling, like a bad cable or guitar jack would make, which is often caused by a loose connection in the pedal-in one of the jacks, wires or the switch. Hum can also come from a bad ground, like the sound you hear when you pull the cord out of your guitar. Try a guitar with humbucking pickups to make sure the noise is actually coming from the pedal and not the guitar. This usually comes from AC power leaking into your signal somewhere, or it could be your guitar pickups. Humming noise is a low frequency, consistent hum, like you hear when playing a guitar with single coil pickups near electronics. If you are hearing excessive noise from your pedal when it’s not boosting your signal, try to determine what sort of noise it is. A slight white noise is normal on many pedals when set at unity gain. If you turn your guitar volume all the way down, you can hear what’s actually coming from the pedal. Turning the volume up will amplify any noise that’s already there, making it more apparent. When testing a pedal for noise, set the volume knob for unity gain (the volume is the same whether the pedal is on or off). ![]() If the pedal runs at 9 volts, try testing it with a battery.Īfter you’ve confirmed the power supply as the cause, you can look at the pedal itself. You need one designed for effects, one that is both regulated (voltage does notĭrift) and filtered (no noise from the AC line). A generic power supply like you find at Radio Shack should never be used with pedals. Using the wrong power supply can cause noise and hum, and can damage your pedal. If the pedal is passing signal and works properly, but seems unusually noisy, there are a number of things that could be causing the problem. In part one of our troubleshooting discussion, we suggested taking a noisy or troublesome pedal out of your rig to deal with it later. This month, we’ll wrap up our troubleshooting and maintenance series with some more advanced tips for solving your pedal problems. Hey pedal-heads, welcome back to Stomp School. ![]()
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