Power supply for pedal boards
 

Does anyone have a good suggestion for a power supply for a 6 pedal pedal board?

depends on the kind of pedals you have.

the Boss TU-2 tuner doubles as a power supply for your pedals if you buy an additional daisy chain cable. pretty certain there are other straight up power supply pedals as well.

the other option is to invest in an industrial strength power bar and a handful of 9v adapters.

You could go for the One-Spot daisy chain or isolated power supplies such as the ones made by T.Rex and Voodoolabs.

One spots are nice, saving money and outlet space... why not get one? It might be better to get isolated power supply units after you have one of those giant Kevin Shields pedalboards.

Yeah, I was thinking about the one spot, you can power a decent amount of pedals with it. The only thing is a fair amount of people said it was really noisy, and the pickup I use for my guitar already picks up any electrical buzz in about a 30 mile radius, so I'm still trying to keep the background noise down a bit. Are the one spots actually noisy or are the people using it just stupid and can't figure out the source of the noise?

I use a onespot and I haven't noticed any weird buzzing... and I power 5 pedals with it.

I think it's really a matter of what pedal is in the chain when it comes to buzz. Some are weird and demand an isolated source to play nicely. When you have something that requires a something besides 9v center neg. than you'll need something besides the one spot. That aside, one-spots are great. I use one to power 8 of my 9 pedals.

i'd never heard of 1 Spot prior to this thread but it sounds like an awesome little product. $35 for a combo pack to power 8 pedals!!! hell yes! i would have loved to have a pair of these for the old jam room.



as for the buzzing - as +81 said above pedal placement in the chain matters, same with the cables you use and their length. what kind of guitar are you using with a super buzzy pickup? i'm assuming strat style with single coils and no options to toggle between two to cancel out the hum. on the other hand if you already have something with humbuckers then the issue isn't the pickup and more likely to be wiring.

try this for an easy test to find the biggest source of buzzing. setup your rig like normal then pinch/shake the cables gently as you check through the full line. there will likely be a weak input jack or cable end somewhere along the way. if it's due to corrosion it's a simple fix - fine grade sandpaper wrapped around a pencil, just stick it in there and give it a few spins and it'll be shiny as new and the connection will be cleaner. if it's wire based then you'll have to open the end of the cable and work on your soldering skills, it's not a complicated circuit but at the same time if you've never soldered it's easy to turn it into a silvery mess.

the other option is to try shielding your cable connections. this is more for the kind of buzzing that's due to radio interference but again, super simple fix, if you don't mind looking totally paranoid. tin foil and it works. just use a square foot of the stuff to wrap each end of your cables and input connectors. it's a little unsightly but it will cut out significant amounts of radio interference.

Thanks for the insight on the one spot, i think I'll give that a whirl. But the set up i use has a lot of gain into it and the pickups i use, (Gibson p94 in the bridge and Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in the neck) are really strong so they'll pick up things like fluorescent lights, computers, and other electrical devices. I know the connections are all good, but to clean the inputs and connections, another alternative to sandpaper is the little green scrubby pads used for dishes, not sure what they're called. Good call on the single coil Mr. Dave and thanks for the advice to cancel out outside noise. Does anyone know of good instrument cables that are reliable and clearly transmit the signal other than monster?

good call on the scrubby pads (not sure what the real name is but i'm sure i know what you're talking about).

as for cable you can buy shielded instrument cables but they're normally about double the price of a standard line. you'd also have to replace you're whole signal chain to really make it worthwhile. unfortunately Monster pretty much dominates that market and in turn just marks up the price of their goods rather than actually increasing the quality of what they were when they started out. they're not bad cables and definitely deserve their reputation, but you also used to be able to get a foot for just over a $1.

OBLIGATORY HUGE POST WARNING


The pickups aren't picking up the noise because they're powerful, they're picking it up because they aren't humbuckers and aren't shielded. Get your electronics cavities shielded in the guitar and you'll notice a reduction in noise. Get a humbucker instead of a p94 and you're going to get less noise too. A humbucker with integral shield, like a bill lawrence design, would be good too. Gibsons are unbelievably poor when it comes to shielding, even worse than most.

As for reducing noise further, theres a few things you can try.

1 - Shielded guitar cables. Monster aren't the only option. You can even make your own if you do a little research, and it'll come out a higher quality cable than most you can buy. Parts-Express.com:*Pro Co Guitar & Instrument Cable 90% Shield 1 ft. | guitar cable coaxial instrument cable bulk wire bulk cable is a good example. Its overengineered, copper shielded cable, thickly insulated. Put a pair of good neutrik Jacks onto it, and invest in some good solder to make a high quality electrical connection, and you'll have much less noise. You'll also have complete control over your cable lengths. The less cable you're running, the less places noise can creep in. Why use a 1ft cable when you can have a 2/3 inch cable?

2 - Power supplies DO introduce a small amount of noise to your signal chain. The reason for this is they're not adequately filtered. This noise is absolutely negligible. If you REALLY want to get rid of it however, you can buy mains conditioners. They clean up the power going into your pedal board so it has no AC ripple.

3 - Shielded enclosures. Whats the next best thing to shielding every individual part? Putting those parts in shielded boxes. Stomboxes can be modified quite simply with internal copper shielding, same way as guitars. This will void your warranty, so only do it on old boxes, but as long as it doesn't short any circuits inside, and can be grounded (Easily done, with a basic grasp of electronics), then you'll notice that each pedal introduces less and less noise. Coupled with a buffer pedal and those short cables, this will make a huge difference.

4 - Stompbox order. Look up a guy called pete cornish. He makes the pedalboards Dave Gilmour uses, and he takes painstaking care in using nothing but the absolute most perfect order of pedals in the board. The reason behind this is that different orders give different results. Putting your distortion before or after your wah pedal could mean the difference between quite and loud. Wah pedals are notorious for adding noise to a signal chain. If you send that noise into what is effectively a big signal booster like a distortion or overdrive pedal, it'll amplify the noise. Do it the other way around, and the higher initial signal will work to reduce the amount of noise you hear added by the wah pedal!

5 - Buffered inputs/outputs. If you do a quick google, you'll find a million places telling you what a true bypass pedal is, and comparatively few telling you what a buffered input/output is. The reason for this if the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.

Simply put, a normal guitar pedal in the off position, sends the guitar signal through the effects circuitry but just doesn't modify it. Because of the extra resistance and capacitance in the pedal circuitry, along with cheap components, this degrades the tone. A true bypass pedal doesn't do that. It takes the circuit out of the loop, as if the effects pedal was never there. This preserves more tone. Sounds good, right?

Wrong. True bypass is GREAT if you only have one pedal or two, but in chains longer than that, the simpler design is susceptible to noise and degradation over longer signal paths. The best option is whats called a BUFFERED pedal. Normal pedals are buffered pedals, but they use class B buffers, which aren't very good, and the implementation is usually bad. What you can do is build your own buffer box, to throw in at the start of the signal chain. It takes the extremely low level, high impedance guitar signal, and converts it to a low impedance one (sometimes boosting it a bit), allowing you to drive more pedals, harder, and with less noise in the chain.

Heres a basic introduction, and despite the fact I do very much dislike gibson as a company, this article is right on the money -
Gibson Tone Tips: True Bypass Pedals and The Buffer Zone

And heres a basic DIY buffer pedal - http://johannburkard.de/blog/music/e...-a-buffer.html (Note, the article linked from this one, recommends using this buffer pedal deisgn with batteries, since it doesn't reject mains hum very well. You'd be more than fine to drive a long pedalboard with a wall wart plug, and only use the 9V in the buffer pedal though, thats what its FOR.)

6 - Just turn the gain down! You'll find listening to most albums, the gain on the guitars isn't high at all. The big heavy sounds on a lot of records, aren't actually coming from the guitars at all!

As an example, listen to the Gojira track 'Heaviest Matter of the Universe'. This track is HEAVY, and the strange thing is that while the guitars ARE using a lot of gain, they're not using anywhere near as much as you'd think. The reason for this is as follows:

A - The guitars are doubletracked, sometimes triple or quadruple tracked. This is where you record the same guitar part 4 times and just put the tracks on top of each other, one panned left and one panned right. (Theres more to it than that sometimes, but as a basic overview, this is what happens) The result is a guitar sound that retains all the basic character of the individual takes, but which sounds HUGE.

B - The bass is high in the mix. That thundering low end isn't coming from the guitars, its coming from the bass underneath them.

C - The drum hits are timed in perfect sync with the strikes of the guitar. Same principle as the bass. A guitar's attack isn't a big instant hit of noise, no matter how you set up your signal. To get a guitar that really feels like it HITS, you'll have the drummer and bassist all hit as well at the same time.

Time and time again, from slayer through to megadeth and all bands in between, you'll hear that they're using much less gain than you think.

7 - Thicker wiring and upgraded components wherever possible. Thicker, solid copper wiring will notably improve signal transfer in your guitar between the components. It also adds an extra measure of noise resistance due to the cable diameter. Its all to do with whats called the skin effect, and capacitance. The less of both you have, the better the sound. Upgrading guitar componentry will help too. A better quality jack, better potentiometers, they all count.

The good thing is, if you google RS guitarworks, they sell uprated wiring kits for lots of guitar types, and can even help you put together one for your specific guitar.


Theres a lot of tips here, some more worth doing than others. The last one I would do is 2, because its expensive and its effects are going to be minimal unless you turn out to have some kind of issue with the power plugs or mains in your area. The rest of them, feel free to do them in any order, they'll all be reasonably effective against noise/signal degradation, and lots of them will improve your overall sound in addition.

Any questions, just reply and I'll answer as and when I can.


And dave, you can now feel free to link this post in every thread you reply to for the next couple months.

an addendum to #4 - pedal order doesn't just affect the levels of ambient noise in your signal chain either. having the distortion before or after a wah will significantly change the overall tone of the effects.

and i'll definitely keep this post in mind next time issues like this one pop up hehehe

Thats true, and it did cross my mind to include it, but I figured it was reasonably self explanatory, and the post is already huge, didn't want to add it in and make it even longer.

yeah i didn't doubt your knowledge on the situation but it might be new to others, and well... i am the guy who needs a suitcase to carry his pedals around when jamming actually happens hahaha

touche!

Thanks GuitarBizarre, the post may have been long, but it was full of really useful info. Especially for shielding. I'll see what I can do to protect the guitar's circuitry from picking up outside noise. The p94 is definitely staying though, its really sensitive to the string movements and has the perfect sound for what I play.

Then make sure to be very careful about how you orient the guitar. At soundcheck before gigs, turn the amp up with the guitar plugged in, don't play anything, just wander around identifying where electrical noise creeps in and if turning around stops it or makes it worse. Avoid those places while playing.

Btw, if you found that useful, you may want to have a look through my older posts. Theres one in the bass thread in particular you may find useful, to do with active electronics. Most active pups are actually more sensitive to string vibration than passives, so have a think about that, it'll reduce your noise a huge way, and you'll find a lot of the p90 sound can be had through actives. Theres a reason Dave gilmour uses them.

Thanks man, I'll check that out. I just need to be careful during recording, live I don't worry so much about, its all punk so i just try to play as well as i can, with as much energy as possible. I only stress about dialing in the tone if I have time for a good sound check, the rest of the time, I just make sure It sounds pretty good or good enough. Although its only a real big problem with nearby computers. Other electronics at shows are usually far away enough they don't really conjure up too much noise.

Its flourescents that really kill you at shows. They're staggeringly noisy.

Yeah, those are brutal when I play in school.

Some of this stuff I was aware of, while bits and pieces I had no clue about. I actually noticed some tips here that helped me identify some key problems that I've always had. This information is priceless!

I met Pete Cornish once, his knowledge on all things pedals is second to none.

Not sure if it was mentioned but theres a lot of hum canceling pedals that work wonders. Especially on those noisy single coil setups. My tele with a Big Muff, Wah and overdrive gets downright loud without one.

This piece made me laugh so hard when I read it. Thats one ballsy set-up, bet it sounds dirty. I actually didn't know they made those pedals though. Who makes them? Wait, are these the same as noise suppressors?

It sounds like a pig in mud. I am always amazed how bassy and deep a tone I can get out of a single coil and fender twin. Who says fenders dont distort well.

And yes. Noise gate, suppressor as far as i know are the same.

Nice, thanks. That's crazy, I've had my fair share of playing around with fenders, and I've never been able to get them very bassy sounding with the bridge pickup. It's always kept that distinctive twang to it, although I like the twang. I bet that sounds crazy with mad reverb.

I primarily stick to the Neck pickup for that. The bridge is far to treble filled. Theres always the 4 way switching though that would be even better.

Actually, i've always wanted a tele for the neck pickup, they're really smooth sounding. Who makes your noise suppressor?

Electro Harmonix

Ballsy.

P.S. I like how we've been quoting each other for the past 6 or so posts.

I was using a pedalpad 2 which worked great but have down sized my board so am just using a one spot now, as mentioned above the tu-2 powers pedals very cleanlly I think up to 7

Voodoo lab pedal power is great, doesnt create alot of excess noise like some power supplys

I decided on the one-spot, it works great, no complaints. So far, I'm powering about 6 pedals with it. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Great post guys