I used a Gibson bridge humbucker, and there’s a Polytune tuner between the guitar and the compressor.
I’ll attach a sound file as well.
View attachment 105746
Good to know, thanks.
Yesterday evening I replaced the four OPA1678 opamps in my Median with four TL072. I wanted to see if with a simple opamp-change I could reproduce the clipping noise from the recording. I tried with two different humbucker guitars, also switched the buffer on the tuner in front on and off. I couldn't get the pedal to clip, it was fine.
I have just stumbled upon this thread looking for the specs info of the Median compressor. I wanted to try an 1176 pedal, but first I purchased the Warm Audio Pedal 76 FET, just to make sure I have a high quality reference. Then my plan was to build the Median, compare, and if they are on par, I sell the expensive Warm Audio and keep the Median.
Interestingly, the Warm Audio pedal produces very similar clipping that Bidurgi posted. The only difference is that it is less articulated. But it's the same grainy distortion. It happens when the Attack is at the fastest (20microsec.) setting. If you turn it more up to be slower, it disappears after a while. I assume it is some kind of clipping, because when the attack is on 20 microsec, and the release is turned up to be the slowest, when you strum a chord, there is 1 little clip when you strum, and then the release holds the compression and no more clipping. When the release is fast, I guess what happens is that the level returns to normal periodically, and every time the fast attack clamps down again, the clipping occurs, and what you hear is a series of pops happening fast.
You can listen to the problem in this video. Listen with headphones, and turn the volume up to hear the graininess properly:
drive.google.com
Just some additional thought: I have been doing research on the distortions in compressors and choruses, and I found the same problem: with humbuckers these pedals tend to do various type of annoying distortion. We measured some guitars, like the Schecter Omen Extreme with Diamond Plus pickups, and got the result that it's Vpp is over 3V. My cheap chinese guitar is the same. That is over the limit of the input Vpp tolerance of many pedals. Then I noticed that as you advance lower on the neck while picking (towards the 24th fret), some guitars start sounding louder in that direction. If the humbucker guitar is like that, that creates even bigger problems. I found many pedals have not this considered in their design. Their voltage operation limits are very tight, and if the dynamics of th notes on the guitar moves on a wide range, it will also result in distortion, no matter if you turn down input volume on the pedal, or turn down the volume knob on the guitar. I assume, here, a similar problem might be present. The Median and the Warm audio might have a tight limit , and when me or Bidugri strums the chords strongly, the dynamics go over the limit and clipping occurs. But maybe I am wrong. Anyhow, this behavior does not suprise me. Actually out of many pedals I only found 2 that can handle humbuckers perfectly.
